Please ensure your electrics are up to date!!!!!!!!!

KTee_2

thescouselander wrote:

... I use traditional bulbs on the stairs and landing because energy saving ones take ages to get to full brightness (unless they are new) - its a matter of safety, I wouldn't want anyone falling down the stairs!........

Around 3 years ago I bought a couple of 'quick-start' energy saving bulbs. These come up to full brightness instantly. One is on every night in a porch area with no loss of brightness compared to 'ordinary' low energy lamps (I have had several ordinary l/e lamps with a ribbed outer glass case [Philips?] which dripped a nasty brown substance after a few months!). I would like to buy more 'quick-starts' but but I can't find them.
Does anyone know who makes them?

gromituk

KTee wrote:

I have had several ordinary l/e lamps with a ribbed outer glass case [Philips?] which dripped a nasty brown substance after a few months!

Goodness - those heavy conventional ballast lights haven't been made for ages now.

I would like to buy more 'quick-starts' but but I can't find them.

The ordinary Ikea ones come on instantly and at a decent (but not quite full) brightness. Ikea light bulbs are very cheap.

KTee_2

gromituk wrote:

Goodness - those heavy conventional ballast lights haven't been made for ages now.The ordinary Ikea ones come on instantly and at a decent (but not quite full) brightness. Ikea light bulbs are very cheap.

Thanks for the info but the last Ikea ones I bought were pretty low output compared to the quickstarts I mentioned, but I will have another look at them.

ollyk

gromituk wrote:

It doesn't matter whether they are new or not - they still take a while to warm up. Their final brightness just lessens with age.

There are other technologies becoming available, which don't suffer this problem, such as LEDs.True, although there are some which work with a normal switch which can be set to a handful of different brightnesses by turning the switch on and off a few times. There is no theoretical reason why LED lamps should not be dimmable, but I don't believe the current crop are.They are getting smaller - this is much less of a problem nowadays.A very small amount of mercury vapour, yes. Ordinary bulbs can't be thrown away with the normall glass recycling either. Ikea will take low energy light bulbs for recycling; just as with batteries, a wider recycling network needs to be put into place.Please do - I'll see if I can answer any more points you may have.

Trouble with led's is that when lighting up your house, they are no more efficient than tungsten lamps, and less efficient than Halogen. It's getting their, and rapidly but Led tech has some way to go before it could be compared to flourescent lighting!

ollyk

KTee wrote:

Around 3 years ago I bought a couple of 'quick-start' energy saving bulbs. These come up to full brightness instantly. One is on every night in a porch area with no loss of brightness compared to 'ordinary' low energy lamps (I have had several ordinary l/e lamps with a ribbed outer glass case [Philips?] which dripped a nasty brown substance after a few months!). I would like to buy more 'quick-starts' but but I can't find them.
Does anyone know who makes them?

I would say get a branded bulb. I use philips CF lamps and they come on at a decent level, but you suddenly see a sudden surge of light output after a couple of minutes.

lytefantastic

As a trainee Home Inspector I just wanted to say that the mandatory Home Condition Report, which the govt made voluntary last July as part of the HIP includes an assessment of the services including the electrics. We are not electricians but if we see poor or outdated installations we report on them.

The Mortgage Valuation or Homebuyer survey do not do this so hence why the original poster had to be nagged by Dad to do something.

So if you are selling a house after June get an HCR to reassure your buyers that the house is in good order.

If you are buying a house ask the vendor to commission an HCR and save yourself the cost of paying for the inferior Homebuyer Survey.

L

gromituk

ollyk wrote:

Trouble with led's is that when lighting up your house, they are no more efficient than tungsten lamps, and less efficient than Halogen.

That is not the case - they are more efficient than both, in terms of lumens per watt, and increasing in efficiency. If you mean that the drop-in replacements for conventional lamps tend to have a lower output, then that is true, but the gap is narrowing. I am lighting my hall with 3W Luxeon LED lamps, and the road in front of my bicycle with five smaller LEDs.

LEDs are coming on in leaps and bounds, and I'm sure Australia's ruling will not only give time for them to improve further before it comes into effect, but will also spur their development as a clear market will be opened up.

Take a look at somewhere like https://www.initiallights.co.uk to see what is now becoming available.

sandieb

Just to refer back to the post about house re-wiring. How much roughly does this cost say, for a 4 bedroomed house?

ollyk

gromituk wrote:

lumens per watt

could you please elaberate on this statement, to prove what you are saying is correct for home lighting?

I absolutely agree that they are coming on leaps and bounds and in the next couple of years we will start to see some really serious consumer lighting from various manufacturers..

gromituk

I'm not sure I can do that unless you expand on what you mean by "for home lighting" as you evidently don't mean what I guessed at in response to your last posting - absolute brightness. Do you mean beam pattern, colour temperature, or something?