LED bulbs - why not mandatory or subsidised

[Sheepshanks]

techguyone said:

Looking at just standard light fittings, we would have had 12 * 60 W which equalled 720

moving to LED at 8 w makes it 96 now -

Trouble is you now need to turn the heating on!

I miss the heat our old plasma telly used to kick out.

[poing]

Sheepshanks said:

Trouble is you now need to turn the heating on!

I miss the heat our old plasma telly used to kick out.

I just bought an OLED TV, costs very little to run for the size of the thing but it gives off almost no heat. I swear we've boosted the heat more in evenings since we got the new TV.

For the LED lights I mostly just replaced the old bulbs as they died with LED but I did change the main rooms before they went pop just to save money.

[yellowjack]

V6 Pushfit said:

There’s a reason why LED’s aren’t being given away/subsidised to £1 each or something like that.

Surely Govt can’t be expecting just market forces to get the whole country to change over as they’re peddling every other possibility to save the planet and this is one which actually saves consumers money too.

Is it to do with power suppliers wanting their cake and eating it? It’s weird.

Market forces WILL eventually push the change though. Look at lamps in any homewares section of any supermarket now. It's hard to find much in the way of alternatives to LED lamps. Simple logistics dictates that stores won't stock things that don't sell well, so halogen lamps will cease to be an option in most DIY stores and supermarkets soon enough.

I'm typing this with a three-lamp GU10 spotlight fitting above me. Fitted with LED lamps it is 3 x 5w = 15w. When we moved in it was a four lamp GU10 spotlight bar fitting running halogen lamps at 4 x 40w = 160w. The savings in running costs are significant, and the light is just "nicer" for want of a better description. You'd be a fool to persist with anything other than LEDs now, I think. Although I've still got two boxes in the cupboard full of old incandescent lamps, left over from when we bought into the "energy saver" compact fluorescent lamps fad that we all seem to have eventually realised were utter crap.

[Second Best]

I bought LEDs several years ago when the household tech was still a little unproven. I have bad memories of very dark rooms with piss-poor lights in them. Thankfully things have improved drastically.

I had a couple of quid lying around during the Amazon fire sales before Christmas and now I have Philips Hue bulbs in nearly every room of the house. They turn themselves on and off depending on when I'm home, and it's still novel giving guests a little button and saying "press once for your bedroom light, press twice for the hallway light".

I also enjoy how you can create your own personal disco if you wish. At least 4 of the neighbours have stopped me in the street to ask what lights I have as they love how the house is a different colour every night and sometimes they see a nightclub appear on weekends.

I save about £12-£16 a month on electricity on my bulbs alone. Not bad.

[hutchst]

Glasgowrob said:

would make a lot of sense tbh, minor in comparison to some of the draws on the grid, but little steps all add up.

would be the same with getting the nation to turn off unwanted lights,
one 15w led bulb left running 24/7 seemingly generates 48kg/year of co2 emissions

now multiply that by 20 million houses ........

According to the BBC today there are 44.8 million buildings in the UK now, up from 40.6m in 2010

[anonymous-user]

The warm white is pretty much identical to incandescent it just the cool white which is a bit stark.

[techguyone]

V6 Pushfit said:

The warm white is pretty much identical to incandescent it just the cool white which is a bit stark.

Yes you just beat me to it, warm white especially at 40w equivalent makes a just as nice ambient glow as any incandescent.

[98elise]

techguyone said:

V6 Pushfit said:

The warm white is pretty much identical to incandescent it just the cool white which is a bit stark.

Yes you just beat me to it, warm white especially at 40w equivalent makes a just as nice ambient glow as any incandescent.

Agreed. We made the mistake of getting cool white to replace the halogens in our living room. It's like someone is arc welding.

We went with warm for table lamps that we normally have on, and they are fine

[Zirconia]

Been using low energy stuff (not LED) since around 1996 or so. Still got a few of the original Phillips CFL left but now relegated to backup seeing as hue are now in place in many rooms and some replaced as shades changed over the years (Hue, whatever temperature you want from them, great). Only filament bulb I have had since way back back then was in the inspection lamp in the garage and that is not redundant.

Recently shifted a few non Hue to LED, 5000k one for a model making room for example, 8 watts in another. Last purchase was a 13w LED ceiling lamp for the utility room, I struggled at accepting 13w (high for me) and you now need a welder mask for the room. Didn't check the lumens and temp but what the heck, its fitted now. 20k hours expected life time.

