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.

Anything other than old school or halogen bulbs are horrible. The light they give off is dingy and sad no matter what the blurb says.

You're absolutely right about that Curly

I have 5 from screwfix in my dining room light. 4 work fine but 1 looks broken...until you switch the light off. Then all the others go off and the 'broken' fucker starts glowing!!! Too late mate!

My cupboard under the sink is slowly filling up with wrong lightbulbs.

I SO agree!

I am utterly sick of it, it used to be a simple household purchase, now it’s more complicated than flying to the freaking moon.

I have a stash of non EU compliant normal bulbs in 60w and 100w with both bayonet and screw caps. Any light fitting that can’t accommodate these bulbs is not getting bought!

Fuckers. Another way to rip off consumers. Each different lamp requiring it’s own special, super snowflake bulb and sulking if you try to use anything else. 😡

This makes my blood boil. It can take me several minutes to try to work out what the hell i am looking at.
Old 40/60/100 in screw or bayonet say are all I want day to day and I struggle to Know how to find them or their equivalent.
In fact I AM REALLY FED UP WITH THIS. WHY HAVE ‘they’ not made it easier for us and who are ‘they’ anyway.

Ohhh I find this easy as I know what I like! I only buy cool white/daylight bulbs rather than warm white, that’s the majority of the shop discounted for me. From there I just pick up the fitting I need!

The good thing about Led bulbs is that they last a ridiculously long time. I have a Hollywood vanity mirror with 10 lightbulbs - after 5 years they’re still going strong !

Years ago it was easy.

Every light fitting was either bayonet or screw, large or small.

Bulbs were either clear or pearl;
Normal, golf ball or candle;
20, 40, 60, 100 watt.

And the light that came out of them was normal everyday bog-standard light. Now it's either 'warm white' (they mean a miserable yellow that makes you look jaundiced) or 'cool white' (they mean laser-beam blue-white that sears into your brain).

There are now as many different types of light bulb as there are humans on the planet.

They couldn't have fucked it up more if they'd tried, could they?

*mand don’t event get me started about supposedly sommable lamps and the wrong bulbs sold every time by John Lewis which dude the bloody thing so it’s just on off no longer dimmable.
My dimmable soft desk lamp is now an interrogation spotlight or off.
Really not funny. Actually furious about all of this.
It’s been going on too long now.

So angry I couldn’t type sorry dude should be ‘fuse’ etc.

@BIWI

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

Hate to tell you this but your bastard halogen bulb will burn out quickly. It’s the wrong bulb and will burn through at a rate of knots. They are the fucking devils work now.

I go to John Lewis / Homebase / Wilkos and say ‘First off, I hate Gordon Brown for this (he ok’d the new energy efficient bulbs. I mean, I’m for saving the planet but WAAAAAAAH)’. Cue Shop Assistant looking at me as if I am deranged, boring and in need of euthanasia. I then say ‘I want a bulb that is the same as a 40 watt, pearl, soft apricot. Like they did till the above bastard signed up to saving the planet’*.

They humour / want to stab me before explaining that such a lighting effect no longer exists. Now I see them as the bastards.

I HATE shopping for light bulbs.

*I believe in saving the planet. I just want my arse cellulite to be well lit.

Right sod Covid lets all meet up and swap bulbs it is the only way some of us might end up with at least a couple of right fitting , right size , right luimes , and right colour

@YellowandGreenToBeSeen

Hate to tell you this but your bastard halogen bulb will burn out quickly. It’s the wrong bulb and will burn through at a rate of knots. They are the fucking devils work now

FFS!!!

Thanks for telling me.

The only saving grace is that it's a lamp for a room that won't be used very often, so I can live with that. I bought a pack of 4 bulbs too, so plenty of time to get the right ones.

We had dimmable bulbs that flickered constantly but I typed in dimmable bulbs into amazon and got some amazing ones that dim perfectly. It's life changing I tell you.

[quote BIWI]@YellowandGreenToBeSeen

Hate to tell you this but your bastard halogen bulb will burn out quickly. It’s the wrong bulb and will burn through at a rate of knots. They are the fucking devils work now

FFS!!!

Thanks for telling me.

The only saving grace is that it's a lamp for a room that won't be used very often, so I can live with that. I bought a pack of 4 bulbs too, so plenty of time to get the right ones.[/quote]
If they’re from John Lewis, they’ll replace them. Or at least, I’ve terrified the assistants in my local branch to do so...

@Frappuccinofan

Ohhh I find this easy as I know what I like! I only buy cool white/daylight bulbs rather than warm white, that’s the majority of the shop discounted for me. From there I just pick up the fitting I need!

The good thing about Led bulbs is that they last a ridiculously long time. I have a Hollywood vanity mirror with 10 lightbulbs - after 5 years they’re still going strong !

Just wait until you have to replace them. Will take you ages to find the exact ones...

@PeachForTheStars

We had dimmable bulbs that flickered constantly but I typed in dimmable bulbs into amazon and got some amazing ones that dim perfectly. It's life changing I tell you.

My ‘dimmable’ bulbs have dimmed themselves up and down before. I live in an old house. Thought I was going to have to get the Vicar in before I realised it was the Bastard Bulbs being bastards.

Can I add that I hate the new bulbs (I think LED?) that are too effing bright, they are like the light of a thousand nuclear reactors shining into my retina! Neighbours have some shining in their garden, Guantanamo Bay style... Even some car headlights nowadays are TOO bright!

Along with lightbulbs, what is it with chargers? If they are so keen on saving the planet, why does every new gadget or phone come with a new design of charger that fits nothing else? Why can't they make them all the same?

I have found my people!

@Mistymonday

Can I add that I hate the new bulbs (I think LED?) that are too effing bright, they are like the light of a thousand nuclear reactors shining into my retina! Neighbours have some shining in their garden, Guantanamo Bay style... Even some car headlights nowadays are TOO bright!

Yes, I agree with you on the car headlights, they are horrendous.

I have two lamps in my living room that have t worked for about 2 years. One time around a month ago I went to buy lightbulbs for them and I came back with the wrong ones so now they can just be useless ornaments forever

This thread has struck a chord with me. The choice of bulbs is ridiculous these days. Back in the day it was bayonet or screw, and 40, 60 or 100 watts, and only one or two brands.

And most lightbulbs are so dim these days. Low lighting makes me feel depressed, and I can't see very well. Lordamighty is spot on about hotel rooms being like caves. They are always so dark.

I spent ages trawling the internet for some lightbulbs last week. Why are there so few that give out really good light? I the end I found what I wanted at Lightbulbs Direct. All the decent sounding ones from Amazon were from dodgy sounding suppliers, and I now have some Integral brand (recommended by Which) LED bulbs. And I can now see to read after dark.

You have to keep a catalogue these days, of dates the various bulbs were bought, the receipts, guarantee times (ten years), the blow up date (usually within 48 hours), return date, attitude of customer services (often surly) and descent into alcoholic stupor (upon returning home normally).

It's like Wilkins Micawber's book keeping but with better lighting. Or maybe not.

I remember a Mumsnetter once mentioning her husband's household light bulb spreadsheet (in the context that he had once been a wild rocker and now it came down to this!) I thought it was a brilliant idea and have always meant to make one myself, but I just have a drawer of empty light bulb boxes with room names on them.