AIBU in thinking the council can not insist on making you use energy saving lightbulbs in a council house?

[AnnieMaybe]

My niece (20), her partner and their young ds live in a council flat and had an external surveyor company come to carry out some sort of property assessment today on behalf of the council

This is not unique to their flat apparently all properties are being surveyed to ensure they met with standards re kitchens/bathrooms and energy efficiency.

The man carrying ou the assessment told her she was breaking the law by not using energy efficient lightbulbs in a council property which has worried and upset her as she is now has it in her head she is breaking the law!

This is nonsense surely isn't it?

Why do people insist on using non energy saving bulbs? I find the energy saving ones plenty bright enough, and I actually like the fact that they aren't so bright when you first put them on - it's kinder on the eyes first thing in the morning. And we are definitely saving money by using them.

Someone beat me to it, they are banned from sale. It's a government thing - from eu- so it's possible I suppose that the council has that policy. Do you have a contract to check?

Don't understand the problem really, can remember being dirt poor and barely able to afford to eat, but honestly energy- saving bulbs are a good investment. Much much cheaper to run. Cheaper than they used to be too - we bought them in that dirt poor phase.

We're moving to led now, which is even cheaper, can be brighter, and doesn't have the warm up time.

I'd love to save some money, but energy saving bulbs don't fit standard fittings very well as they tend to be bigger. Also the color is wrong and they are generally too dim for me to read by. I think I'd rather we went back to candles and saved even more electricity. That would be really 'green' wouldn't it.

You can use larger ones of course, but then the problem of their physical size is even worse.

It might be better if you replaced 1x100w with half a dozen energy saving bulbs, but apart from the cost of the bulbs and replacing the fitting that's not really energy saving is it.

Being slow to warm up is not a problem in a living room perhaps, but it's kind of pointless in a bathroom or hall where the light isn't on long enough to reach it's full brightness.

I've looked at LED bulbs and they are probably the long term solution, but they cost even more and have a few problems of their own. The ones I've seen direct light upwards because the base is part of the mechanism. That's ok if an uplighter is what you wanted.

When they finished inventing them I'll change over.

I don't believe for one moment that the council can insist on energy saving bulbs in a rented property. If it's council offices yes or they may put energy saving ones in communal areas.

We use mainly energy saving bulbs, however several of the light fittings in our house have dimmer switches, which aren't compatible. I know it's a long term investment, but there never seems to be a brilliant time to pay an electrician hundreds of pounds to change a couple of light fittings, in order to save a few pence a year in electricity bills.