I have LEDs in my house. Recently completed a complete redo of the house. Put canned lights in almost every room. Had floods in them. Now changing out to LEDs. In some cases I used replacements for floods, in other place I used LED conversions, such as in my bathroom. When I buy the LED bulbs, I look at the Lumens, because this determines what equivalent wattage I need. I made the mistake of putting some 100 watt equivalent bulbs in one of the rooms. Fortunately, I have dimmers switches on most rooms, otherwise it was way too bright. I now buy FEIT replace LED floods in 65W equivalent. On the ones the mostly match regular incandescent bulbs, what is Lumens on the?. I can never find the info on the packages. But then again, I don't pay for electricity. We put in Solar 7 years ago, and haven't had a bill since, just credit. They charge me $1.85 for reading the meter, which is done electronically now. My wife hated it when they changed out the meter. She used to love watching it run backwards. Greg W.
I haven't found one yet that will work in a 3 way. Dimmer yes, but not 3 way yet. Let us know if you do. Greg W.
It bugged me to use regular incandescents in the bathroom, when everything else was LED, so I finally went out and bought some of these: I bought mine at Lowe's. I absolutely love the vintage look of these in my bathroom, and the inside of the bulb is amber tinted, so they throw out a very yellow light. Since all the interior walls of my duplex are painted pale green (not my choice!) The yellow light washes them out to a yellowish off-white color. 466 lumen, 2200K. If you have to share your shave den with someone who applies make-up, they will not thank you if you decide to install these. I'm happy with them, and they exceed my low expectations. if I get tired of them, I can always install them in the dining room chandelier instead.
I was just to Home Depot to get some 75w equiv. for my home office (man is it extra bright in there now!) and low and behold! There are now 3-way LED bulbs. At least the ones I saw (only one option) were 30/60/100 equiv and ran about $15 each. Also, according to "the guy," regular LEDs won't work at all in a 3-way socket. However, my informal tests reveal that they will work; you just get only one level of brightness.
Three way bulbs have an extra contact point on the base of the bulb to basically use one filament, the other filament, or both simultaneously. The preponderance of dimmer switches has largely replaced the three way bulb. In fact, I'm surprised someone actually made a three way LED. It's nice to know that the option is there though.
I recently bought one LED 60 watt equivalent to replace a bulb on my stairs leading to the finished part of my basement. I don't remember the price, but IIRC, it was around $5 or $6. It's round, like an incandescent, makes no noise (no dimmer), and seems to produce light well beyond a 60 watt incandescent.
Because of the warm up time. In my laundry room downstairs in the wintertime, I can start a load of clothes, and the light is still warming up. In the garage, they just have to stay on all the time. On top of that, they have mercury in them.
I agree based on my limited experience. The "equivalent" LEDs seem noticeably brighter than the same incandescent.
I've found the listed 'lumens' to be a better guide than the equivalent 'wattage,' when one is LED shopping.
Same here. I found that a 25 watt equivalent, daylight, I forget the lumens, is brighter than a standard 60watt soft Whit bulb.
I would stay away from the Feit brand. I bought 9 of their LED bulbs from Costco and 3 of them burned out in under 6 months. Fortunately I was able to get a refund for them. The other 6 are still fine 2 years later. I'm very skeptical of any LED life claim after my experiences with CFLs. I jumped on that bandwagon when they first came out. I typically got anywhere from 2 to 5 years of life out of them and not the 7 they advertised. CFL do great outside though. As prices continue to drop I'll eventually buy more LED bulbs but I'm not going to gamble on them again for a while.
LED'S are nice in summer, but winter it's all about incandescent. The heat they provide is worth the extra electricity they use.
Those of us with central heating have something to be thankful for, I guess. Now that I've actually started cooking again (so nice to finally get my knives, herbs and spices out of storage!), I find that it will raise the temperature indoors a good 10 degrees for a couple of hours. My bathroom 'Edison style LEDs' are Feit. The rest of the bulbs are Phillips. Phillips has the highest reputation among the LED manufacturers right now, so I hope they'll do right by me. I think all LEDs come with a three year warranty, and with Phillips at least, it's practically a "no questions asked" replacement of any bulb.
Those flat Phillips bulbs do a good job. Of course do not expect them to last 20 years. Warmth greatly shortens the life of LED bulbs. If they are installed in a closed fixture like a ceiling fixture, they can have a very short life. The Phillips bulbs have two colors, warm white and daylight. Usually the daylight LED bulbs appear brighter. Is it a subjective observation, I think the Phillips warm white looks brighter. Several years ago I stocked up on CFLs. As they burn out I am going to LEDs.
Has anyone ordered the candelabra type leds that are on ebay made in China? The pricing (<$3 per) seems too good to be true.
The main problem with CFLs, is they do not like ON/OFF. There was a test a guy ran on YouTube, with incandescents andCFLs being turned on and off every minute. Kind off like going into a room, turning on the lights and then back out in a minute and turning the lights off. CFLs did not last as long as the incandescents. You can only use CFLs where they are going to be on for a while. Greg W.
That is a good transition plan. Eventually we will all move to LEDs. I have many CFLs in the house and many extras for replacements. The LEDs have a much shortened lifespan due to heat in the closed ceiling lights we have all over the house. CFLs are not as susceptible to heat damage. The odd looking flat Phillips LED does a great job and the light is even 360 degrees. I think it will eventually lose the market only because it looks strange. My kids prefer the daylight color. I was surprised. I expect houses will sooon be wired with dual 120V for power and 12V for lighting and computers.
