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Light bulb question

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Comments

  • Edwardia
    Edwardia Posts: 9,170 Forumite
    I found GE 42w candle bayonets on Ocado for 1.99 which at 5 bulbs per chandelier is a tad eye brow raising but they are dimmable and as the light isn't used every day should last for awhile ?

    I was interested to read about the energy in terms of heat output. So with two lights of 5 x 40w being 200w and two of those lights being 400w how much heat would they be putting out with the old 40w bulbs please ?
  • ed110220
    ed110220 Posts: 1,626 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Energy efficient lamps don't have to be expensive, especially the non-specialist types. I got many of mine free from my electricity supplier at one time.

    Their other advantage is the convenience of hardly ever having to replace them.

    My parents (out of inertia rather than active resistance) don't use energy efficient lamps and they always seem to have at least one dead lamp. In the kitchen it's not uncommon to find half of the reflector type spotlights dead ;) I can't remember the last time I had to replace a lamp here.
    Solar install June 2022, Bath
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  • Ectophile
    Ectophile Posts: 8,180 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    the figures are hugly missleading - and mostly for proffit (suppliers/manufacturers) or to meet government green targets. Most people dont realiose - but if you have an understanding on electrics/electronics - how little electric actually costs (we its expensive when EVERYTHIHNG is considered lol, but I mean how long you can actually use one bulb before you have used 1 unit of power).

    I don't get you. A 40W bulb uses 0.04KW, and so will use 1KWh (1 unit) of electricity in 25 hours. If the bulb has a life of 1000 hours, then it will use 40KWh in its lifetime. If electricity costs 12p/unit, then that's £4.80 in electricity in its lifetime.
    If it sticks, force it.
    If it breaks, well it wasn't working right anyway.
  • Ben84
    Ben84 Posts: 3,069 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 6 September 2012 at 7:36PM
    The efficient ones Ive seen arnt that big a saving.

    The philips ones Ive seen are 40w, equivilant to 50w normal. OK thats 20% saving - but the bults are over £5 as opposed to under £1.

    The actual savings (cost - not environmental) of energy efficient bulbs - whatever type - acually take years before you even START to make them. The hype around them is unreal.

    Yes your electric bill is les, by between 20% and 80% - which is the pull. But you pay a LOT more for the bulbs (OK £2 isnt much against 20p for traditional EE bulbs, but at £5-£10 for haologen style bulbs !!!!!) and your actually paying about the same either way over a 5 year period (not everyone has lights on 4,5 or 6 hours a day. It depends on where the lights are and the time of year).

    the figures are hugly missleading - and mostly for proffit (suppliers/manufacturers) or to meet government green targets. Most people dont realiose - but if you have an understanding on electrics/electronics - how little electric actually costs (we its expensive when EVERYTHIHNG is considered lol, but I mean how long you can actually use one bulb before you have used 1 unit of power).

    I am not arguing its bad to use EE bulbs - its good for the environment and it saves on the monthly electric bills, but most people are interested in the financial rewards in truth, and with the current cost of EE bulbs, and more so Halogen replacement bulbs - there is in fact very little of an insentive when you actually lok at the figures (rather than the published hype).

    Ill say it again - these bulbs, and LED ones in particular cost pennies to manyfacture. why do they cost £10? which the decent output (Lumens not wattages) do. They shouldnt be more than £2 each. Thats plently to make a decent proffit and low enough to actually start to make financial sense to users.

    £5-£10 for a halogen GLS! That's well above the average price I've seen them for. Sainsburys sell a range of Philips ones in various shapes, caps and wattages for £1.98 each, and they're currently on offer at 3 for £4 as I stocked up on a few earlier. They are also double life bulbs rated at 2000 hours average life, so to make a fair comparison to the old filament bulbs which typically last around 1000 hours according to the packets you should halve their value. So, they're about 99p or 67p per filament bulb equivalent. I think that's a very realistic price range for a quality light bulb. I do usually buy Philips or Osram bulbs however, so spending about £1 each for a 40w or 60w GLS is normal for me.

    I've just done some quick maths and it looks like it takes about 55 use hours for my 42w bulb to save a kWh (compared to the 60w bulb it replaced). 55 hours sounds like a lot, but for my reading lamp that's about ten days of use, so I'll save about three kWh (worth 36p) a month. I'll save the cost of the bulb in about 2-3 months for the more heavily used lights.
  • Edwardia
    Edwardia Posts: 9,170 Forumite
    OH went to electrical wholesalers and bought their last thirty 40w BC clear candle bulbs in stock. Crisis averted for now..
  • adrenalin
    adrenalin Posts: 272 Forumite
  • elstimpo
    elstimpo Posts: 426 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 8 October 2012 at 3:45PM
    Why anyone would want to continue using traditional halogen and incandescent lamps when the cost a fortune to run, break easily, contain hazardous substances like Mercury (that ends up in landfill), pollute the environment with large amounts of C02, break easily and need replacing all the time is beyond me. Quality LED's solve all these issues.

    Good job Ikea have announced they will only be selling LED's from 2016 in their stores. Benefits of LED Lighting technology needs more exposure.
  • elstimpo
    elstimpo Posts: 426 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Ectophile wrote: »
    I don't get you. A 40W bulb uses 0.04KW, and so will use 1KWh (1 unit) of electricity in 25 hours. If the bulb has a life of 1000 hours, then it will use 40KWh in its lifetime. If electricity costs 12p/unit, then that's £4.80 in electricity in its lifetime.

    One 40w Bulb, used 8 hours per day for 365 days at 13p per kWh will cost you £15.18 and 0.08 tonnes of C02.

    An equivalent LED would cost £1.52 to run for the same period of time and use 0.01 tonnes of C02.

    Then take into consideration how often the 40w bulb will break or need replacing, the time, money and effort that goes into continually changing failed bulbs and the costs over a 5 to 10 year period for multiple bulbs.
  • fluffymuffy
    fluffymuffy Posts: 3,424 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Combo Breaker
    MX5huggy wrote: »
    [FONT=&quot]

    Why anyone would not use these is beyond comprehension. But people also smoke. [/FONT]

    :T

    We just replaced the four 50W MR16 halogen bulbs in our porch with four 4W LEDs. They're used 12 hours a night. Payback of a few months. What's not to like?
    I am the Cat who walks alone
  • sunshinetours
    sunshinetours Posts: 2,854 Forumite
    OP I see you have stocked up on the old 40w bulbs but was going to add for your fitting the 28W halogen ones work very well on dimmers and equivalent light output

    Just bought some first LED GU10 downlighters from ebay last week and have tried these in kitchen overhead plinths. They were about £2.90 each and are 6W spotlight type (narrow beam angle) bulbs "apparently" equivalent to the 35W ones we previously had. Quite impressed so far and as these are uysually left on most of the day and evening makes a lot of sense financially. May replace the lesser used ceiling ones (about 10 of these) as they go
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