LED bulbs - why not mandatory or subsidised

[98elise]

grumbledoak said:

98elise said:

Anyone else remember the thread where loads of people were bulk buying 100w filament lamps because they refused to buy energy saving bulbs

I bought a load. I skipped CFLs completely - they gave a pitiful money saving and were a disposal nightmare.

Now I'm almost entirely LED - they are available in bayonet and make some sense financially. The energy saving is still a sham - there isn't much waste heat in a UK home in winter.

I was an early adopter of CFL and I noticed the difference in my electricity bill, with no noticeable increase in my gas bill.

I'd disagree the energy saving is a sham. Certainly the waste was heat which is useful, however only when you actually need heat. In the middle of summer I had no need of the 400w of waste heat my living room was generating. My kitchen was worse!

My upstairs hall and bathroom had another 400w which was just venting into the loft so was just waste.

I've recently changed every halogen in the house to LED, and standardised on GU10 to avoid transformer issues. Next step is to change the under counter then we're fully LED

[glenrobbo]

Peter911 said:

rolex said:

I have green credentials, there's an LED light in the fridge.

IIRC the LED fridge lights stay on when the door is closed.

That's only true with a Schroedinger Fridge.

[J4CKO]

Went over to Leds a few years back, I find the main advantage aside from the energy saving is bulbs stop working a lot less frequently, maybe one every six months, with the incandescent ones I seemed to be changing one or two every weekend.

I wonder if it means less casualty admissions ? less bulb changes, so less people stood on chairs, so less opportunities to fall off.

Older folk seem resistant, remember a relative saying he was buying up stocks of normal bulbs so he didnt have to go to energy saving ones, think it was based on an early CFL he tried and it wasnt very good so decided never to ever have any energy saving ones.

[Troubleatmill]

At the end of the day.

The Government does not have their money.

The Government has your money.

99 times out of 100 - It is better you get off your arse and do it yourself than waiting for an incompetent dinosaur to wipe your arse for you.

[Chris Type R]

glenrobbo said:

Peter911 said:

rolex said:

I have green credentials, there's an LED light in the fridge.

IIRC the LED fridge lights stay on when the door is closed.

That's only true with a Schroedinger Fridge.

[Ambleton]

In our house we have

4x strip lights in the garage
1x energy saving tube lamp in my bedside light (so when it gets turned on in the morning it warms up slowly and not instantly blinding)
Everything else is LED. Not had any LED bulb failures to date.

6x G9
24x GU10
7x E27
5x E14

All indoor lights are 3000k apart from the downstairs loo which is daylight white 5000k. Garage are all 5000k, and outside lights are 5000k.

[CoolHands]

Troubleatmill said:

At the end of the day.

The Government does not have their money.

The Government has your money.

99 times out of 100 - It is better you get off your arse and do it yourself than waiting for an incompetent dinosaur to wipe your arse for you.

I’ve read that twice and am not making sense of it in the context of this thread. But anyway https://youtu.be/48HUdzoKiPA

Edited by CoolHands on Sunday 19th January 20:25

[Mr-B]

98elise said:

Anyone else remember the thread where loads of people were bulk buying 100w filament lamps because they refused to buy energy saving bulbs

For some reason I remembered this

https://youtu.be/H0P38WEHaWU?t=171

[FiF]

V6 Pushfit said:

eltawater said:

I think the savings are not likely to be as significant as you might think.

The huge push for people to move to energy saving fluorescent happened quite a few years back now and a lot of people will now be using variants of these rated at 8-11 watts. Then you add on the people who have switched to smart home systems with LED bulbs as part of the package.

The marketplace has already moved hugely in the direction of LED based lamps with fluorescent being phased out so the situation is already correcting itself.

Very true but there’s plenty of people I know with halogen spots - you can still buy them - and even if the saving per house is 250W/hr it’s 5GW for the country which is the same as the entire output from wind power and ‘renewables’ both of which have had 100’s of millions put into them.

I think that as always the devil is in the detail.

