The end of the 60 watt lightbulb.

Azari

TheSaint wrote: »

You are quite right on the point about mercury - they do contain them. I must have mis-read some marketing gumpf on one of the packets last time i bought one

They have apparently reduced it very considerably.

Enterprise_1701C

I have one light fitting left in the house that would look really weird with the new bulbs, have been searching high and low to stock up on 40W pearl screw in bulbs and finally found some at a local store that sells a bit of everything at 30p each, bought 8 as I was on my bike, but if you want some and live near Camberley they are in Circle 7 (if there is still any left when I've been back in!!)

I really hate the new bulbs but I like the energy saving bit! We've been using halogen in the bedside lamps for years and find them to be really good to read by.

gould300

Techhead wrote: »

Forgive me for being daft, but why wouldn't the halogen equivalent to a 60w ES do? Or a fast start fluorescent?

Nope, sounds like me being daft - I didn't realise that a halogen equivalent would do. Wouldn't that prove to be hotter than a regular bulb though and be rather omni-directional? Wattage aside, the weeny halogens in our old kitchen light were as effective as a candle but seemed hotter than the sun

chuckley

I'll keep an eye on poundland and 99 shops then.

spadge_2356

I can't understand why people are so angry over getting rid of the 60w bulb? It makes sence changing to fluorescent , but it would make more sence to change to LED's like most people have already suggested.

Some interesting things to note. LED bulbs last 100,000 hours (11 years of 24hr constant use if my maths is correct?) so you don't need to constantly change them like halogen ones. A 600 lumen bulb (same brightness as 60w) uses only 6 watts as opposed to 60w. Edison screw to bayonett cap adapters are available for around £1.50 for people who need to replace bayonett and dimmable versions are available. The only drawback I can see is that they aren't widely available and they cost £25 for a 600 lumen bulb.

All of my bulbs in my house are LED's. I disagree with fluorescent because they contain mercury and other harmful chemicals, and I understand when they 'pop' and need to be thrown out most people won't think to recycle/dispose of them thoughtfully. I suspect most will go into landfill and potentially contaminate the surroundings.

In summary they last longer, they save you even MORE money than fluorescent bulbs, you almost never need to throw them out, and you don't have to fork out money for new one's every month when they go bump.

Crisp_£_note

Oliver14 wrote: »

Come the end of the month the 60 watt incandescent bulb will go the same way as the 100 watt as manufacture will stop. For those of us who suffer from light sensitive Migraines this is a huge problem. All we can hope is before supplies totally dry up that the CF lightbulbs continue to improve and may stop causing the problems they do for some migraine sufferers.

Its a shame the Light bulb industry saw this ban as a way of increasing prices for CF lightbulbs.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/businessandecology/energyefficiency/8699771/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-leap-in-price.html

A year on since the ban of Manufacture of 100 watt bulbs (August last year) there is a large market in these bulbs. Just the other day I found one of my local shops selling them (so I bought some more stocks).

Migraines can be so debilitating. I can be totally out of it for a couple of days if I have a severe one that sufferers like myself will do anything to minimize possible triggers. So people will be stockpiling the 60 watt bulbs to go with the 100 watt ones. I also actually have some 150 watt ones.

Another problem with Compact fluorescents are that only a very few (I have only found one) will work in conjunction with dimmer switches. Being able to dim a light also aids me in controlling my migraines.

So should we really be stopping the manufacture of a product before we have an alternative that works as well? Before people bring it up I know the studies on CF bulbs and migraines is inconclusive. This though does not exclude them from being the cause of migraines in a lot of people.

Personally I tried to toatally change over to CF bulbs (happy to save a wee bit of money on electricity) I know that when I did this the frequency and intensity of my Migraines increased and it was impossible for me to read for more than a few minutes using CF bulbs. I now only have CF Bulbs in transit areas (hallway etc).

What I find interesting is the reason for changing to CF bulbs is supposedly the energy saving properties and how good they are environmentally.. I have read reports that changing your lightbulbs can save you anywhere between £10 and £80 a year (seems a wide range to me and it changes depending on who you talk to) with the energy and processes used to manufacture and dispose of the bulbs it is debatable that the savings for the environment are significant.

I know that as the technology for these bulbs gets better these few problems will be worked out but as I said above is it right to force a technology on us that doesn't totally meet the requirements of what it is to replace.

Hi tried to PM you but it doesnt seem to be accepting messages sorry, anyway you mentioned in your post that you managed to find one of these new bulbs that are compatible with dimmer switches.

Please can you tell me what / which one it is as we have dimmer switches in almost every room of our bungalow and we could really do with these before the old ones run out as we dont want to have to change the lights!

Thanks and hope you find a solution with your migrain its not a nice situation for you.

molley

Just a thought on something that I saw while searching ..someone commenting on a post looking for 100 watt incandescent bulbs said that it costs £20 a year for using one 4 hours a day as against £4 a year for a CF equivalent ...talk about misleading info ..who uses 100 watt bulbs for 4 hours a day every day ???

ThumbRemote

molley wrote: »

Just a thought on something that I saw while searching ..someone commenting on a post looking for 100 watt incandescent bulbs said that it costs £20 a year for using one 4 hours a day as against £4 a year for a CF equivalent ...talk about misleading info ..who uses 100 watt bulbs for 4 hours a day every day ???

Its hardly misleading info if they've stated how long it's for. Besides, how long is your living room light on for each night, even in summer?

A 100 watt bulb uses five times as much electricity as a 20 watt bulb. Hardly complex.

molley

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Its hardly misleading info if they've stated how long it's for. Besides, how long is your living room light on for each night, even in summer?

A 100 watt bulb uses five times as much electricity as a 20 watt bulb. Hardly complex.

It might be technically true in what the cost is but it's misleading because it does not reflect a realistic situation i.e. of a 100 watt bulb being on for 4 hours EVERY day

malc_b

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Its hardly misleading info if they've stated how long it's for. Besides, how long is your living room light on for each night, even in summer?

A 100 watt bulb uses five times as much electricity as a 20 watt bulb. Hardly complex.

100W x 4hr x 365 = 146 kWhrs, at ~10p/kWhr that is £14.60, save 80% of that is £12. Where does £20 come from?? Plus, this ignores the fact that most of this 4hr a day will be in winter, say 9mths in UK, (12mths this year :-() when you will also be heating the house. The waste energy from the bulb helps heat the house so the cost is the difference between electricity cost and gas/oil/coal. Call that 40% (elec = 2 x gas/oil/coal, and then ~75%) so of that £14.60, £5.84 is the saving in gas/oil/coal.

These figures are always biased and never accurate. The best example of this was on the radio where they quoted £60 a year cost for not turning the TV off at the wall (which works out at a standby of >60W, a ridiculous figure for recent TVs where the EU has a set limit of <1W). Someone emailed in to complain and the show got someone to look into it and came back with a cost of <£2 per year. And so it goes on.