To not believe the rich light their homes with energy saving bulbs?

[LaurieFairyCake]

Are they really sat in such shitty light as I am ?

Simon Cowells ironing his high waisted underpants in yellowy 40 watt equivalent my arse light?

Where the fuck are the rich peoples light bulbs ? Is there a special shop? One wee man crafting them by hand out of fireflys in Monaco?

I've got a lightbulb that cost £18 in my side light as it has a 20 year life span. It's more white than usual but not brilliant white like I remember light used to be

I'd like to save electricity, but the energy saving bulbs I have are awful. I may as well use candles or just go to bed when it gets dark as we did before we discovered electricity.

I've wondered about LED bulbs, but I can't afford to keep buying things to see if they are any good.

The LED bulbs I've seen for sale all seem to output light in one direction like a torch. How does that work for say a table lamp?

Maybe the rich have a dozen light fittings per room so the light gets spread about.

Preciousbane We have that arrangement in the meeting rooms at work. We are all kind of use to it but it does take visitors by surprise when, in the middle of a meeting, the lights go out and we all start waving our arms about.

Say what you like about energy saving bulbs but they've never exploded when I switch them on like the old ones used to. 4 different houses, 4 times I had to spend ages looking for glass in the carpet

£18 ? does it make tea ?

Or did you buy it 20 years ago ?

Some bulbs are much better than others for colour quality, though none as good as the old-fashioned bulbs. Try brand names like Phillips. Though my Asda/Tesco ones are OK.

I don't understand people saying they aren't bright, I put 100W equivalent in a ceiling fitting that only takes up to 75W in old money, energy-saving is much brighter as far as I'm concerned. My desk lamp has always been an 11W flourescent, can't imagine anyone needing more than that for craft work, it's very bright.

I just replaced the three 40W G9s in my bathroom wall-mounted light with 3x7W LED equivalents, even though some of the light from the LEDs gets blocked due to LED being slightly bulkier, overall the 7W LED is only slightly inferior to the 40W incandescent for brightness and quality. I was very worried about the heat from the 40Ws damaging the fitting, some glass was starting to go brown, very happy with the LEDs, no detectable heat.

I don't understand people saying they aren't bright,

Me neither, yes they take a couple of minutes to come up to full brightness, but after that they are fine.

All my energy-saving bulbs are about as bright as a mortician's bedroom and I cannot stand the gloom so we now keep all lights on all the time, and have two or three lamps in each room as well. Most people I know either do this, or have about a million light fittings in the ceiling of each room.

This entirely defeats the point of energy saving lights, I know. I wish they'd just give us our proper fucking lightbulbs back.

Energy saving light bulbs are a crock of shit.

In the olden days we were quite comfortable with one light on in the evening - now we have the ceiling light, a table light, standard light and some candles and it is still too fecking dark. Surely, we must be using more energy with this farce

You can buy the old-style "real" lightbulbs online. Think most sellers advertise them as something else in the wording (e.g. like how poppers are marketed as "air fresheners"!) but everyone knows what they really are.

"it does take visitors by surprise when, in the middle of a meeting, the lights go out and we all start waving our arms about."

Brilliant! We need these in my work.

The discount shops, markets sell ordinary bulbs.

I think this is the reason why "the rich" have lots of side tables with lamps and Yankee Candles.

I wonder if the dim light has any effect on eyesight, they way living in candle light used to.

Dim light has a shocking effect on eyesight, if my eyes are anything to go by. For years, I used to read in bed by the fading windowlight in the evenings as a child when I wasn't allowed a night-light. I'm now severely short-sighted and noone else in my family is. Don't know if it's coincidence or not, but there haven't been enough studies about this!

Saying that, MN'ers here will be wiser than I was and just turn a frigging light on, though

Yanbu. I've got pots of cash and I still exist in a dim half lit world in the evening. It drives me fucking mad that I need to turn the light on 5 minutes before I need it. We also have some led lights as they are cheap to run too.

The ones in my kitchen make it look green from outside. It isn't.

And I can change the colour of a perfume bottle I have just by moving between rooms. It goes from lilac to clear to green.

We have so many bloody lights in our house. We live in the US in an area that is environmentally aware (we recycle about 60% of our waste, freecycle, town does the compost to avoid rodent problems) but they have some way to go.

Our house has 47 light sockets in total. I have one LED light in each room throughout the house apart from living room which has two making it a grand total of 14 bulbs. The other light sockets are empty. I got the LED lights through a government sponsored program a couple of years ago and paid $5 for each lightbulb.

We had energy efficient bulbs, they died after about 2 years and were not lighting up the room. If it is possible I would suggest people try my method of using one super bright (100w) LED bulb in each room. A good way to find the cheapest is using the google shopping search. I found some for my Dad on DHgate.com. It is a wholesale website for stuff coming out of China. I think I paid GBP10 for each bulb including shipping.

I'm not rich by any stretch... just too cheap to pay more than I should for electricity! Our electric went from $120/month to $25.

LEDs. I know it's been said but that's what we use.

About £15 each but they last 20-25 years.

Also they're very very cheap in electric to run compared to other bulbs.

You're right they don't, these new bulbs look so ugly in chandaliers

You just have to be careful buying led to buy the right coloured white that you want. I like bright white but have found that in the supermarkets they sell warm white. My kitchen resembles an operating theatre it's so bright. The neighbours even knocked as our kitchens are joined and from the garden theirs did looks a dingy yellow compared to ours, we'll it use to now they are the same.

RandyRudolph

Thankyou for linking to that report. Really inspiring stuff.

LEDs are the way to go. We have just replaced kitchen and bathroom and garage lights. The light is amazing and they are so much more economical.

A lumen is a lumen is a lumen is a lumen is a lumen is a lumen.

still use the old style bulbs here - the whole lightbulb thing is a fitup anyway - you can still get the old style bulbs quite easily.

I decking hate these energy saving builds, thy give shite shite light.

I have to look in my sock drawer with a torch when the light is on. I keep a sodding torch in the drawer to locate them.

Sorry for typos. Can't see what I'm doing obviously

Got some energy savers. Flickered like some mad disco. Gave up. Went back to cheapest at supermarket that fit.

I hate energy saving light bulbs. I am convinced they actually suck any light out of the room.

And they make me look green. Like Kermit.