Incandescent, CFL, LED, Halogen

[imoldernu]

I can't quite figure out the turmoil over this. Eventually, I know, some people will make a lot of money, but the reason for, and the speed of implementing the change, is (whoosh) way over my head.

Yesterday afternoon, in Walmart, I bought 4 CFL 60W, and 4 each 60W and 40W incandescent bulbs for $1.00 each... total $3 for 12 bulbs.

In today's sunday paper... the following are feature advertised on one full page.
4 pack 60W Great Value CFL bulbs $4.88.
4 pack 60WGreat Value Halogen bulbs $3.88
4 pack 60W GE CFL bulbs $5.37
1- Great Value 60W LED bulb $7.94
1- GE 60W LED bulb $9.94

I am sure there is a great story, and a lot of logic behind all of this, but it escapes me. We've been living in this house for 10 years now, and a quick count of light bulbs, totals about 55. as far as I can remember, at most... we have changed 5 bulbs during that time... and most of the bulbs were in the house 5 years before we bought it.

Now the LED craze has bypassed the CFL and Halogen Phase, and we're treated with ultra white diamond colors instead of the warm white, and they're showing up everywhere. From those piercing lights on new cars, to the moving, colored, bright advertising signs that light up non rural areas.

Cost? Payback? Savings? Convenience? Vision Health? You? The Power Company? Energy? Environment? Do the math? Whose Idea? Follow the money?

We won't be bothered by this, since we'll keep on keeping on, but wonder at the revolution that is taking place.

Do ya think we're missing out on something big?

So yeah... I looked over the explanations, but haven't "seen the light"... yet!
LED vs. CFL vs. Incandescent Light Bulbs | Smilodon's Retreat

Edit: to recant my 5 replacement bulbs over 10 years... DW keeps me honest... Probably more like 15 to 20 replacements over the 10 years

 

[Rich]

Well, I can't respond directly to your question as to what's up with all the options but I do share your confusion. The way I handle it is:

CFL bulbs for places I can get at easily.

LED bulbs for hard to reach places (outside flood lights, ceiling lights, you get the idea).

I also have a bunch of "normal" bulbs hiding in the basement that I use from time to time. Hate to just toss them out.

Rich

 

[bizlady]

Our DD replaced all the lights in their home about 2 years ago with CFL and saw a good drop in their electric bill.

The best explanation I have seen on all this is here: https://www.stearnselectric.org/files/2613/8912/3323/CERTs_RightLightGuide_v2.pdf

 

[Meadbh]

Thanks bizlady, I am saving that!

 

[imoldernu]

So I looked at the reference guide... and the 10 year cost estimate. Am a bit confused. It shows an LED bulb lasting the entire time, but the incandescent bulb needing 16 replacements. It also includes the cost of going to the store to buy replacements....

10-Year Cost Assumptions: 60W incandescent and efficient equivalents; used 3 hours/day; $0.1158 kWh; cost includes an estimate to value the time one would spend purchasing and replacing bulbs.

?

Maybe we're just lucky, but we've only replaced less than 10% of our 55 incandescents ONCE in that entire 10 year period. (a total of 5 bulbs)... whereas it sounds like we should have replaced each one of them 16 times or a total of 880 bulb changes. Plus the cost of driving back and forth to buy each one, AND my hourly rate to make each bulb change.. (admittedly very low.)

Where did I go wrong? (question was rhetorical)

Comes from good livin'

 

[donheff]

My incandescent replacement rate is a lot higher than yours but it doesn't seem close to 1.6 every year for every bulb.

 

[Senator]

I have been buying 4-packs of the CFL bulbs, 13W or 60W equivalent, for .88. That's only .22 each at Menards.

At that price, I cannot afford any other bulbs,

 

[Meadbh]

With any new technology, it is more expensive to produce and market when first introduced, and if successful, eventually becomes a commodity. Furthermore, I presume that the life of an individual bulb may be influenced by the resistances in the circuit, location, how many times it is turned on or off, etc. (Engineers please enlighten me!).

