CFL's are dimmable....you just need to purchase one's with a dimmable ballast.

There are cheaper LED bulbs, but the temperature is horrible...extremely blue-white in color.

Warm temp color will cost you the big $$$$.

 

$26.65 right now!

 

Waste of $$.

You'll be kicking yourself for buying them now when not too far down the road from now they will be had at less than half the price.

 

If floods were that price, I'd buy...

 

All of this is great but what I really need are 3 super low consumption A/C units.

 

My girlfriend has this thing about placing ridiculously overpowered incandescent bulbs in fixtures. In our kitchen when we moved in, she put two 150w bulbs in the fixture. She insisted that the fixture said 120w per bulb, so I let it go. Well, they blew the other night and she attempted to replace them with 200w bulbs! Luckily the glass separated from the old bulbs and she is too short to get up there with pliers.

Today I went out and picked up a new 3-bulb fixture and three 42w (150w equiv.) CFL's. I looked at LED's but they are still way overpriced for light output. So with those 3 bulbs, she gets 9000 lumens @ 126w. Compare that to the 7000 lumens from 400w and it is a win-win. They only take about a minute to completely warm up and now she won't burn down the house.

I also picked up a beastly 68w 4200 lumen CFL for my floor lamp in the living room. The bulb is huge but lights the whole room.

I can't wait for LED's to become more efficient and affordable though. I'd guess in the next 2-3 years we should see them competitively priced with other lighting options.

Oh and also, those 3000 lumen 42w CFL's were only $10 each, way cheaper than an LED for the light output.

 

I picked up 3 Sylvania 18W Soft White spots for my kitchen. Hell of a lot better than the old bulbs in there at 1/4 the power. I am looking into swapping some of the other frequently used bulbs in the house to LED. The price is still a bit high so we are doing them a bit at a time.

 

My friend is installing these all over his house - ecosmart Downlights w/ Cree LEDs:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...stomer_reviews

They are a bit pricey upfront but they will last a long time and they look awesome!

 

^^ 35 bucks a pop

Yea, I don't think he is gonna recover the initial cost for these in energy bill savings for many, many moons.

 

They are $25 in store, and the estimated life expectancy is 32 years at 3 hours per day usage. But I agree, it will take a while to recoup the cost.

 

^^ Who lives in the same house for 32 years?!?!?
Very few.


....I think LED lights are great, just wait 6-12 months and the prices are going to come down incredibly....to where they will be worth the cost.

 

That's a good point (although I think he will end up living in that house until the time comes to down size in the far future).

I should mention that he is crazy for LEDs. He makes replacement LED angel eye bulbs for BMWs - http://luxangeleyes.com/

I guess his early adoption is helping to bring the costs down for others in the future

 

Any deals right now on outdoor bulbs? Builder installed traditional 60W bulbs, and I have eight outside. Lights stay on from sunset to 2am, so that's 480W burning for a long period.

Looking for equivalent output of 60W. Haven't seen any deals, so figured I'd ask.

 

I've started replacing my 65W floods with dimmable LED equivalents from Costco.

I have most of the lights in my home on dimmers (Lutron Maestro), and only a few on switches.

The good:

- The LEDs are every bit as bright as the incandescents and have a very similar temperature.
- The LEDs are indeed dimmable.

The (very minor) bad:

- From a cold start there is a delay in turn-on.
- Although they are dimmable, the low end of their range is not as dim as the incandescents. As the dimmer ramps the brightness up, the incandescents on the same circuit come on much sooner and once the voltage hits a certain point the LED bulb comes on.

All in all, tradeoffs I am willing to live with. I am replacing the bulbs on switches first though before I start on the dimmed bulbs. 6 of 8 to go there.

 

I bought 5 HitLights 5 watt LED color changing bulbs the other day. Just waiting them to arrive....not even really sure what I'm going to do with them. They are all controllable via remote and have several different settings, as well as hundreds of colors. They had the highest average reviews for this type of bulb on Amazon, so I bit the bullet. I want to put at least 1 in the recessed light above the shower.

I was looking for something comparable to the Philips Hue, but without the price. The 9 watt version was out of stock, so we'll see. I wish they'd come out with a spotlight bulb like this. I hate crawling behind the bushes during the holidays to swap out my spotlights for red and green. It'd be awesome to just hit a button and be done with it.

I'll post pics and reviews once they are in. The shipped last week, so I was kinda already expecting them to show up.

Similar product.

 

So you're paying ~$25 - $30 a piece at costco?

 

No, $15-$16.

 

Stick with the CFL's for a better solution.

With higher output CFL's 1/4-1/3 the price of equivalent LED lights and only a slight increase in power (13W CFL, 10W LED, 60W Incandescent). CFL do not last as long (~10K hours) and suffer from shorter lifespan with high duty on/off cycles. Unless you intend to stay in the house for really long time it's be hard to recoup the cost of CFL compared to LED's until the price comes down some more.

I'll probably get some candelabra bulbs since those prices are not too far off the CFL's and they are dimmable.

 

Broke down and got some 8W Sylvania LEDs for outside. Waiting for it to get dark out.

 

How are they? I have an exterior bulb out.

 

Pretty nice, actually. 2700 degree bulbs, so it's a nice outdoor light. But $20 a bulb.

They'll pay for themselves eventually.

 

Is it this one?

http://assets.sylvania.com/assets/Do...da82e7bd6d.pdf

Specs say indoor use only.

