60W bulb outlawed tomorrow in Europe

I went straight to LED instead, hoping to build up lots of experience with them prior to the end of incandescent availability... since price is still quite high for them currently. So then, I'd have many examples to show family & friends.

So far, they have proven to be rock solid. Earlier choices weren't as robust or as nice. The latest & greatest provide warmer (more yellow) illumination and are quite a bit brighter.

I don't miss incandesent bulbs in the slightest.
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I have changed to LED there are many fittings and types available, if you look around you will find warm or cool colour ranges. I only get the warm ones. Oh if you get the low voltage ones make sure you use LED drivers / transformers, you can use the crudest transformers for the halogen dycloric but LED's require something a little more refined.
Benefits are around 50,000 hours life, much reduced consumption and no flicker or poor starts.

 

50 hz shouldn't matter. A proper electronic ballast CFL will not be running at line frequency but rather at some large multiple of it. It should not be noticeably flickering.

Around here you can buy CFL in a number of color temperatures, you should see if you can find warmer colored ones.

 

I am going to second these comments. One shouldn't condemn all CFLs just because some are rubbish.

As for banning, I have mixed feelings. The intention is good, but it seems heavy handed. Where will it stop? Are Internet forums really a good use of electricity? Perhaps we should ban PriusChat.

Tom

 

This isn't the first time governments have chosen to ban products. It happens all the time. Some examples include lead based paint, narcotics, leaded gasoline, asbestos building insulation, and various weapons.

 

I feel that we should have the power to choose which product we prefer. Yes, incandescent bulbs cost more to operate and do last less than the other, newer types but they are still the lighting I prefer.

I have yet to find a cfl bulb that I like and/or that works well with the systems I have at home.

LED bulbs are still too expensive which would make retrofitting a home a challenge in today's economy and still don't light up a room the way an incandescent bulb does, in my humble opinion.

The newer bulbs have their uses but for everyday living applications I prefer incandescent lighting (at least until the other technologies are improved upon).

Regardless, the true issue here seems to be the government's ability to regulate the products we consume. Several examples were cited but, yes, those dealt mostly with health-related concerns. Applying the same logic, how soon before we are being told what other products we can and cannot use?

 

I'm afraid your choices are rather limited, here in the UK none of the main DIY stores seem to stock any yet I have bought some from Ebay some excellent and some poor. A specialist is likely to be very expensive though not necessarily. It maybe worth visiting a specialist light store just to get an idea of your idea of bright in lumens and maybe find the make or model of lamps you might find on Ebay
I found Megaman, Osram and Aurora to be good makes if you prefer branded

 

Oh most types are available as for the fittings most are easy to change or adapters are also sold on Ebay

 

The key you are looking for here is the Kelvin Temperature of the bulb. That is what the colour is.

From wikipedia:


Your average incandescent bulb is 2700K. You can buy CFLs that are anything from 6000K (probably even higher) to 1500K. It just depends on what you buy.

I have seen many CFL's that look exactly like incandescents.

As for the legality or morality of banning the bulb, I say go for it. 60W vs 13W for every bulb in every house adds up over a few million households. As one person was complaining about the cost of retrofitting, boo-hoo. There was/is ample warning. Buying 1 higher cost lightbulb over the years as the old burned out would have spread the costs out to almost nothing. But if you procrastinate and wait to the last minute, of course it will be a lot of expense at once. But that stupidity is not anyone's fault but your own.

I personally bought 96 CFL bulbs for a restaurant I worked in. They were going through 2 incandescents a week because the wiring was a little off and the bulbs burned out quickly. Only a couple dollars a week, but every week for years. I bought 96 CFL's, and used about 80-something of them (I can't remember) but I replaced every bulb in the store front and back with them. 3 years later, not a single failure, not a single complaint. I bought 2800K CFL's so they are almost identical in output to normal bulbs. This was before the tremendous price drop they have gone through now, so I think I paid somewhere close to $120 for them in bulk. Assuming no energy savings, they paid for themselves after the first 60 weeks of no replacements. Considering every light in the store is on from 8am to 11pm 7 days a week, the energy savings is tremendous too.

As Mike Holmes says, "If you're going to do something, do it right the first time".

 

I thought it is just banning for sale not to use. You can still use it until it burns out, right!

 

High street stores will not have a wide range. Your best bet is the internet. You need to watch out on Ebay in case you get some cheapo bulb that either burns out quickly, or takes about 5 minutes to fully come on after you have been using it a few months.

You also need to be sure the replacement bulb (CFL, LED) will fit. Sometimes they are a bit bigger.

 

Yup. You can still use them.

I have a boxfull of them under the stairs from when I swapped them out for CFLs and LEDs. Maybe I should sell them on the black market?

 

It's kind of the crazy government talk. We have banned dangerous things before, now the danger is CO2. We won't really cut it much, but please buy these imported Chinese bulbs with more poison in them so it looks like we are doing something.

Instead of an all out ban, the us will start efficiency standards for bulbs starting next year. This will make incandescence more expensive and greatly reduce their use. NRDC estimates it will save 33 coal plants. I call BS on that. It may save the power of many windmills. I am guilty of using solar light. This is much more wasteful in the summer as unshaded windows make me use more electricity for my air conditioning.

 

Nothing was off, that is what incandescent light bulbs do.

That many bulbs running 15 hours per day were burning 10,000 bulb-hours per week. You must have been using extra long life bulbs (i.e. even less efficient than regular bulbs) to get the burnout rate down to only 2 per week.

ound:You paid $1.25 per unit. I consider the 'considerable price drop' as being when CFL prices dropped from $15-18 per unit down to ~$5 each. And most of the units I tried paid for themselves even at that original price.

 

I figured they should last longer because they weren't constantly being turned on and off. And some did.

I paid $1.25 but it was from ebay, bulk buying 96 at a time. Basically wholesale price. I don't recall the average price per bulb in markets but assuming a standard 3x cost multiplier it was probably around $3/ea.

Now the bulk price is less than a dollar which I think is getting close to minimum price point.

I did buy a few at the $9.99 each timeframe. And they are still going strong. However they have been decommissioned to the basement lighting because they have a very cool temperature that "some" find harsh. I like it, but that doesn't count. I remember all the old ones were pretty cool running.

 

switched to CFLs about 10 years ago, there have been HUGE improvements in that time. They come on fairly instantly now. But in the last 2 years or so I have started to switch over to LEDs. More expensive by a lot, but use in less juice and last even longer and brighter. Major downside is that they can be very directional and so don't work in certain fixtures very well. But even that is now being addressed. Only problem is that my CFLs last so long and I tend to buy in bulk (Costco) that it will be a very long time before the switchover is complete.

Don't know about the flicker, I don't have that here. Not sure if that is your system or something else. How old are the bulbs?

Maybe try LEDs?

 

I have installed 12 CFL's, and so far, have had to replace 4 of them due to premature burnout. (~25 hrs). I'm not seeing much of an advantage to using them so far.