Anyone use L.E.D. house bulbs?

[Wilfried]

These ones are still the best...   

[MadPlumbarian]

Those are cool JR

[dks]

I know some people in the UK that still use gas lighting, in Victorian era houses.

[Wilfried]

I know some people in the UK that still use gas lighting, in Victorian era houses.

That's interesting and surprising!   

In Belgium the last people I know of that used gas lighting, were back in the late 60s or early 70s.

 

[dks]

I think, legally, they should not be using them. 

[MadPlumbarian]

My one uncle basically lives off the grid up on top of a mountain top, and all of his stuff is powered off of a generator or gas, and I know he put in the gas lights, even the fridge can run off of electric or gas. One day I'd like to do the same! JR

[Whoey]

We just did our typical easter weekend thing, went to the DIY store and bought a bunch of stuff, LED bulbs were on sale, 5 for 4, so I got a bunch to replace our main kitchen and bathroom lights, replacing the old halogen (D and E rated) with new LED (A rated) bulbs. I think the new ones might even be brighter (450 lumen) vs the existing 200-300 lumen halogens (I'm not totally sure about this yet).

Also got some other stuff for some other projects... but that's fodder for another thread...

[Whoey]

OK replaced the GU10 socket bulbs in the bathroom (2x40W & 2x50W halogen) with our new 5W LED 450lumen bulbs...  there's corners of the bathroom I didn't know existed before now! Also swapped out 2 of the 3 50W halogen in the kitchen for 5W 450lumen LED bulbs, and left the recently put in 42W halogen in the middle and it's ultra bright in there too... brighter than ever. Wife is complaining their too cold... but I think the fact that they seem to be double or triple the amount of lumens we had before makes it seem that way more than the temp, these are all 3000, the other option was 4000, and that's more blue/white in colour. I suppose less lumens might have been less dramatic, but this seems to be pretty good, especially if it brings down the power bill.

[MadPlumbarian]

OK replaced the GU10 socket bulbs in the bathroom (2x40W & 2x50W halogen) with our new 5W LED 450lumen bulbs...  there's corners of the bathroom I didn't know existed before now! Also swapped out 2 of the 3 50W halogen in the kitchen for 5W 450lumen LED bulbs, and left the recently put in 42W halogen in the middle and it's ultra bright in there too... brighter than ever. Wife is complaining their too cold... but I think the fact that they seem to be double or triple the amount of lumens we had before makes it seem that way more than the temp, these are all 3000, the other option was 4000, and that's more blue/white in colour. I suppose less lumens might have been less dramatic, but this seems to be pretty good, especially if it brings down the power bill.

Bringing down the bill would be nice, especially if the a/c unit will be coming on for summer! Every bulb in my house is fluorescent, except the fridge and oven, the micro is even an led which I thought was kinda neat. Even the two night lights are led. Sooner or later I'd like to switch all over to led, but I don't think for a few years till the price comes down and the quality goes up,, JR

[Singh]

I'd like to try out the LEDS, but I'm waiting for my CFLs to burn out. 8 years later and I haven't had to replace one yet.

[PTRSAK]

Just replaced four 15W CFLs with four 3.5W LED bulbs.

They were cheap enough that I bought 8 of them so I have plenty of spares.
The light is a nice neutral white, not too orange or blue and they seem to put out a similar level of light to the CFLs they replaced.

These are in downlight fittings in my living room ceiling and I'm quite happy with them in this situation.

Electricity prices have climbed like a jet fighter over the last few years and these four lights are the ones that are on all evening when I'm home. dropping to 1/4 of the power consumption suits me fine.

 

[Grant Lamontagne]

I have a lot of CF bulbs in my house and I'm slowly phasing them out.  I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist or the type to get into fads, but after seeing this report I have decided that I really don't like them.



Yesterday I bought five new outdoor sensor lights for my house.  I thought three of them were LED lights, but it turns out they have LED accent lights but take a regular bulb for the real lighting needs.  I'll probably put an LED bulb in them as LED's aren't as susceptible to temperature changes as incandescent or CF bulbs are.

The other two are indeed LED bulbs, but also benefit from being solar powered, so I can put them on my garage without having to run wiring for them.

Def

[MadPlumbarian]

No, after watching that I really don't like it, but the wife says it's horse$"!+,, and says I'm just trying to get her to buy the more expensive bulbs.  JR

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yeah, mine thought the same thing a while ago.  She still isn't interested in buying new bulbs, but she is warming up to LED's.  She really disliked them as a few years ago her father bought an LED bulb at a dollar store and it looked like a medieval weapon, emitted a dull blue light and buzzed like a hive of killer bees.

Since then I have been slowly turning her around.  The one I bought a few weeks ago for the stairway/hallway is brilliant- we both really like it over the old CF bulb that was there.

Def

[Whoey]

good CFs are pretty close in price to good LED versions here... except LED's are supposedly 10years vs 3 or so on CFs plus the whole instant on debacle...

[jzmtl]

good CFs are pretty close in price to good LED versions here... except LED's are supposedly 10years vs 3 or so on CFs plus the whole instant on debacle...

If that's what you have of course go with LED. Here the LED bulbs are $10~$15 each, and even with government rebate of $7 per it's still 2 or 3 times the price of CFL.

Going to wait till the price come down before switching.

[dks]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2609957/Coming-street-near-lights-awake-make-people-ill.html

[Singh]

Update: One our CFLs burned out after 8 years. Just one. But I used this an excuse to replace all our lights with Cree LED bulbs (soft white) . My wife likes the light/color out of these much better than the CFL bulbs. Also, the LEDs use slightly less power than the CFLs, so we save even more on the electric bills. Better light, less electricity, and no mercury (if that sort of thing worries you). That’s a win all around.

[PTRSAK]

Just bought some 5W LED bulbs to go with the 3W ones I got earlier.
These are even better. Very nice colour and lots of light output. now I can replace bulbs in rooms where there is a single ceiling light too.
I'm using one of the 3W bulbs as a outside nightlight so it is on pretty much permanently, we'll see how it goes in that situation.

These newer style bulbs with many small SMD emitters certainly put out a nicer light than the early single emitter downlight bulbs.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I have been slowly replacing bulbs with LED's and honestly I like them a heck of a lot better than the incandescents or the CF bulbs.

Def

[Cupboard]

Update on our LED floods at work. Some of them haven't been the most reliable things in the world.
Quite disappointing.
If you're getting them get them from somewhere decent 

Still, I've bought one of each of a few different LED "bulbs" and been quite impressed with the performance of a brand I'd never head of called Kosnic. Only time will tell but they seem well built and the output is there.