Never missed the filament types and as long as you didn't buy shonky knock off stuff and specced the temperature and lumens correctly, the work.

[grantone]

Last time I had to buy a halogen GU10 they seemed to be the same price as LED. The only reason that I wanted halogen is that the fitting wasn't working correctly with LED, the barrier was the cost and hassle of replacing that rather than the bulb.

Also electricity generation has already peaked in the UK. Some is due to a shift from manufacturing jobs to service, but the UK has been pretty good at energy efficiency.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/am...

article said:

Provisional calculations show that electricity generation in the UK peaked around 2005. But generation per person is now back down to the level of 1984 (around 5 megawatt hours per capita).

[TazR6]

Every single bulb in my house is LED.
The one on the stairs has a sensor that turns on as soon as I set foot on the top/bottom step and it is great. The light never gets left on as it shuts off after a minute or so, but it stays on as long as someone is in the vicinity. It has been there for about 3 years and it is excellent. I have a similar bulb at the back door too, so I never have to fumble for a switch when I open the door.
I have a few lamps with smart bulbs (cheap Meross) and they are excellent.
I have 4 over cupboard lamps in the kitchen that are 3 watts each and give ample light for most things, but if I do need a light boost, I have a wall light that I can put on that is 6 watts.
I have 2 5 watt wall lights in the living room, and all I use in my bedroom is a 3 watt LED strip hidden behind the headboard on my bed. It is perfect for reading etc.
All outside lighting is LED too.
All lights are also voice controlled via Google Home, with timers and proximity based as well.
I am on probably the skinniest budget on PH, so it was all done very cheaply over a few months.
Not including the Google smart stuff, I reckon that I have paid not more than £60 on LED bulbs. I have never had one fail.
I just look for offers and a fair few of the bulbs are from Gearbest/Ali Express type places.

My heating is smart on the cheap too, fitted with a Geo Cosy (who?) system that works brilliantly too. I cannot control temperature via voice, but I can turn it on and off via an App at one of 3 preset temperatures which overrides the timer, otherwise it turns on and off at set times.
With the automated heating and lighting, I have saved a heck of a lot on gas and electric, all done on the (very) cheap.
Most of my sockets are smart as well, all voice controllable, so I can turn stuff off completely when I am done. "OK Google, turn living room TV off" turns off the TV, Home Theatre and Virgin box/Xbox off.
"OK Google, bedtime" turns off all lights and appliances, turns on the LED strip on my bed, then I am told the weather forecast than have the option of setting an alarm.

Happy days

[Elderly]

I've replaced the Incandescent light bulbs with LEDs only in the most used rooms.

But it's not been easy.

First of all all of our ceiling lights are on dimmers and so the old dimmer switches
have had to be changed to Leading-Edge types.

Wall lights have to have bulbs that allow sufficient light the emit in a downward direction,
but the construction of the majority of LED bulbs negates this.
The same with 'old fashioned' table lamps and shades - if you want to say sit on a sofa and read
from an adjacent LED table lamp, it can't be one of the 'scoop of ice cream in a cone' style bulb that are so prevalent.

It's hard to find what I want with a high enough output of light if you don't want anything cooler than 2700K
and don't get me started on trying to find what I need to replace SBC fittings!

I've also found that some of the LED bulbs with a 2 year guarantee, fail shortly after 2 years
apparently it's the very cheap capacitors that are used in them that are to blame.

[Robbo 27]

If there is no other consideration other than money, how long would you say it takes for the reduced energy consumption to offset the cost of replacing a traditional 50w bulb.

[anonymous-user]

Robbo 27 said:

If there is no other consideration other than money, how long would you say it takes for the reduced energy consumption to offset the cost of replacing a traditional 50w bulb.

5 x 50W is £13 a year based on 5 hours a day on.
The LED version at 5w is £1.30

So around 2-3 years. In a kitchen or a room where the light is on all the time it’ll drop to 1-2 years.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 19th January 12:06

[Teddy Lop]

Elderly said:

I've replaced the Incandescent light bulbs with LEDs only in the most used rooms.

But it's not been easy.

