Pulaski

It seems to me that it used to be that when you went shopping for light bulbs you had a choice of 40w, 60w, and 100w bulbs, and there were clear and frosted versions of each, and that was about it. Oh, and there were florescent tubes.

Now there are an idiotic number of choices. There are still a good number of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs available, plus compact florescent bulbs in both pigtail and envelope variations, plus LED bulbs. But then you have a choice of "medium" or "candelabra" fitting, and a choice of 3w, 5w, 7w, 10w, and 13w and probably more, and temperature "colour" - 2400K, 2700K, 3000K, 4000K, and 6000K, then there are traditional bulb-sized bulbs, mini bulbs for fans, pointy candelabra bulbs, 2" globes, 3" globes, 5" globes, and cylindrical bulbs. And there are still clear and frosted alternatives, at least of the LED bulbs. And I didn't even mention "lumens", which only roughly line up with wattages. Then recently "LED filament" bulbs have been added to the mix - in the low temperature colours.

We now have three shelf storage baskets, those things about 12"x18", and 8" deep, full of orphan bulbs of various sizes, shapes, and wattages, on a shelf in the laundry room. I dip into the baskets, often in vain, looking for a bulb to match one that has burned out, but usually to replace odd single bulbs in things like porch lights, cellar lights, ceiling "breast" lights, and anywhere else single bulb might be required.

Unfortunately we also now have at least five or six ceiling lights which have one or two of their four or five bulbs that have burned out. .... But we don't have a matching spare, and because most were compact florescent bulbs bought three- eight years ago, it isn't now possible to buy a bulb with matching power, lumens, and temperature colour, so we are about to add somewhere around twenty more orphan bulbs to the baskets on the shelves (which will probably mean adding another basket) when we buy sets of matching bulbs for the various lights that need bulbs. This time I am going to buy one additional matching spare bulb for each light fitting, but I am unsure as to whether this is a partial solution to the problem, or merely compounds the problem and extends the madness?

scrubbedexpat099

I bought some of these to help one of my problems, trying to standardise.

scrubbedexpat091

Pretty much everything is LED now in stores here in Canada, haven't seen CFL bulbs in eons, and incandescent is pretty much done as 40, 60, 75 and 100 watt incandescent bulbs are banned and have been for several years.

But yes many choices now in just about every shape size and color.

ian-mstm

That's one of the great things about standards... there are so many from which to choose!

Ian

tom169

Most of my LED lightbulbs I get for free from the power company.

I never understand why they want me to use less power. It's surely not in their business interest.

Pulaski

On the face of it, it seems that way, but it is cheaper than building and operating more powerstations. Duke Power would have to build another powerstation in NC if everyone reverted to incandescent light bulbs.

Norri

I guess they didn't have their fingers in the nuclear plant debacle?

Guindalf

Sure it is. It works like this...

1) Lower electricity use.
2) Increase the price accordingly so you make as much, if not more, money with less effort.
3) look good (and planet-friendly) while doing it!

tom169

Ha, makes total sense to me. Always some ulterior motive, just have to figure it out.

kins

I agree - it used to be so simple to buy a lightbulb. Now I find myself standing in front of a huge choice, baffled.

AhCrap

I really don't know why people struggle with this. It isn't hard....

For indoor lighting you most generally want the 2700k lumens 60 watt equivalents.

For inside garage, laundry, and unfinished basements rooms you want 5000k lumens 60 watt equivalents.

The only controversy is the out door lights, do you go with the 2700k or the 5000+k light bulbs. People claim the 5000k+ bulbs hurt the "environment" at night by messing with animals sleep schedules, etc.

Anything outside the 60 watt equivalent is for each specific appliance/application that requires it specifically.

scrubbedexpat099

Got me checking my bulbs, replaced 4 and found a regular one which I am not sure how it was still there, that fitting I had not touched in years and gets a lot of use.

steveq

No, actually there's a AWFUL lot of experimental science on circadian disruption, caused by excessive night lighting for animals and humans

Lanyu

There is so much light pollution around where we are its horrible. Church has 2 whopping flood lights that come on around 8pm to floodlight an empty carpark. Then theres all the apartment lighting to keep it safe. When we had a power cut I couldn't believe how dark it was I preferred it though.

Back in the UK I changed all our lights to GU10 led bulbs in the form off downlights that were all cool white in colour.

In our apartment the bathrooms have a 4 bulb fitting 40w each for an 8x10 room unscrewed 3 of them. I'm not keen on the screw in fitting prefer bayonet or GU10.

Steerpike

CFL's were a big disaster and something of an embarrassment to the 'green' movement. They were expensive, non-dimmable, took a while to come on and even longer to settle down to a stable light output (early versions), and included mercury in their bulbs which meant they had to be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility. If you break a CFL at home, you are SUPPOSED to go through a fairly lengthy procedure - https://www.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl ... who ever did all that ...

Thankfully LEDs have come to the rescue and seem to be a viable alternative to good old incandescents. However, I recently installed a 12-bulb fixture in my bathroom and it would have cost more for the bulbs than for the fixture to install LEDs, so I bought incandescents for it. LED lights can be found cheap on Amazon, but they are still quite pricey in retail stores; and the cheapest LED lights aren't dimmable.