For example in our kitchen we have 8 GU10 downlighters, 8 x 50 = 400 w. However these lamps are on for a max of 15 minutes in a day and sometimes not at all. The lamps we actually use mostly, under cupboard strip lights, and G4 spots in extractor hood plus some over window panels connecting a run of wall cupboards have all been converted to LED. Furthermore being the sort of his I am, as in be prepared, have a number of GU10 lamps in the spares box. It's about 6 and a bit years since we renovated the kitchen and in that time we have only had one GU10 blow. Haven't worked out the man maths behind ditching the halogen and converting to LED, saving in not much electricity vs throwing out good working lamps, but it doesn't make much sense to me. So no intention to change those just yet. If we used them for hours and hours a day I'd be doing the man maths at minimum.

Away from the kitchen, most of the lights we use regularly for significant periods have all been converted to LED, exception being garage fluorescent strip light and the dining room ceiling lights. The latter would also needs the dimmer changing, and of course also have a bundle of spare bulbs from previously changing the lamps and dimmer in the lounge. :sigh: Plus dining room lights are usually table lights, now led, though as it happens ceiling lights full on as daughter is sewing. That's fairly rare occurrence too. Not straightforward is it?

That's the reality of just one property where, at least in my honest opinion, it doesn't make sense to make a 100% shift, yet. Not just in expenditure but wastage of functioning kit. But hey, when did Govts make sensible balanced decisions in trying to push through a cause.


The other thing will mention, upstairs landing lights, have had 3 go, sparkpak led &lamps, Phillips and Osram from now on.

[98elise]

CoolHands said:

Troubleatmill said:

At the end of the day.

The Government does not have their money.

The Government has your money.

99 times out of 100 - It is better you get off your arse and do it yourself than waiting for an incompetent dinosaur to wipe your arse for you.

I’ve read that twice and am not making sense of it in the context of this thread. But anyway https://youtu.be/48HUdzoKiPA

Edited by CoolHands on Sunday 19th January 20:25

His point is for the government to pay for LED they would have to use your money. There isn't government money that's extra to your money. You might as well just buy your own.

[Robbo 27]

Compared to other items in the home LED Bulbs v any other bulb is hardly worth discussing.

My oven uses 2500 watts and on average it is on for an hour every day. I am not going to worry about changing a 10watt CFL to a 3watt LED to save money or the planet.

[Zirconia]

Robbo 27 said:

Compared to other items in the home LED Bulbs v any other bulb is hardly worth discussing.

My oven uses 2500 watts and on average it is on for an hour every day. I am not going to worry about changing a 10watt CFL to a 3watt LED to save money or the planet.

Ovens don't run flat out at full power all the time. At least not my old lecy oven, it had a thermostat.

I took the long term view many years ago and went low energy pre 2000, dropping from the usual 100w and 60w in all those rooms has saved me money over the years, and bulbs. The gain from CFL to LED is less but I changed to Hue for no reason other than I liked the remote control (out right cost will portably not be recovered there for many years if at all but that is the cost of the system).

I probably would not change CFL to LED unless the bulb went. 100 watt filament bulb or high energy other bulbs are a no brainer.

Edited by Zirconia on Monday 20th January 09:39

[techguyone]

FiF said:

V6 Pushfit said:

eltawater said:

I think the savings are not likely to be as significant as you might think.

The huge push for people to move to energy saving fluorescent happened quite a few years back now and a lot of people will now be using variants of these rated at 8-11 watts. Then you add on the people who have switched to smart home systems with LED bulbs as part of the package.

The marketplace has already moved hugely in the direction of LED based lamps with fluorescent being phased out so the situation is already correcting itself.

Very true but there’s plenty of people I know with halogen spots - you can still buy them - and even if the saving per house is 250W/hr it’s 5GW for the country which is the same as the entire output from wind power and ‘renewables’ both of which have had 100’s of millions put into them.

I think that as always the devil is in the detail.

For example in our kitchen we have 8 GU10 downlighters, 8 x 50 = 400 w. However these lamps are on for a max of 15 minutes in a day and sometimes not at all. The lamps we actually use mostly, under cupboard strip lights, and G4 spots in extractor hood plus some over window panels connecting a run of wall cupboards have all been converted to LED. Furthermore being the sort of his I am, as in be prepared, have a number of GU10 lamps in the spares box. It's about 6 and a bit years since we renovated the kitchen and in that time we have only had one GU10 blow. Haven't worked out the man maths behind ditching the halogen and converting to LED, saving in not much electricity vs throwing out good working lamps, but it doesn't make much sense to me. So no intention to change those just yet. If we used them for hours and hours a day I'd be doing the man maths at minimum.