 

A friend of mine bought some LED light bulbs from Aliexpress.com, dimmable and light well.

 

I've been having great experiences with LEDWholesalers. Their shipping has been crazy fast.

They come in white and warm white. 5/9/10 watt. Anywhere from $12-$20 each...

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...ledwholesalers

 

That looks like the bulb, but the package says indoor/outdoor. Outdoor, they need to be out of moisture, which they are...

Got em' from Lowes.

 

Nice find.

 

...

 

Our kitchen has 4 RB-30 floods on a single-pole switch.

The 12W CFLs that have been in there for about 4 years have lost about 25% of their light output. Their start-up now takes about 8 minutes to max bright. Another major drawback is the start-up current draw, when the lights are turned on for just a few minutes to get something from the kitchen. This draw can be equal to up to 2 hours of steady use.

I tried a variety of new CFLs that claimed "instant on" and found that "instant on" means about 2 to 3 minutes. My research shows that quick start-up is harder to accomplish in CFL downlight applications.

Then I installed Utilitech Pro BR-30 LEDs from Lowes (item 408202) (338929 is superceded by 408202 at $20). They make bright, even light at 2700 Kelvin.

I put them on a Lutron TGCL-153PH toggle dimmer from Lowes (item # 362326) Now we have immediate light at any level desired and can dim them for low-draw, continuous running when we are in-and-out of the kitchen.

The dimmer makes no noise and the lights function perfectly at all levels. We are very pleased and the Utilitech BR-30s are very reasonably priced LEDs.

 

I have noticed this delayed cold-start as well, although it is very brief; perhaps 1/2 second. The industry seems to refer to it as "LED pop-off". It is sort of like sudden boost arriving from a turbo-charger, and it is due to the lamp circuitry that steps down and rectifies the 110 AC.

The split-second delay is slightly weird when you're accustomed to an incandescant, but not nearly as annoying as CFL warm-up.

 

I was just at Costco and saw what I believe you are using. Brand name escapes me, but they're 65W equivalent replacements? I had 20 of them in my cart, then my wife saw gave me the eye... I bought a bottle of bourbon instead.

 

Yes, they are the 65W replacements. The one I have sitting waiting for the next failure is a Feit.

 

I just bought three LED lightbulbs from Home Depot in a yellow box for $9.97 each. Man, they light up immediately and are bright. Slowly as each CFL burns out, I will be replacing them with LEDs.

 

On a monetary level, they are worth it to replace regular bulbs, not worth it to replace CFLs

 

^^ and depending on the wattage some are on par with CFL wattage.

 

Depends on the application. As others have mentioned, if you have living room lights that are on 4-5 hours a night, the LEDs would be perfect. High cycle (closet lights, etc.) are not worth it, but like I said, it doesn't matter to me. As my CFLs burn out, I will be replacing them with LED lights.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

 

Commercial landlords are avoiding the high cost of LED bulbs/fixtures like the plague.

They will only change to LED when mandated by Title 24, or when the cost of bulbs/fixtures are on par with fluorescent.

 

Next time im in Illinois i need to head to Costco. I got 10 LEDs for my garage from Sams club a few years back but they seem to no longer carry them. I added more lights in the garage and need to get more. I love the ones in my garage. Instant on, and great light output.

 

A year or so ago I bought a pair of Phillips EcoSmart LEDs and returned them immediately. The light was cold and blue, the spread was VERY directional and the damn things were so heavy they were causing the sockets to sag, leading to the bulbs touching the inside of the lamp globe. Disappointed I put in a pair of 69-watt traffic signal bulbs that I figured would get me through until the LED technology caught up with the idea.

Two weeks ago, I offered to be the family guinea pig on the new Cree soft-white incandescent replacements that they're bantering on about and for the first time in a LONG time, I'm not disappointed!!! They are instant on, offer warm, soothing light in all directions and Cree programmed them to 'fade' out like incandescent bulbs do! Also they're made in the USA which is an added bonus.

I believe these were about $12 each and for once, I think they're worth it. They produce the same luminosity as a 60 watt bulb but only consume 9 watts. Also, after three hours of being on, I was able to unscrew them easily as they were only somewhat warm. Obviously the heatsink gets hotter but it was still cooler than the CFL after two to three minutes and WAY cooler than an incandescent would be after two hours. They also keep the room cooler which will come in handy in the summer.

Here they are:


Up close


The dead spot on the ends is not a big deal. It hardly affects the output. Also disregard the bright and dark waves on the ceiling. The camera can see them but the human eye cannot.


Size comparison; left to right is a 69-watt signal bulb (shorter and squatter than a standard household bulb), CFL and the Cree LED.


Note! Due to how the LEDs cycle while 'on', cameras have a hard time capturing them so these photos are more for color comparison than brightness.

Cree LED on the left, CFL on right


LED on left; incandescent on right


In the sockets. I plan on taking these with me when I move out.

 

I just picked up 2 EcoSmart PAR30 Indoor/Outdoor spots for my living room. We have a dimmer on that circuit. I have found that LED works well and are worth it for the larger spots. For the smaller, non-dimmerable ones CFL's are fine.

Home Depot had them on clearance. They have the 90W equivalent bulbs for $23 and the 60W equivalent ones for $22.

I like the color of the light. The 90W ones were too intense for where I had them. I kept the 60W ones. I am looking for ones that have more of a diffused pattern though. I think these will be perfect for outdoor spot lights.