I finally got some energy saving GU10 bulbs

phoenix__

I finally got some energy saving GU10 bulbs to replace many of the 50W bulbs currently in the house (~60 of them) and thought I'd give my comments which might help other people looking.

The first issue I had with identifying which bulbs to get is what 'colour' they should be; they range from 2700K Extra Warm White and 3000K Warm White to 6400K Daylight. This didn't mean much to me, especially when I couldn't identify what my regular bulbs would be. Personally, I found the extra warm white 2700K the most natural and comparable to the existing bulbs. The others I found to be too white, more like what you see in some shops where things come across too white.

Some of the light fittings we have are fixed depth, and others have deep holes where the bulbs are held in with a metal clip. Some of the energy saving bulbs are longer than the standard 55mm which added more confusion.

Other reviews suggest that the latest LED bulbs are very good, however at ~£20 per bulb I wasn't prepared to consider them - they are also longer than 55mm. The energy saving bulbs I ended up going for are BELL Energy Saver Spotlight 7W 2700K (I got them from http://www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Bulbs-Tubes/BELL-Low-Energy-GU10/Low-Energy-GU10-7W-827-8K-Hr-BELL-7-Watt ) They are standard length and I found to be fairly comparable to the existing 50W, although they say they replace 40W.

I also looked at some of the MegaMan BR0709i and BR0711i (9w and 11w). I found them slightly too which, and couldn't really tell much difference between either of them, or compared to the Bell I mentioned above.

Another problem is the start-up time of the bulbs. It takes them a while (couple of mins) to reach full brightness, and to get round this I was going to leave a couple of the existing 50w bulbs in place. Then I discovered the 28w Osram ES 50 GU10 Energy Saver ( http://www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Bulbs-Tubes/Halogen-GU10/ES50-GU10-50mm-28W-Flood-Osram ). They are instant on and although not as low powered as the 7w bulbs they are almost 50% of what I was going to use.

Hopefully this info was useful to someone.

avantra

Wow! 60 GU10, that's a lot of heat wasted. Good choice with the Osram's

We only have 10 GU10's so decided to go with LED's as they came within the budget.

We got the Alpha 3.7w from B&Q these are 40w equivalent and at £13 each not too bad on the pocket. They are not as bright as 35W halogens which is how we like it as our house got plenty of natural light anyway (south facing with massive windows).

When we finish working on the kitchen I will fit some bright CF to the existing GU10 downlights.