Away from the kitchen, most of the lights we use regularly for significant periods have all been converted to LED, exception being garage fluorescent strip light and the dining room ceiling lights. The latter would also needs the dimmer changing, and of course also have a bundle of spare bulbs from previously changing the lamps and dimmer in the lounge. :sigh: Plus dining room lights are usually table lights, now led, though as it happens ceiling lights full on as daughter is sewing. That's fairly rare occurrence too. Not straightforward is it?

That's the reality of just one property where, at least in my honest opinion, it doesn't make sense to make a 100% shift, yet. Not just in expenditure but wastage of functioning kit. But hey, when did Govts make sensible balanced decisions in trying to push through a cause.


The other thing will mention, upstairs landing lights, have had 3 go, sparkpak led &lamps, Phillips and Osram from now on.

Just for information:

You can now get LED fluorescent strip lights that fit in the original fittings, you just get a new starter in the box and it just works, no stut, stut, stutter of the starter either. Instant on.

I was quite pleased when my kitchen strip blew and I replaced it with that.

[FiF]

techguyone said:

Just for information:

You can now get LED fluorescent strip lights that fit in the original fittings, you just get a new starter in the box and it just works, no stut, stut, stutter of the starter either. Instant on.

I was quite pleased when my kitchen strip blew and I replaced it with that.

That's the plan when one of the tubes goes, though have to say the information on lumens output for the replacement tubes Vs originals can be a bit confusing.

However it makes my point. OP asked why doesn't the Govt mandate or subsidise. Whereas I reckon it makes more sense to do it gradually according to when it makes sense financially and practically. Just throwing our money at it, ie tax revenue is actually our money, in a one size fits all edict makes no sense. Obviously across the spectrum there will be those who have switched completely, down to those Luddites who have a garage full of incandescent lamps having determined never to buy one of them new fangled wossnames.

Pure guess but typical distribution curve suggests majority are somewhere in process changing as and when sensible opportunity presents.

[J4CKO]

Robbo 27 said:

Compared to other items in the home LED Bulbs v any other bulb is hardly worth discussing.

My oven uses 2500 watts and on average it is on for an hour every day. I am not going to worry about changing a 10watt CFL to a 3watt LED to save money or the planet.

But, if they go do you replace an incandescent bulb with an LED ?

They are miles better,

Less energy, and it does add up, daft comparing it to stuff like an oven as you have to use that and it uses loads of energy by default.

Dont need to change them anywhere near as often, as I mentioned earlier, safer as you arent having to stand on chairs , less time spent, less fiddling with the fitting.

Less heat, so thats safer as if anything comes into contact it wont catch fire, we had 100 watt downlighters in one bedroom that poked into the loft and the kids had been up there and dumped stuff on top which meted and made a stink, luckily no fire, same thing with LED and it doesnt even get warm enough so you cant put your hand on it. Plus it doesn't cook the wire and fitting like old bulbs do.

I dont get the aversion to anything green and the "fk the planet" thing, you dont have to be an "ecomentalist" to play a small part, plus your electricity bills will go down, not by 50 percent overnight but it will make a difference.

My missus does put the oven on in case she needs it in an hours time though, drive me insane, I just turn it off if there is nothing in it, she doesnt pay the bills !

[Condi]

Robbo 27 said:

Compared to other items in the home LED Bulbs v any other bulb is hardly worth discussing.

My oven uses 2500 watts and on average it is on for an hour every day. I am not going to worry about changing a 10watt CFL to a 3watt LED to save money or the planet.

Measure how much energy your oven uses in that 1hr and it is nowhere near 2.5KWh's though. It'll draw a lot when warming up then maybe only be on 1/3rd of the time while the food cooks. The lights in your living room however are drawing 10w all the time they're on.



