Modern bulbs - compatibility with old dimmer switches...

muckybutt

You might find http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/article/led-dimmer-switch-compatibility/ this article useful

WestonDave

Unfortunately some older dimmers won't work below a certain loading. We had this problem when we tried to replace the halogen candle bulbs in a fitting with equivalent LED's (but 5W instead of 30W). It was fine when I just swapped one or two, but when it came to swap the last 3 (5 lamp fitting) I got a disco effect as the dimmer was hunting on and off. The only solution with that dimmer was to leave one halogen bulb in to draw enough to tie it down. Eventually I got round to ordering a low power rated dimmer switch, 5 minute job to switch it over and we now have all 5 LED bulbs running.

elstimpo

pinkteapot wrote: »

Moved into our 25 year old house in Feb. Almost every light-switch has been replaced with dimmer switches and currently all the bulbs are old filament ones (not energy-saving/LED etc).

Every light has also been replaced with a light fitting with multiple bulbs. We have 25 lightbulbs downstairs and that's not including the kitchen!

Our electricity bills are about 25% higher than at our old house and we think this is in large part due to the sheer number of lightbulbs, so as they go we'll replace with energy-saving (also because you can't buy old bulbs any more).

We didn't switch to energy-saving bulbs at our old house because I didn't like the colour of the light with the earlier ones, but I know the technology has moved on. But, as a result, I don't know much about them.

Question is, are new bulbs compatible with fairly old dimmer switches? Is any 'dimmable' bulb OK or would we have to replace the switches with more modern ones?

LED Lamps related advice - not CFL's

The real answer is that LED's may work with existing dimmers/circuits. You will probably never know until you try them and if you do try them and they don't work, it's unlikely you will damage the LED itself.

I find that E27/B22/E14 LED Bulbs / Candles are likely to work with existing dimmers.

LED Spotlights are more complicated. If you have MR16 fitting's then it's highly likely that you will need to buy and have installed a specialist LED Transformer to each and every fitting for them to work. In this case, i advise simply changing the fitting to a GU10 fitting as GU10 LED's are more stable and contain an internal transformer.

I find existing dimmers work about 50% of the time with our LED Spotlights. If they don't work, it's simply a job of changing the existing dimmer to a specialist LED Dimmer.

This is very important - Not all specialist LED Dimmers work with all LED Spotlights. So you need to make sure that when you buy an LED Spot that you ask the company to tell which dimmer unit to buy and that they know it's 100% compatible. You will need to be aware of minimum and maximum loading requirements of the dimmer.

elstimpo

pinkteapot wrote: »

remember when light bulbs were just lightbulbs and you just bought one with the right screw/bayonet and wattage?!

LED can be this easy if you go to the right company.

You don't need to worry about lumens, beam angle, colour temperature, CRI or any of that stuff. The LED's will work exactly the same as the incandescent or halogen lamp you are replacing in every way (including light quality and dimming).

LED Lighting has become to over complicated and it doesn't need to be that way. The incandescent lamps we used to buy had all this info of lumens, beam angle, colour temp and CRI it's just we didn't need to bother with it as they were all the same. With LED's virtually none of them can re-create the (CRI) quality of light we are used to, so reading all these stats on the box becomes important (and some of them are simply made up).

So find the right company and you can go back to not needing to know every last tech specification of the lamps.

pinkteapot

Thanks all!

We don't have any spotlights on dimmer switches, only 'normal' room light fittings.

It's the colour of the light that worries me most to be honest. The reason we're still using incandescent bulbs is that I tried some early energy-saving bulbs and the light was far too white. Our room looked a completely different colour and very cold. I stock-piled incandescent bulbs when they stopped selling them and we've been using those. I still have a good stash, but the jump in electricity bills at the new house has made me think again.

I'm wary of the cost and then not liking them. Our lounge has ten bulbs (two x five-bulb fittings). With LEDs we're looking at £60-70 I think? Maybe I could swap one bulb for an LED and see how it looks compared to the other bulbs, though I won't really be able to tell what colour the light is by doing that.

elstimpo - any companies you can recommend?

jennifernil

if going for LEDs you need "warm white" to be half-way decent.

We purchased our spotlights from LightUp UK, and LED hut. The ones we got are dimmable. And work with our old dimmers. The "warm white" is good.

For other types we have also found IKEA good, but no idea if they do dimmables.