My (12 foot) kitchen ceiling has big recessed lights which needed replacement after about a year. I chose LED bulbs, which certainly did not cost me $40 each (maybe $10). Two years later, so far, so good. There is a halogen spotlight on the same circuit and I have replaced that twice in the same period. Thank goodness for these doohickeys!

Bayco 11 ft. Pole Light Bulb Changer Kit with Attachments-CE-600SDLB12 at The Home Depot

 

[Midpack]

We switched all the bulbs in our house to CFL's (except a few appliance lights etc.) mostly as the incandescents went poof over the past few years. CFL's are OK, but LED light is way more pleasant to us. We replaced all four CFL's with LED's in our kitchen and the improvement was night and say, so to speak, we'd never put CFL's back the kitchen. But LED's are still expensive so we're not in a huge hurry to replace all the CFL's, even if they're cheaper in the long (long, long) run...

 

[Khan]

In last couple of months have replaced most with LEDs.
Can recycle CFLs at Home Depot.

 

[mpeirce]

A few month ago we had some kitchen work done. We installed under cabinet LED lights that only used a couple of watts.

So now we leave them on all day ;-)

Still uses at lot less power than the old under cabinet lights did when we used those intermittently.

 

[ERD50]

With any new technology, it is more expensive to produce and market when first introduced, and if successful, eventually becomes a commodity. ...

A common myth that bugs me whenever I hear it. It rarely happens that way. More like this:

Many new technologies are more expensive to produce and market when first introduced, and if they advance and the price/value improves, they become more successful, maybe eventually becoming a commodity.​

IOW, it isn't demand that drives the price down (demand drives prices up!), it is the price/value improvements over time that leads to more people deciding to buy them. That is why purchase subsidies are such poor use of $.

-ERD50

 

[rodi]

We replaced our incandescents with CFL many years ago. When we'd see a sale, we'd buy them. Many early CFLs had a bluish tint - but not all. So if it was too "blue" - we'd swap it for another that was less blue, and use the blue ones in places we didn't care (laundry, outside fixtures, etc.) We learned the hard way that CFLs don't take dimming unless they're specifically rated for that. Again, we'd buy dimmable CFLs when they went on sale. Dixieline - a local hardware store - had great sales on CFLs back in the day.

Now we're replacing, slowly, the bulbs that are used the most, with LED. Again, we only buy when they're on sale. We've got a big box of bulbs (CFL, LED, incandescant) in the garage.

We have one halogen light - on the stove/fan.

Once we figured out the dimmer issue with CFL we haven't had to replace any for burnout. We saw a significant drop in the electric bill when we converted from incandescent.

 

[AllDone]

I've got undercabinet fluorescents and some T12 fluorescents in soffits. I'll replace the soffit lights with LED when the available linear configuration can produce the same number of lumens. I've got LED everywhere else which really dropped our electric bill. The light over the entry has two functioning incandescents and two dead bulbs, but when I haul the big ladder out, I'm going to put in a new fixture except that I haven't been able to find one that we both like. LEDs are available in warm white too. Look for 2700K on the package.

 

[easysurfer]

When I can... LED baby, LED

 

[bUU]

We've started replacing CFLs with LEDs simply due to safety concerns regarding our small pets.

 

[frank]

anyone seen the led's on sale anywhere? have never tried one for the fact that I can buy the cfl 60 equivelant so cheaply it nullifies the cost savings for the led.

 

[travelover]

Given that CFLs and LEDs consume about the same amount of power, that CFLs are dirt cheap and that I'm not particular about the light temperature, I don't see any 110 volt LEDs in my future until the price comes down markedly.

I did install LEDs in my camper and love their low power draw vs incandescent bulbs.

I think the concern over mercury in CFLs is a scare tactic. I used to play with balls of mercury when I was a kid and it never affected me. never affected me neveraffectedme.

 

[jetpack]

I didn't realize they made halogen bulbs the same shape and size as regular incandescent.

For those that really like the incandescent, I guess halogen are the way to go.. or stock
pile the old ones. I was just looking at the phase out timeline. The normal bulbs 40 & 60 watts were phased out of production Jan 1st 2014. I'm wondering how much longer they will be on store shelves. Someone must have warehoused a good deal of them? I can't seem to find the 75 or 100 watt ones, as they were phased out earlier.

