to just want to buy a flipping light bulb

[SlightlyJaded]

... that isn't Vintage or Retro with visible elements. Or LED or halogen or colour changing or mood enhancing or neon or any other such new fangled cleverness.

I went to homebase today to replace some lightbulbs for side lamps in our living room. In old money, they were 40W bayonet bulbs and historically the only choice i had to make was clear or cloudy glass.

Now... NOW I don't even understand what the new money equivalent of that is, and I couldn't find one fucking bulb that wasn't any of the new fangled newness of above. Or didn't have some new wattage, sorry 'lumens' number that I didn't understand.

I left with a good old Farrow and Ball paintchart instead

poundland - then you don't care if they don't last! I had to pay almost £5 for one in Morrisons last week

All I know is e27 is equivalent to an ES bulb .. Just Amazon the requirements inside the fitting?

Oh and the filaments ones are v popular right now because no shade lamps are popular .. I have some beautiful stone ones but am sad because the light from a shaded lamp has so much more ambiance

Do the retro/vintage not do the job then.
I have some 15 or 20w mini fridge bulbs in my lamps, nice and cosy. They'd be enough for bedside reading lamp too.

engineers actually, you need to be careful with some.... dimmables for example!

Apologies for hijacking this thread, but thank you for the links.

Yeah you've gotta take the bulb along to the shop.

YABU. Watts is a stupid way of measuring light output because it is energy used. Is your 40W benchmark incandescent or halogen? I am guessing yours is incandescent because you put halogen as new tech but lots of younger people think halogen wattage as standard. If it is for a side lamp then 200 lumens would work but 400 lumens if you want it brighter. 800-1000 lumens for big ceiling lights. It is really simple.

Haha, snap! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3027754-Life-was-easier-in-the-old-days

And it is great you can choose the warmth of the light bulb now. I found I much prefer cooler light.

I don't find 1000 lumens bright enough HeadDreamer. 1300 lumens is equivalent to 100 watts, and anything less is too dull for me.

I could probably help you out, OP! When the old style bulbs were being phased out my husband decided to stock up while they were still available and I now have dozens of the bloomin' things taking up space. They never seem to need replacing.

It took me 10 minutes and asking a shop floor assistant in wilkinsons on Saturday for me to buy one light bulb! It's so flipping complicated!! Bring back the old fashioned easy system.

I get that we need to be more energy efficient, but can't we have that kind of bulb that looks like an old fashioned one? I'm dreading needing new bulbs!

Or you could just buy the new lights with integrated led bulbs. No need to buy any then.

The various shapes and sizes are because people want lamps that look like that. You could just replace all your lights at home with a hanging pendant that all take the bog old standard bayonet bulbs. Just saying.

I’m suspicious of the true energy cost of these new bulbs.... the fact they are massively more expensive implies their production is a far more expensive process, and therefore the energy input that’s required to go into all the manufacturing steps is far greater. I don’t know, it’s just a strong suspicion.... especially when you end up having to replace these bulbs more frequently than the old style ones.

Or you could just buy the new lights with integrated led bulbs. No need to buy any then.

Then one of those bulbs goes, and as it’s integrated you have to get rid of the whole thing! Hardly environmentally friendly.

I disagree as my led ones are lasting much longer than the older style ones. It depends where you buy them from too as to what price you pay. They have reduced in price from when they first came out

I am equally annoyed about such a ridiculous thing. I have a wall outside my house, and it has sunk in lights fitted in to them. 6 of them. Well, when it was done, all the bulbs were put in on the exact same day, so please someone tell me why they blow in threes, but not next to each other, but every 2nd one. So off it trot to the hardware to buy three, as what is the point of replacing the three that aren't blown, as they are quite pricey.... So I take blown one with me to select the correct bulb from the minefield of bulbs. The choice is just bloody ridiculous. A whole aisle on both sides....of bulbs!!! So I get 3 that look exactly the same as the one in my hand... check all the fine print (glad I took a kid otherwise that would have been difficult). Get home. Fiddle about with screws, replace the bulbs. Very pleased with myself. They are set on a light sensor. I await darkness with glee to check out my now once again lighted up garden. The time arrives... lights flick on... and what do I discover?????..... every 2nd light is a different colour to the one next to it!!!!!!!!! So its bloody staying like that. I was ever so grumpy about it.

kept the bloody box so when these other 3 go, they will finally fking match

I disagree as my led ones are lasting much longer than the older style ones.

I have some very expensive bulbs (£20 each) for spotlights that come with their own units that have lasted and guaranteed for 20 years. I found normal bulbs routinely don’t Last that long at all.... certainly no longer than old style bulbs, and definitely not 10 times as long (as they’re at least 10 times the price!) Kitchen/bathroom spotlights have been particularly bad (before I got the super expensive ones) blowing every couple of weeks.

lonicera
Try the 'daylight' bulbs - I find they (along with a wonderful SAD (but expensive) box lamp) helps this time of the year and the more natural light is excellent if you need extra bright without glare for close work.
There are lots on amazon and ebay (with various fittings just to add a bit of confusion).
I am so glad flickering fluorescent lights with 'starters' have disappeared from offices and such. I hated those.
sorry to derail.

Oh, and they’re generally non- dimable unless you spend a fortune meaning you waste energy on creating more light than you need while creating an environment that is completely un-relaxing.

I’m not a fan of Brexit, but if we must, then I hope the Government revokes this stupid light-bulb regulation as one if it’s first acts of “freedom”.

OP our halogen spots were doing this all the time. We found in the end it was the fixtures that needed changing, not the bulbs. You'll know if this is the case because when you go to change the bulb, the act of wiggling it about when you try to take it out, might cause it to come on again. The spots throw out an incredible amount of heat and they end up cooking the fixture - the wiring goes all crumbly and fried. We got our kitchen fixtures replaced and it's made a big difference - this is the first bulb that's gone in almost 2 years.

Lazy, my kitchen spotlights are like that! One of them is such a bad connection that every time the galumphing elephants (ds) move around in the room above, the light goes off!

engineers, I do think all those different fittings are confusing. In my previous house (which I moved into in 1998) all the bulbs apart from the fluorescent tubes in the kitchen were the standard bayonet fitting 60w/100w bulbs. I lived there until 2015. During that time, the only thing that changed was the incandescent bulbs got replaced by energy saving halogen bulbs (same fittings). I hated these, because they never gave out the same amount of light (even though they were supposed to) and took so long to "warm up" that you couldn't see anything until they had been on for about 5 mins.

When I moved in 2015 - oh dear! The bedrooms all still had bayonet fittings (so far so good). But the hall and landing had halogen bulbs with a screw fitting. The kitchen spots are large halogen ones with knobbly bits. The kitchen under cupboard spots are small halogen ones with spiky bits. The living and dining room lights are medium sized halogen ones with spiky bits. And don't get me started on the bathroom one, which is some really weird contraption! That's 6 different types of fittings, before you even consider whether they are filament/halogen/LED.

When some of the kitchen bulbs went, I nearly cried in Homebase, trying to find the equivalent fittings (the previous house owners had left no packaging for the light bulbs, so no list of what type I would need). I was staring at all these racks of different bulbs, most of which I hadn't seen before, wondering what would fit, and was I buying the correct wattage. Because, unlike old fashioned incandescent bulbs, the new ones are never labelled (on the actual bulb) with their wattage!