The hateful experience of buying bloody lightbulbs

[TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince]

Years ago there were:
Pear or soft white in screw or bayonet in various wattages. If you were really lucky you could buy coloured ones. But it was EASY!

But now😭😭LED, Halogen, thousands of different others, Lots of different random wattages and fastenings and styles. My stomach fills with dread whenever l have to buy them.

Every. Fucking. Time. that I buy lightbulbs with DP another human being I end up walking off and saying 'Well you fucking buy them then' while mocking his lux capacitor monologue. It's like a kind of lux-spreading.

Keeps the Home Bargains staff amused I suppose.

Know what you mean. I miss 60 and 100 watt. V simple.

LED are good though.

It might be lumens. I don't fucking care. I just want a fucking light bulb so I can read my book, not a verbal tour of Nicola Tesla's life's work.

I get that JamieLee. Dh starts lecturing me on electrical output.

I have no interest, and either start arguing and walk away. This always happens in B and W where there is a whole section of hell devoted to one million different bulbs.

I sit in the cafe now😁

Lumens yessssss l HATE that word

I know what you mean! Went to get some from B&Q last year & it was so confusing.

I was taught to change a lightbulb safely (along with how to wire a plug & mend a fuse) when I was a child. It was considered a useful lifeskill. Now it feels like you need a qualification in lightbulbery to do it.

Totally agree, what the hell did they do to lightbulbs? Have you ever stayed in an hotel recently, it’s like being in a cave.

And they're never on the right shelves.

Label = 35 lumens halogen. Box = 15 lumens LED.

By the time DP has got his glasses out of the glove box to fail to correct me I've lost interest.

Would that be a PhD in Lightbulbery?

I use my phone torch in hotel rooms.

Not to mention the complete bastards who look at a lightbulb, then put it back in the wrong place on the shelf so when I buy 4, one is wrong, or eleventy squillion pounds

Complicated and expensive

Wtf is a lumen? We have a cupboard full of the buggers, every one different and never one that fits whatever you need it for. It’s so complicated I could cry.

Qualification in lightbulbery

I've given up trying and now ask for help in Homebase where the assistants know their stuff and pick the right ones for me ("I want a 60 watt bulb that screws in please")

I can recite the laws of thermodynamics to DP, but oh no, he has to bore the tits off me about fucking lumens and lux capacitor values like I don't know about energy. I JUST WANT IT DELIVERED TO MY PISSING BEDSIDE LAMP EFFICIENTLY WITHOUT LEAVING THE EUROPEAN UNION.

At least he's muffled under a mask now.

My old local shop sells good old fashioned 60 watt bulbs, I've no idea where he gets them from but I need to go there and stock up again soon

@grafittiartist

Complicated and expensive

You're not joking! I needed 8 bulbs for my kitchen recently at £5 each!! I kept the receipt and if they don't last the promised 10 years, they're going back. and they're coming with me if I move house

JamieKee, has this thread hit a nerve?!😂

Yes, the cost. They used to be so much cheaper. I’m actually thinking of going to Which? About the stupid complexity of them.

I’ve ended up taking the old one with me to try and get the same number if lumens and same style of bulb.

They are not cheap and the style of bulbs you bought five years ago or whenever are no longer for sale, so my five bulb living room light has to get them all replaced as you can see the bulbs through the shade.

Same in kitchen, four, and bedroom, four.

Or I end up playing musical bulbs when I move the four working ones from the living room and put in the four bulb light fitting in the bedroom, and take the three working bulbs for that and put them on my now overflowing cupboard to use as singles in the back bedroom or lamps....

Why is it so much hassle and expense.

I just type the bulb details into Amazon.
Can't be doing with the hassle of looking.

Also (I can see this has got our hackles up) "would you like cool white or warm white?" ...........WHAT?!!!!

YES

I was going to write this exact post!

Bought a new lamp from Next that was delivered yesterday. Their website said if needed a halogen bulb (G9, whatever thAt means, and 28w).

Sold out on the website so went to Dunelm and finally found the right bulbs. After standing staring hopelessly at the fixture for at least 10 minutes.

Got home, unpacked lamp. Label on the lamp said it needed a LED bulb. FFS!

Halogen one works fine. Thank the lord

I think I've posted about this before on here. I absolutely hate it. I never remember to buy lightbulbs when I'm out shopping so we now have 3 out of 5 candle bulbs in a chandelier type fitting missing, and DH's bedside light.

If I DID actually remember while I was in Tesco, I wouldn't know what the bloody hell to get. But in desperation I'd buy them anyway. And every single flipping time, i get home and they're either the wrong fitting or the wrong brightness.

Don't even get me started on buying icicle lights for outside at Christmas.....

The best place to go to buy light bulbs and lamps is Ikea. It's all so well organised. Every lamp tells you what lightbulb you need with it, and they're all very clearly labelled in separate displays.

And I tell you another thing - energy saving bulbs don't seem to last as long now either!!!