 

[zinger1457]

Our DD replaced all the lights in their home about 2 years ago with CFL and saw a good drop in their electric bill.

I noticed a drop in my electrical bill when I replaced just two outdoor lights (that stay on all night long) with CFL's. I've since started to replace the interior lights, especially the ones that stay on a lot.

 

[ERD50]

anyone seen the led's on sale anywhere? have never tried one for the fact that I can buy the cfl 60 equivelant so cheaply it nullifies the cost savings for the led.

Given that CFLs and LEDs consume about the same amount of power, that CFLs are dirt cheap and that I'm not particular about the light temperature, I don't see any 110 volt LEDs in my future until the price comes down markedly. ... .

Agree with travelover, though the light temperature (how 'white','amber' the light appears) is subjective. Some might prefer some LEDs appearance to some CFLs.

LEDs only save a bit more electricity than CFLs, so the reason to buy LEDs versus CFLs falls to other factors:

1: Breakage - those CFLs are delicate, easy to break - the mercury issue may be overstated, but... I really don't think you can compare a 'ball of mercury' to the mercury vapor that these CFLs put into the air. That vapor could be far, far more likely to enter your system than a ball that contains itself through surface tension - unless you swallowed it.

2: Appearance - discussed above.

3: Dimming - I just bought a 60W equivalent LED at Costco for ~ $6. Thought I'd try it out. Te key is, this is dimmable. AFAIK, the dimmable CFLs are more expensive than the cheap CFL prices you see, and they don't dim that well. This LED dims right in line with the two other filament bulbs (when I had to replace the dimmer on that circuit recently, the switch handle cracked, I replaced it with an LED/CFL compatible dimmer - NOTE - this still means the CFL must be a dimmable type).

4: Lifetime? LEDS supposedly have these long lives, but I've read many well researched articles questioning this. That published 25,000 hour life, from what I understand, is based on the rate that the bulb dims over the first X hours. But the circuitry that drives those bulbs has components that are not likely to withstand the generated heat for anywhere near 25,000 hours. We will see.


I need more feedback from DW, but this LED is still whiter than the bulbs, and I think casts a not-so-great color on the walls of that room. And it is more obvious as you dim it - the filaments become more and more amber as they dim, the LED stays the same color throughout. But it tracks the dim-ness of the other bulbs very closely, I did not need to re-adjust the 'minimum' dim setting (that keeps it from turning off completely when you go to min light).

-ERD50

 

[imoldernu]

In our retirement community, one of the "perks" from the HOA fees for the villas (regular homes)... is replacement of the post lantern lights, and the garage door lights, which work on day/night sensors. Last month, all of the homes received new LED lights, which should cut down on the physical replacement costs.
Personally, I miss the soft warm glow of the incandescents, but understand the decision.

 

[Meadbh]

In my condo complex we replaced all the common area bulbs with LEDs, incentivized by a "green" subsidy. We are talking hundreds of bulbs. Our electricity bills have since decreased significantly.

 

[ERD50]

I noticed a drop in my electrical bill when I replaced just two outdoor lights (that stay on all night long) with CFL's. I've since started to replace the interior lights, especially the ones that stay on a lot.

Please, only do the ones that 'stay on a lot'.

It takes more energy and materials (which must be mined, shipped, refined, shipped, assembled, shipped....) to produce and ship an LED or CFL than it does to make a lightweight filament bulb made of a bit of metal and glass.

If you put CFLs/LEDs in low use sockets, you are likely doing more against the environment (and your pocket-book) than for it.

-ERD50

 

[samclem]

Once we figured out the dimmer issue with CFL we haven't had to replace any for burnout.

Wow, that hasn't been our experience at all. The CFL's seem to do well in lamps, but they laast about 3 years (maybe 1500 hours?) in the enclosed fixtures in our bathrooms. I think it is the combination of short duty cycle and heat that kills them. And I don't know if the LEDs will do any better: They still have fussy electronics that don't like to be hot. Maybe it's time to replace the fixtures with ones that are better ventilated. Or just put the 60 watt incandescent bulbs back in.