low energy dimmer bulbs?

gromituk

Thanks - first time I've seen a "truly" dimmable CFL. It would have done for the opening poster to do a quick search of the forum though.

You will probably be horrified by the prices of these bulbs, but think back to the price of the original compact fluorescents when they came out. As their popularity increases, their prices will drop.

jap200

We have quite a lot of dimmer switches in our house and have found that the low energy bulbs we have tried will not work with them - i.e. the light level stays the same when you turn the switch down. We have one light on our landing for example which we leave on all night turned down quite low in case the children need to find their way out to the bathroom - we don't have a socket there so can't use a night light.

Does anyone know of any low energy bulbs that work with dimmer switches?

Thanks

Seakay

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=227874&highlight=dimmer+switches

plus do a search on the forums for "dimmer switches" - there is a lot of information

jap200

Thank you - I am normally very good and do a search before posting - on this occasion I forgot to - typical!

tr3mor

Am I right in thinking that dimmer switches don't save energy and that they are basically a variable resistor?

Mado

From the mouth of our electrician... "can't use dimmer switch with low energy bulb".
I guess they start low and brighten up as they heat up!

gromituk

tr3mor wrote:

Am I right in thinking that dimmer switches don't save energy and that they are basically a variable resistor?

No, they're not a variable resistor - they chop up the mains, switching it on and off in quick succession. If they were a variable resistor they'd have to dissipate a similar amount of power (ie heat) to the device they were connected to, which obviously they don't.

jap200

I am now confused. I was given to understand by reading the various threads here that such bulbs are available. However, the only one I managed to find was the "Dulux EL DIM" made by Osram. However, I could not find a supplier so I sent an email to Osram and they replied as follows:

"The Dulux EL DIM is not available at present.

We anticipate that they will be widely available in a couple of months.

Please retain this message when replying.

Regards

Dhiru Galani
Customer Technical Service"

I also sent an email to a company called Lightbulbs-direct.com assuming that as a specialist supplier they would know about these. I received the following response from them:

"Thanks for your enquiry.

Unfortunately there are no compact fluorescent energy savers available on the UK market that can be dimmed with a dimmer. There are dimmable ones available in the US but the technology used is not compatible with the dimmers which are used in the UK."

So, my question is this:

Has anyone here actually managed to buy a low energy bulb that actually works with a dimmer switch in practice - and if so, where did you buy it?

Thank you

gromituk

Dimming fluorescents is difficult - you need special control gear. Dimming fluorescents where you don't have access to a clean mains supply (e.g. in a lampholder - you only get what comes out of the dimmer) is even harder. So it's not surprising that these things are not common or available yet.

What you can get is lamps which you can change between several preset brightness levels by switching them on and off rapidly, using a normal light switch. Yes it's an awkward situation, but you may have to make do with these at the moment.

loren83

http://www.megamanuk.com/

You'll find that these guys make them.