To replace 40-60 watts we have used 4 watt LEDs.

One of our light tracks "buzzed" a bit, this was eliminated by leaving one of the original bulbs in-situ.

Suggest you change one fitting to LED and see how you like it/how it works.

Southend1

pinkteapot wrote: »

Thanks all!

We don't have any spotlights on dimmer switches, only 'normal' room light fittings.

It's the colour of the light that worries me most to be honest. The reason we're still using incandescent bulbs is that I tried some early energy-saving bulbs and the light was far too white. Our room looked a completely different colour and very cold. I stock-piled incandescent bulbs when they stopped selling them and we've been using those. I still have a good stash, but the jump in electricity bills at the new house has made me think again.

I'm wary of the cost and then not liking them. Our lounge has ten bulbs (two x five-bulb fittings). With LEDs we're looking at £60-70 I think? Maybe I could swap one bulb for an LED and see how it looks compared to the other bulbs, though I won't really be able to tell what colour the light is by doing that.

elstimpo - any companies you can recommend?

I think elstimpo owns an LED bulb shop online so he probably won't make a recommendation.

I have the following:

Osram 7.5w GU10 spotlights cost £11 each - expensive but bright and likely to last due to good quality. Due to price would only buy again if the Aldi ones (below) fail

Mullerlicht (from Aldi) 5w GU10 spotlights cost £4 each - cheap but bright. Would definitely buy again. Have 10 of these and have lasted a year without problem so far.

Ordinary bayonet fitting bulbs from LEDhut £8 each. 9 watt. Very good, probably a little brighter than an old 40w incandescent. Bought to replace CFLs as the warm up time was annoying. Would recommend.

R63 spotlights 5.5w from Ledhut. I think these were £11 each but can't remember exactly. Excellent. Originally tried to replace 60w halogens with 11w megaman CFLs which were very dim and had a rediculous warm up time. the LEDhut ones are much better.

E27 Filament bulb 4w from LEDhut. Bought for a decorative fitting to mimic incandescent and replace a 42w halogen. £8. Bright but produces a lot of glare. Would not recommend for all fittings due to glare but does the job for this one as it needs to look like an incandescent. Would be fine if covered but mine has a clear glass shade.

7w ES candles from IKea. £4 each I think. Bright but flicker a lot. Probably poor quality components. Wouldn't buy again or recommend.

5w ES candles from homebase (tcp brand?). 3 for £12 I think. Great quality light and nice and bright. Would recommend.

Overall I would recommend LEDhut. You can normally find a 25 or 30% off code just by googling and their bulbs have worked well for me so far. There's a few people on here that don't rate LEDhut though. I have noticed that once you've been on their site every ad you ever see on the net is for LEDhut, so they must have a high advertising spend. But I haven't had cause to fault the quality of their products to date. I've switched to LED over the last 18 months so time will tell if the bulbs last.

I'd definitely recommend changing to LED though. I can now put every single light in the house on (if I feel the need lol) and use the same amount of electricity as 4 of the old halogens in my kitchen alone (and there were 16 of them!!!). Total of all installed bulbs now in my house is around 250w compared to 1600w when I moved in. I still have a few CFLs which will get replaced with LED when they die.

mavisangelica

I have just bought an 810 lumen LED E27 bulb from Wilkinsons to replace an old energy saving bulb (11w) in a lamp that I wanted to use on a dimmer plug. Colour wise, I can't tell the difference (it is the 'yellow', warm colour) and it appears to work no problems in the dimmer plug.

We did have problems in the kitchen with replacement LEDs (GU10s) - but ended up at a local electrical trade counter which were good value and worked.

I have 3 other light fittings, each with 3 bulbs that I want to convert to LEDs but they are E14s and looking around they seem to be the hardest to buy in terms of dimmable.

roddydogs

But as most people have already got energy saving bulbs, is it really worth shelling out £9 or so per bulb for minimal saving?

Southend1

roddydogs wrote: »

But as most people have already got energy saving bulbs, is it really worth shelling out £9 or so per bulb for minimal saving?

It depends. I'm happy with the CFls in my living room because they are on all evening so warm up time isn't an issue. When they die I will replace them with LED. However the r63 CFLs I had in the kitchen were useless- around 2 minutes to reach full brightness which was woefully dim. I persevered for a year or so but when one died a premature death I decided to switch the lot to LED, which was good value for money IMO because of the improved performance.