First of all all of our ceiling lights are on dimmers and so the old dimmer switches
have had to be changed to Leading-Edge types.

Wall lights have to have bulbs that allow sufficient light the emit in a downward direction,
but the construction of the majority of LED bulbs negates this.
The same with 'old fashioned' table lamps and shades - if you want to say sit on a sofa and read
from an adjacent LED table lamp, it can't be one of the 'scoop of ice cream in a cone' style bulb that are so prevalent.

It's hard to find what I want with a high enough output of light if you don't want anything cooler than 2700K
and don't get me started on trying to find what I need to replace SBC fittings!

I've also found that some of the LED bulbs with a 2 year guarantee, fail shortly after 2 years
apparently it's the very cheap capacitors that are used in them that are to blame.

there is decent stuff out there but most consumer focussed operations stock only what's cheap and easy. There's also a lot of rubbish, some of which is marked up heavily.

The problem is there's so many options - days were you'd carry a few 100w and 60w bc and es lightbulbs on the van and that'd cover most requirements. Now its LED theres a billion permutations - is that dimmable or non dimmable as there's a price difference, pleasing "filament" design or white blob, as there's a price difference, some want looks others want value, true 100w equiv, some baulk at £15 so will be happy with much cheaper 75w and so on. "Bulbing" a house well requires a bit of knowledge and a bit of a chat.

These might do for your sbcs
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_M...


What makes me laugh though is I point out the economic advantages of LED to a client, they agree, but then decide they'll use up that box of 50w halogens rather than "waste" them! They can't seem to grasp that popping in a 7w lamp now and binning the lot is the cheapest solution.

[Robbo 27]

Teddy Lop said:

What makes me laugh though is I point out the economic advantages of LED to a client, they agree, but then decide they'll use up that box of 50w halogens rather than "waste" them! They can't seem to grasp that popping in a 7w lamp now and binning the lot is the cheapest solution.

Sorry but thats me, perhaps its a Northern thing.

I have a cupboard full of bulbs, must be about 100+ in there, most are CFLs, a block of 20 LEDs, candle bulbs, halogens, 4 diffrent types of thread. I cannot see me throwing away half my stock when there is nothing wrong with it and an LED bulb takes 1-2 years to pay for itself.

[Evanivitch]

Having to swap the gran-in-laws lighting to LED, she currently has two 5 bulb fixings with a variety of non-LED types installed.

Only issue is they are dimmers, so that's 2 new switches too.

[anonymous-user]

Robbo 27 said:

Teddy Lop said:

What makes me laugh though is I point out the economic advantages of LED to a client, they agree, but then decide they'll use up that box of 50w halogens rather than "waste" them! They can't seem to grasp that popping in a 7w lamp now and binning the lot is the cheapest solution.

Sorry but thats me, perhaps its a Northern thing.

I have a cupboard full of bulbs, must be about 100+ in there, most are CFLs, a block of 20 LEDs, candle bulbs, halogens, 4 diffrent types of thread. I cannot see me throwing away half my stock when there is nothing wrong with it and an LED bulb takes 1-2 years to pay for itself.

Exactly - but it Govt promoted LED’s and they were £1 each you’d change tomorrow.

We’re supposed to be going green and the continued use of filament bulbs uses Gigawatts more power that comes at a massive CO2 cost.

[Elderly]

Teddy Lop said:

Elderly said:

and don't get me started on trying to find what I need to replace SBC fittings!

I've also found that some of the LED bulbs with a 2 year guarantee, fail shortly after 2 years
.

there is decent stuff out there but most consumer focussed operations stock only what's cheap and easy. There's also a lot of rubbish, some of which is marked up heavily.


These might do for your sbcs
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_M...

Thanks for the idea, but that's the very place I purchased these from and had a number of failures just out of guarantee,
might have been a faulty batch - I'll try them again . ETA Ordered some more just now.

Edited by Elderly on Sunday 19th January 15:10

[Teddy Lop]

V6 Pushfit said:

Exactly - but it Govt promoted LED’s and they were £1 each you’d change tomorrow.

We’re supposed to be going green and the continued use of filament bulbs uses Gigawatts more power that comes at a massive CO2 cost.

market forces have made LED the sensible option already, the government need not get involved, beyond perhaps regulating what manufacturers/importers/retailers can print on the box because some of the lies they have have done low energy lighting no favours.