LED (GU Halogen) replacement

slikt

Hi, need to replace all my existing halogen bulbs as after a few months of renting with the flat having all the lighting in this way, our electricity bills are horrendous, its all electric and we are using Eon, totally shocked on how much they want every month its gone from £50 pm to now them telling us they recommend £141pm. . :mad: Its only me and my partner and we both work, can only think that the 50w (each bulb) lights are eating up the power??

I was just wondering if the LED bulbs are worth using and where is the best (cheapest) place to source them as i'm gonna need around 20. Thanks in advance. .

withabix

You will need to buy several torches as well.

LED bulbs are useless for general lighting.

All electric flat? £50 per month was never going to be enough. You will have built up a debt, so your real usage is probably £95/month, which is probably about right.

Each 50W light bulb will use approx 0.5 pence worth of electricity every hour it is on.

I would check your immersion heater and how long that is on. That will use as much electricity as approx 50 of your 50 watt lightbulbs.

Garetha

agreed - LED bulbs are unsuitable for lighting!

There are low energy bulbs which fit the halogen fittings.
Here's a link to a GU10 - @ £11 quite expensive - and longer than the bulbs they replace!
http://www.lowenergygu10.co.uk/products/Energy+Saving+Bulbs/Megaman+Energy+Saving+Bulb+Range/Megaman+GU10+Energy+Saving+Bulbs

Alternatively you could leave the ceiling lights alone and get a number of table lamps and standard lamps with low energy bulbs in.

Forris

Contrary to popular opinion there are a few GU10 LED lamps for sale that are a direct replacement for halogen lamps. Try the links below. I have seen these working and they are pretty good, but also pretty expensive!

http://www.lowenergygu10.co.uk/products/LED+Light+Bulbs/High+Performance+LEDs/High+Performance+GU10+LEDs/Deltech+Triple+High+Power+GU10+LED+5W/666738193

http://www.lowenergygu10.co.uk/products/LED+Light+Bulbs/High+Performance+LEDs/High+Performance+GU10+LEDs/Deltech+Triple+High+GU10+LED+4W+Blue/1469404058

http://www.lowenergygu10.co.uk/products/Energy+Saving+Bulbs/Energy+Saving+GU10+Bulbs/Economy+Low+Energy+GU10+7W/1790428057

The high purchase cost should be offset by their longer life and lower running costs.

totalsolutions

Do a meter readiing for a few day and see if the usage goes up at night and see what you use during the day. Anyone left a heater on in the loft / shed / greenhouse / next door flat using it ??

alanrowell

50W bulbs?

But regardless of whether you have them going for 24 hours a day or not they aren't going to be a major factor in your electric bill. Much more likely to be heating, hot water or cooling.

My suggestion is that you look at your meter & fusebox and turn off each of the circuits in turn until you find one where the rate of consumption drops significantly. Then find out what is connected to that circuit.

If that doesn't work then take the meter readings several times a day and see if there is sometime when the consumption is significantly higher

andy2004

lidl are selling LED GU bulbs to replace halogen, and yes halogen one do use 35watts to 50watts depending on what you buy, LED use only 1w
the led ones are £3.49 i think, not sure how many in the pack for that price.

Garetha

andy2004 wrote: »

lidl are selling LED GU bulbs to replace halogen, and yes halogen one do use 35watts to 50watts depending on what you buy, LED use only 1w
the led ones are £3.49 i think, not sure how many in the pack for that price.

We've had 6 of these for a couple of years

• very dim
• three of them have dead or flickering leds

verdict - not very useful for illumination!

isofa

There must be something amiss with your meter readings, make sure EON are reading the correct meter. Unless you have hundreds of the lights on all day long, not sure how your bill would be so enormous per month, our 4 bedroom house is around £30 a month!

gjchester

We have three Deltech GU10 5W LED replacements in the kitchen. The only difference over the 50W hlogen is the light is a little bluer in colour, but not so much you'd really worry, they are called cool white, they also do some slightly warmer (read redder) ones.

There are lower powered 1.5W but they would be too dim in the kitchen for us, the 5W put out about the same light as the 50W bulbs they replaced.

First google result is http://www.lightonenergy.co.uk/5W-LED-GU10-White-p/gu10-led-5w-white.htm to give you an idea but they are not cheap at £20 a pop... however they are using 10% of the power. Depends how many you have around the house (we have 30+ of the things as the previous owners loved them, so obviously it's an ongoing process to changeover our lights...)

slikt

isofa wrote: »

There must be something amiss with your meter readings, make sure EON are reading the correct meter. Unless you have hundreds of the lights on all day long, not sure how your bill would be so enormous per month, our 4 bedroom house is around £30 a month!

Well we've read them twice now and they have also come round to read it, think its the cooker that eats all the power up, might just run an extension lead from the communal hallway. . lol. Looking at getting an owl device to check, looking at most peoples bills it looks about right for a electric only household £90-£110pm, just trying to think of ways to cut it back apart from living in darkness and eating take-a-ways. . lol