Need help with which lightbulbs

Tweaker

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ed110220

Tweaker wrote: »

I recently had some new lights fitted in my hall which I bought from Argos, I was in a hurry to replace them and opted to buy so called Eco bulbs from Argos, it turns out that these so called eco bulbs are standard bulbs rather than energy saving bulbs.

The bulbs themselves are supposedly the equivalent of 60w, which in a small hallway should be adequate, unfortunately they are very dull, 700 lumens, the maximum wattage that these lights can take is a 60w standard bulb, I presume that is based on the amount of heat they put out for safety reasons as the light shades are mainly glass.

I am guessing I can replace these bulbs with real energy saving bulbs that have a higher wattage equivalent output, can anyone tell me the maximum energy saving light bulb I can get away with installing?

Hi, I don't think there will be any practical limit to the wattage of energy saving lamp that you can put in, apart from size. The wattage limit for incandescent lamps is to avoid overheating and possible damage or even fire to the fitting or shade, but energy saving lamps don't produce nearly as much heat.

The brightest reasonably available compact fluorescent lamps are about 30 W and produce about as much light as a 100 - 120 W incandescent lamp. It is quite large though.

Cornucopia

I suspect you will find it difficult to obtain a candle CFL at higher wattage (above 11w). The size of the tube is directly related to the wattage, and candle and other covered bulbs simply put a plastic or glass cover around the entire tube. Therefore a 20w candle would be so big as to render it pointless for most fittings it was intended for.

Having said that, spirals at 20w & 23w are readily available, don't look too bad and manage to have a relatively compact shape because the tube wraps around on itself.

See John Lewis, for a representative range... http://www.johnlewis.com/home-garden/lighting/light-bulbs/view-all-light-bulbs/cfl=lightbulbtype-lightbulbs-6000031120/c700006520

As a general comment, it's a shame that despite the obvious issues, selecting replacement light bulbs continues to get more and more complicated.

zeupater

Hi

.... Alternatively you could have a look around for B22 high power LED bulbs.

We've got a number of B22 6W units which are pretty good ... they're supposed to be the equivalent of 40W incandescent but seem to easily outperform 11W CFLs which they replaced. I find CFLs tend to emit a high proportion of their light horizontally and create a dull area beneath and even the best 'fast start' still take a time to reach maximum output, whilst the LEDs are immediate. The other benefit is that they are pretty much the same size as a standard incandescent.

11W CFLs are usually rated at ~600lm, you should be able to source ~13W LED B22s which are rated at >1000lm for around £15-£20 each .... check the length though, at this power rating some makes are a likely to be a little longer than others ...

HTH
Z

Ben84

It depend how you use the bulbs, but for the hallways, toilet and cupboards I just use regular 60w bulbs. They light up instantly and for short use (few minutes each a day) there's little potential to save energy anyway. Better to spend your money on high quality energy savers in fixtures you use a lot.

As for wattage, you should be fine to install any type of bulb up to 60w - that's actual energy use, not equivalent. Even a 60w fluorescent or LED, if they existed, would be fine as they won't emit any more heat than the filament 60w. However, in practice they will be much lower wattage at any brightness you're likely to find and will run much cooler. That aside, there's one exception I've found, the halogen energy savers seem to heat the fixture more, particularly when installed pointing downwards. They can't be making more heat, but they do seem to concentrate their heat in the metal base more due to their design. So, I would not replace a 60w filament with a 60w halogen energy saver as I find it cooks the fixture over time and yellows the plastic, If using these, I'd stick with the 60w equivalent which should be about 40w actual energy use. I've been ok doing this so far.