To take back light bulbs which don't last as long as promised

[thecheekofthem]

Paid £22.50 for three last April and two have died. The box says 10,000 hours

I moved into this house 12 years ago and I have never had to change the bulbs in the living room, kitchen or girls bedroom.

Pretty good value I'd say!

And I should add that I've only had to replace the others once in all that time.

I complained direct to Philips (only because I couldn't remember where I bought the bulb from) about their energy saving bulbs not lasting as long as they claim. They sent me a new one.

Hmmm I might write to these White Rabbit people as it renders the lamp useless. Sorry to hear you've had similar issues catlover - the night lights are so pretty it is a great shame.

Moved into my house 5 years ago. All of the "energy efficient" bulbs have had to be replaced, some several times over. None of the old fashioned bulbs have failed yet. As a PP said the energy efficient bulbs are a huge con, they cost a fortune, last a fraction of the time and give out far less light.

I have the same. The hall and basement light don't even last a month, and the house was completely rewired 3 years ago. I do miss the old filament light bulbs, that's energy efficient ones are shit. And how can the be more efficient if we have to keep replacing them?

Petition for what?

Eu legislation means lightbulbs have been changed, no petition can reverse that!

There must be some sort of black market for proper, old style light bulbs. Someone, somewhere must be selling them

I've found that if anything the branded bulbs are worse.

Plus we had an energy efficiency smart meter installed two weeks ago. I've been measuring the electricity used with the various different lights. In the dining room we have a chandelier with 9 old style energy saving bulbs in them (the originally weird loopy white ones). These were two for a pound. It looks crap but uses less energy than the six led light bulbs we have in the main section of the kitchen. Plus the main section of the kitchen is in permanent dinginess because LED lightbulbs are completely shit at emitting light (and are and stupidly expensive at nearly a tenner a piece). We are gradually renovating this house and I will definitely not be using LED lighting anywhere else.

DP says he would replace a bulb brought back after a year without question. He did have a customer who was bringing bulbs back every 6 weeks so he suggested he hired an electrician to check circuits for problems.
He might have also mentioned that their profit margin is quite high.....

Since I had to start using these new curly light bulbs, I use a marker pen to write the date that I plug it into a lamp socket on the neck. That way, I know how long it's lasted. The one that died the most quickly was the one in our standard lamp that had a time switch attached to it. It would come on at programmed specific times during the night or day to deter burglars when we were away because it would seem that the house was inhabited.

It looks, therefore, as if the number of times the light was switched on / off determined the length of its life.

Oh.. and some of our longest lasting bulbs are the old fashioned round ones which have outlived the new curly ones.

Do it! I am extremely fed up with crap consumer products.

On a totally unrelated note, why are some posts (randomly )showing up as gray? for example, gallicgirl's post? How strange.

I might go back to candles, it's costing me an absolute bloody fortune in bulbs.

Is there a black market in the old style ones? If there is, can someone please PM me

The greyed posts are a glitch apparently.

Petition for what? Eu legislation means lightbulbs have been changed, no petition can reverse that!

It was said tongue in cheek (I thought that was implicit, but maybe not )......... but a request for information on any known consumer action would be good. This is a ridiculous situation to be in... paying more for much, much less. And the 'green' benefits are not as we were told either!

Grrrrr!

So I went and without a murmour they refunded me. They recommend LED

So pleased you got an easy refund!

I also write the date on the bulb when installed.
The lifetimes are crazy, all over the place. Nothing lasts as long as advertised, only rule.

THis is an interesting thread- I have moved to a house with 86 halogen downlighters.
Constantly changing bulbs- I will switch to LED, but keep packaging and receipt.

Ooh! That's good! Can we have LED stories now please?

We have just switched a couple of lights to see if they are better/last longer.

I find that the light is a bit of an odd colour..... what does anyone else think?

Phew I'm glad to see that others write the date on the bulb when they install them. I thought it was just me who did that.

OOH I am very interested in this... we have over 70 bulbs in our house many form light fitting we put in when we moved in 16 years ago. It doesn't help the builders put two light fittings in the living room, kitchen, bedroom hall when one really could of done. They also put a few wall lights in so we tend to use this mostly.

We've been thinking about going for the so called energy efficient LED but are put off by the cost especially as we seem to be forever changing bulbs

Recently had a guy round to quote for Solar panels and got a bit of a telling off about our bulbs and was told we may not be passed for the latest Government scheme as we dont have any

A bit of maths he reckoned we could save x amount a year if we switched but I have only found ones with 10,000 hours/three year guarantee, so would still have to replace all over again.

We had planned to slowly replace them and make sure we don the same lot at the same time and make sure we not whe they went in...dating the bulbs themselves sounds brilliant ps how do you mark them ?

Stratters I found some 100 watt old style bulbs in Aldi (I believe these went under the EU law)

I was over the moon as we have two dark spots with no window and I also like one above my sewing machine in the dining room

I mark mine with a Sharpie, same as tubes of tomato purée.

Old, how recent was this, worth the trek to Boston?

We have small LED lights on every other stair in our house, they've lasted almost 6 years so far. They stay on overnight, every night.

We did a second round of works on our house and nearly replaced all our lights with LEDs at the suggestion of our contractor, who says he did the same and cut his electric bill as a result. Unfortunately our electrician has gone MIA.

I've bought candle style LED lightbulbs for the hall lights. £7 EACH

They had better fucking last.