Energy Saving Light Bulbs. Am I Missing Something?

ailuro2

I like my Philips one in the living room upstander, but use the Ikea ones in the hall and stairs with a yellow lampshade to imrove the colour a bit.

Cardew

roadster1 wrote:

As the nights are starting to draw in I went down to B+Q and bought 4 X 11w GE "Extra Mini" Elegance bulbs to replace 3 X 60W bulbs in the front room light fitting and one for the lobby. (2 pack, £5 something)

1. One bulb flickers all the time.
2. All of them nowhere near 60W equivalent.
3. Take 1-2 minutes to get up to anywhere near full light output.
3. Very green tinged light. (Makes everyone look ill!!:eek: )
4. Supposed to be replacement for standard sized bulbs but actually stick out above the shades.

Have I just made a duff buy or are they all like this? I'm certainly taking these back.
Can anyone recommend a decent make? Preferably one that comes on quickly and fits in place of a standard 60W.

I'd love lower lecky bills.

H

Just a thought - are your lights on a dimmer?

bertie2

Morrisons are selling Philips energy saving light bulbs (60w and 100w) for 2 for 99p and they seem fine

rygon

Do they all come with the "quick start" nowadays...i know a few yrs back it took a while for them to warm up but it thought most of them took only a few seconds.
Ive bought some from ikea and are very happy with them.

jonnyw_2

Ive spent the last month or so changing all ours to low energy - a total of 92 bulbs!

Because they have all 4 of the common fittings, small and large bayonet and screw, i ended up getting them made by different manufacturers.

The candle ones which are most expensive behave most like ordinary bulbs in that they light up quickly and give a similar quality light. But with the candles the equivalent wattage figures are a bit optamistic and i ended up using 9w rather than 7w. The 9w seem to be a good inch bigger than ordinary candles, the actual sizes vary a good deal between manufacturers,

The best round ones were phillips, they take a few seconds to warm up and run orange for this time but after they have warmed up they are fine, also these are the same size as ordinary round bulbs so fit better in enclosed fittings. The worse are the really big round ones which you can buy quite cheap, they give nothing like the equivalent light no matter how long you leave them on and there are a lot of fittings which they are too big for. Again I found the wattage equivalent optamistic and ended up fitting some 18w to replace 60w in a few places to get enough light.

I had to use mini spirals on some light fittings and was quite impressed with these. But they cost a lot.

roadster1

Just a thought - are your lights on a dimmer?

No, just ordinary light switches.

The candle ones which are most expensive behave most like ordinary bulbs in that they light up quickly and give a similar quality light. But with the candles the equivalent wattage figures are a bit optamistic and i ended up using 9w rather than 7w. The 9w seem to be a good inch bigger than ordinary candles, the actual sizes vary a good deal between manufacturers,

The best round ones were phillips, they take a few seconds to warm up and run orange for this time but after they have warmed up they are fine, also these are the same size as ordinary round bulbs so fit better in enclosed fittings. The worse are the really big round ones which you can buy quite cheap, they give nothing like the equivalent light no matter how long you leave them on and there are a lot of fittings which they are too big for. Again I found the wattage equivalent optamistic and ended up fitting some 18w to replace 60w in a few places to get enough light.

I had to use mini spirals on some light fittings and was quite impressed with these. But they cost a lot.

jonnyw, thanks for the concise information. I may go for the spiral type. I have found them at thegreenshop.co.uk and they come in warm white and cool light and look like they will be OK for my light fittings.

Morrisons are selling Philips energy saving light bulbs (60w and 100w) for 2 for 99p and they seem fine

Morrisons in Leicester only had screw fitting.

roadster1

http://www.greenshop.co.uk/

Bought a pack of 4 "Kosnic" (never heard of them) mini spiral 15watt warm colour bulbs. They are excellent. Quick start, about equivalent to 60w normal bulbs and no green tinge. Just slightly longer than the standard bulb. Quite expensive at £20 ish for 4.

I'm now hunting for SES (E14) 15watt for the back room but no luck so far.

H

Deni_zen

http://www.energysavingworld.co.uk/Sitepages/offers.html:T

Deni_zen

http://www.energysavingworld.co.uk

Quasar

I have replaced all my light bulbs with energy saving ones. I haven't experience any problem with them, and they do take perhaps a minute to come on full strength but I'm not worried about that.

I've been saving ££'s on electricity