An area which really needs looking at, with regards to energy efficiency, is rental housing. Landlords get no benefit from investing money in invested in double glazing, low energy lighting, house insulation, and the like, but have to pay for the cost of doing it. At the moment as long as they get to EPC level E (which puts the property in the lowest 15% of EPC ratings) then they're happy. Meanwhile the tenant has to either pay large amounts of money to warm the property or live in a cold house. The place I am renting at the moment has somewhere in the region of 25 30-50w halogen lights, and due to the wiring/holders LED bulbs dont work as direct replacements. If it was your own place you'd change the holders and fit LED bulbs, but no tenant is going to pay for that, and neither is the landlord. He's quite happy to take his £2k a month rent though! Oh, and half the property is still single glazing from about 1990!

[mmm-five]

We've got mostly fluorescent bulbs, as most of the LED ones I've tried (decent brands) have this strange flickering frequency which I can only see in my periphery or when I move something quickly (like scan lines when you take a photo of a computer screen as the wrong shutter speed).

I can't stand halogens as they're too bright/focused for me so look like you're in a shop.

I'm just waiting for the government to ban both LEDs and fluorescent bulbs due to the environmental impact of the manufacture/disposal, then once we've all gone back to filament bulbs ban thos due to their energy inefficiency, then once we all go back to LEDs/fluorescents ban those, ad infinitum...

Edited by mmm-five on Monday 20th January 11:04

[techguyone]

FiF said:

techguyone said:

Just for information:

You can now get LED fluorescent strip lights that fit in the original fittings, you just get a new starter in the box and it just works, no stut, stut, stutter of the starter either. Instant on.

I was quite pleased when my kitchen strip blew and I replaced it with that.

That's the plan when one of the tubes goes, though have to say the information on lumens output for the replacement tubes Vs originals can be a bit confusing.

However it makes my point. OP asked why doesn't the Govt mandate or subsidise. Whereas I reckon it makes more sense to do it gradually according to when it makes sense financially and practically. Just throwing our money at it, ie tax revenue is actually our money, in a one size fits all edict makes no sense. Obviously across the spectrum there will be those who have switched completely, down to those Luddites who have a garage full of incandescent lamps having determined never to buy one of them new fangled wossnames.

Pure guess but typical distribution curve suggests majority are somewhere in process changing as and when sensible opportunity presents.

Yes I was confused too and the one I got seemed to have too low output on paper, but upon fitting it was miles better than the original.

24w 400k temp (warm to daylight white) and 2200 lumens output

versus something like 58w 400k temp & 5400 lumen.


I feared that mine would be too dim. It's not. To be honest it seems just as bright if not brighter. I don't know if claimed lumen figures are as accurate as manufacturers claimed MPG values or what.

[boyse7en]

Condi said:

Measure how much energy your oven uses in that 1hr and it is nowhere near 2.5KWh's though. It'll draw a lot when warming up then maybe only be on 1/3rd of the time while the food cooks. The lights in your living room however are drawing 10w all the time they're on.



An area which really needs looking at, with regards to energy efficiency, is rental housing. Landlords get no benefit from investing money in invested in double glazing, low energy lighting, house insulation, and the like, but have to pay for the cost of doing it. At the moment as long as they get to EPC level E (which puts the property in the lowest 15% of EPC ratings) then they're happy. Meanwhile the tenant has to either pay large amounts of money to warm the property or live in a cold house. The place I am renting at the moment has somewhere in the region of 25 30-50w halogen lights, and due to the wiring/holders LED bulbs dont work as direct replacements. If it was your own place you'd change the holders and fit LED bulbs, but no tenant is going to pay for that, and neither is the landlord. He's quite happy to take his £2k a month rent though! Oh, and half the property is still single glazing from about 1990!

If they are 12V halogens, you have to cage the holders and bulbs - which as quick and not too expensive - but you also have to remove the transformer and possibly change the cable going from lamp to lamp. This could be quite a major job, depending on access and how stuff was previously fitted.

[borcy]

techguyone said:

Yes I was confused too and the one I got seemed to have too low output on paper, but upon fitting it was miles better than the original.

24w 400k temp (warm to daylight white) and 2200 lumens output

versus something like 58w 400k temp & 5400 lumen.


I feared that mine would be too dim. It's not. To be honest it seems just as bright if not brighter. I don't know if claimed lumen figures are as accurate as manufacturers claimed MPG values or what.

Where did you buy yours from? We've got a strip light in the kitchen and I do wonder if it's worth bothering to replace with a LED strip light when it goes.