Switching to LED bulbs

hemophobic

At the moment I have a 5 bulb chandelier type fitting in the centre of my living room, and another in my dining room. I want to get LED bulbs but since I don't want to buy 10 I was going to replace the light fitting with a single pendant. I am wondering if that will be bright enough? The rooms are both approx 3x4m and joined with an arch. I already have some hive bulbs so I would be using those.

I would also have 2 floor lamps in the living room.

FreeBear

My lounge is around the same size (3.6mx3.9m) and has a single 10W pendent in the middle of the ceiling. No problem at all with the level of illumination.

telemarks

LED bulbs come in a wide range of light outputs, styles of bulb and colours of light (from ice blue white, through to candle yellow). You will easily be able to find a bulb the right size bulb(s) for your room

If you like the "5 bulb chandelier type fitting" don't discout using it with LED bulbs on cost alone as these are often under £2 each, and sometimes a cheap as 45p each

Screwfix have a good selection, all sorted by fitting (the socket) but you do need to look carefully at the power (measured in lm or wattage equiv.) and colour of the light (warm/cold measured in K) as the choice is so wide.

We're all LED here now, even downlight spots, all from Screwfix, and I'm a bit fan of the vintage filiment bulbs, like this.

[Deleted User]

I decided years ago to replace each tungsten bulb with CFL/LED as it failed. In 16 years since then, only one of the 12 tungstens has failed, so I still haven't used up the two spares I had in the cupboard.

telemarks

jack_pott wrote: »

I decided years ago to replace each tungsten bulb with CFL/LED as it failed. In 16 years since then, only one of the 12 tungstens has failed, so I still haven't used up the two spares I had in the cupboard.

arrrgh! Tungsten halogen bulbs = spawn of the devil! Enemy of the planet!

If you don't agree, then count up the number of devil bulbs you have, and lets do some back of envolope maths on the elcie usage over 16 years ...

Hidden back of envolope .... Assuming replacing old school 60w incadesant bulb on about 3 hours a day = about 1000 hours a year:
- Ancient 60W incandesent = 60kW/h @ say 15p = £9 per year.
- Evil 46W tungsten halogen = 46kW/h @ say 15p = £6.90 per year.
- Tree hugging 7.6W LED = 7.6kW/h @ say 15p = £1.14 per year.
Tree hugging bulb saves £5.76 per year and as it cost £1.79 pays for itself in under 4 months

[Deleted User]

telemarks wrote: »

arrrgh! Tungsten halogen bulbs = spawn of the devil! Enemy of the planet!

If you don't agree, then count up the number of devil bulbs you have, and lets do some back of envolope maths on the elcie usage over 16 years ...

Hidden back of envolope .... Assuming replacing old school 60w incadesant bulb on about 3 hours a day = about 1000 hours a year:
- Ancient 60W incandesent = 60kW/h @ say 15p = £9 per year.
- Evil 46W tungsten halogen = 46kW/h @ say 15p = £6.90 per year.
- Tree hugging 7.6W LED = 7.6kW/h @ say 15p = £1.14 per year.
Tree hugging bulb saves £5.76 per year and as it cost £1.79 pays for itself in under 4 months

This is nonsense because you're starting off with nonsense assumptions. I have more than the back of an envelope, it's all on a spreadsheet.

Firstly, the kitchen is a 4' fluorescent tube, and the lounge has been a CFL for most of the last 15 years. That's most of the lighting hours in my house accounted for, the remainder are only on for minutes at a time. (Ones like loft, cupboard under stairs, garage, spare bedrooms etc can be measured in seconds per month virtually)

And therein lies the whole point: by changing the right bulbs you can get something like 80% of the energy saving for 20% of the capital outlay - cost effective by anyone's measure. If I had replaced all the bulbs many would have never paid for themselves in my lifetime.

See Pareto Principle.

(The payback period for the lights in the spare bedrooms would be about 400 years.)

telemarks

Nonsense is far,far too strong a word, the maths all stacks up.

Do the sums yourself, even with bulbs that are "only on for minutes at a time", you will find less evil bulbs would have paid for themselves several times over the years.

getmore4less

For low use luminaries you often save more by waiting for the price of the LED to drop than by replacing too early.

stator

You can buy LED bulbs up to 1500 lumens, so yes you'll be able to do it quite easily with a single bulb fitting

telemarks

getmore4less wrote: »

For low use luminaries you often save more by waiting for the price of the LED to drop than by replacing too early.

Very true. I've waited until LED bulbs hit a quid or two price range before switching each socket type. But most bulb types are well past that point now.

First to get replaced were the BC along with the ES. LED GU10 bulbs came cheap soon after, so I replaced all the MR16s with them. SES were next, but I had to wait until last year before I found SBC candles cheap enough in LED.

Brighter G4's are still a bit pricey, along with G9's, and these were the last to be replaced recently on a "special" price.

Granted some "odd" fittings like GR10 and GR8 will probably never be replaced by cheap LED, but as for the rest, they are all out their cheap enough now, no silly £10 per bulb prices.

Don't you wish we could go back to just one type of bulb socket though!

EssexExile

getmore4less wrote: »

For low use luminaries you often save more by waiting for the price of the LED to drop than by replacing too early.

Speaking of luminaries I see Stephen Hawking has died. I wouldn't call him low use though.