Coverting lights from bayonet to edison

EdisonBayonet

Hi,
I've recently bought a house which has lights with mainly bayonet fittings along with a handful with edison screw fittings.

At some point in the future, I am going to have the place re-wired and will probably get all new light fittings then, which will presumably all be edison type fittings (as they seem to be the norm now).

So, in the meantime, I really don't want to buy a bunch of bayonet bulbs, which I may never use.

I have spotted, on Amazon, some converter fittings (fit into a bayonet socket, and have an edison screw fitting at the other end).

I just wondered if anybody had any opinions on whether that was a good way to go.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Avoriaz

I have an adapter that allows me to use a small edison screw bulb in a standard edison screw socket in an uplighter. It works fine.

You may find that the converter you have seen on Amazon makes the bulb protrude slightly further from the socket or fitting and that may not be desirable.

You may also find that you spend as much buying the converters as you save in bulb usage.

My advice would be to buy only enough bulbs that you can reasonably expect to use before you rewire.

If you do find yourself with leftover bulbs of the wrong type you can then consider whether it is worth buying converters.

You could swap the bulbs for the correct type with a co-operative relative or friend who uses both types or who will buy you the correct bulbs in exchange for the incorrect type.

southcoastrgi

you assume wrong, if you get it rewired unless you tell the sparkie you want ES fittings you will get BC

EdisonBayonet

Thanks for the input so far, much appreciated.

One thing that I didn't say in my original post was that I would also prefer to just buy edison screw bulbs, because there seems to be a better choice (for example I went to IKEA today and they didn't seem to have a single bayonet bulb).

I'm not really concerned about the fact that the adapter will protrude further, but I did wonder whether there were any safety concerns about such adapters. When I looked on Amazon I couldn't see any mention of a standard that such converters have to adhere to, which might have put my mind at ease a bit.

It seems a fairly simple piece of kit to me, but then I'm no electrician.

Avoriaz

This is similar to my adapter.

It is a very simple product with nothing much that could be dangerous.

As you can see in the pictures, the outside is basically identical to a ES bulb. The inner is a moulded plastic small ES socket with metal contacts for a small ES bulb.

I'm not an electrician either so don't take my comments as gospel but I can't see this being any riskier than any normal ES bulb and socket. There is plenty of contact area on the metal strips for the relatively small current involved.

Lots more adapters here.

I still think you are better advised not to overstock on BC bulbs rather than faff around with a lot of adapters.

The only reason I bought my adapter is that we wanted a very low 20 watt bulb for our uplighter and they are hard to find in standard ES. I use a 20 watt small ES oven bulbs with the adapter and it gives the light output that we want.

Avoriaz

southcoastrgi wrote: »

you assume wrong, if you get it rewired unless you tell the sparkie you want ES fittings you will get BC

I have never heard of any plan or intention to phase out bayonet sockets in favour of screw sockets.

Bayonets will be around indefinitely won't they?

Oli.s

New builds come with a minimum number of 3 pronged bayonet fittings, mine has 2 lights like this, I was told the purpose is so you have to put energy saving bulbs in them to meet the efficiency rating.

All the others are bayonet 2 pronged fittings.

Bayonet fittings definitely aren't being phased out, ikea just use that type of bulb, through choice.

I think I'm correct in saying bayonet fittings are the newer design than the screw fitting, OP try the supermarket there is an abundance of choice, we struggled to get a large Edison fitting for a light fitting we fitted in our lounge to replace the ceiling rose, the supermarket had loads of bayonet fittings and only one large Edison screw fitting bulb!

southcoastrgi

Avoriaz wrote: »

I have never heard of any plan or intention to phase out bayonet sockets in favour of screw sockets.

Bayonets will be around indefinitely won't they?

i thought that's what i said in a round about way

Ben84

How many bulbs are you planning to keep as spares? I find the good quality ones burn out so rarely, I only keep a couple of each type in the house.

ValHaller

EdisonBayonet wrote: »

(for example I went to IKEA today and they didn't seem to have a single bayonet bulb).

IKEA are probably a bad example to consider. They are a global so-called brand and part of their pretension to 'global' status is to ignore national standards.

Hence they will try and sell ES bulbs in the UK despite them being non standard here. If you look around other retailers you may come away with a very different outlook on this issue.

Avoriaz

Oli.s wrote: »

New builds come with a minimum number of 3 pronged bayonet fittings, mine has 2 lights like this, I was told the purpose is so you have to put energy saving bulbs in them to meet the efficiency rating.

You are right. Unfortunately the three pronged bulbs are not subsidised and cost about £10 each compared to a few pounds or even as cheap as 10 low energy two pronged bulbs for a pound a few years ago under some heavily subsidised offers.

They are a PITA and an example of a good idea very badly implemented.

There was a recent thread that mentioned them.

I posted this:

Avoriaz wrote: »

.....Some modern lights have a three prong fitting that require a three pronged bulb. We have them in the hall and landing of our 2004/5 built house. They are supposed to discourage people using filament bulbs as only low energy bulbs are made to fit.

They are a PITA as the bulbs are expensive and hard to find. As soon as our last spare bulb blows I will be replacing the fitting with a normal 2 prong fitting.....

And it all got a bit amusing after that as a sparky accused me of talking rubbish until he found out it was true.