Taking light bulbs from old house to new house

[EasterBun2001]

When we bought our first home we invested in LED lightbulbs throughout which are not cheap but have paid for themselves in ridiculously low energy bills.

Now looking at moving, my sensible head wants to bring the bulbs with me but I feel like this would be unreasonable for anyone moving in.

What would you do?

Leave the bulbs. The lovely lady who sold me my first house delayed handing the keys over - I was getting worried but turned out one of the light bulbs had blown while she was cleaning so she went out to get a bulb to replace it. We need more people like that in the universe; and we're still friends some 30 years later.

@youkiddingme nooooo left the previous euro locks that were in the doors when we moved in! Wasn't letting them have my fancy pants ones though.

If anyone is in search of super duper euro cylinders these are the ones we have, by KABA:

www.citylockandsafe.co.uk/category-s/123.htm

Led bulbs are only a £1 each in Ikea!

Leave the lightbulbs! I would curse you regularly if I bought that house and you'd took the bulbs!

in case you didn't realize, it's also quite nice to leave a toilet roll in the bathroom. (i mean, don't leave a nine-pack of spare Andrex or anything, but it is kind/helpful to leave the current roll in situ.)

The level of pettiness here is astonishing. Someone would go to the trouble of changing locks that cost less than £50. How bloody mean.

Do people really pay that much attention to the EPC?

Mine says that to improve the energy efficiency of our house we should install insulation under the floorboards downstairs.
It’s a solid concrete floor........

Some people do pay attention to EPCs nearly all my clients give me theirs when starting a project even though they aren't really that useful to me as I know from looking as a professional.
I always leave the main stuff when moving (curtain rails, bulbs, toilet roll, washing up liquid, soap, instructions) and when we had a particularly shitty moving date due to solicitors fucking things up and leaving the poor family with young kids only able to move in to my old house (money was very slow in arriving) very late on the last working day before Christmas - I left the family a small decorated Christmas tree, mince pies, chocolates & a selection pack for each kid.
We were left bubbly when we got here but the shine was taken off when we realised they hadn't told us the toilet was broken and we only found out when we stood in the puddle of toilet water next morning.

When we moved in here the sellers had left us a bottle of champagne and a welcome card. As well as two full boxes of about fifty bulbs (all the fittings are different). As well as other bits and pieces they didn't need, wine racks, garden stuff etc,

I'm guessing the op isn't considering something similar..🤣

If EPCs assume the same lightbulbs will be in place over a ten year period that’s a failing of the test because it’s patently bollocks. Plus no one is suggesting that she swap the bulbs for old style incandescent, just cheaper LEDs.

If EPCs assume the same lightbulbs will be in place over a ten year period that’s a failing of the test because it’s patently bollocks.

Hue lights have a life span of 15 years. So not bollocks.

We moved into a house in 2012 where the previous owners took the OVEN SHELVES. I still can’t get over it.

People can be quite tight in life. With all the hassle of moving, I probably would ignore the expensive light bulbs. Karma would probably have the bulbs broken in transit anyway. Then I would feel even more of an ass.

It should say in your contract what fixtures and fitting you will leave for the new buyers - check that!

Turned up to our new house and had to buy 28 light bulbs 🙄 oh and the oven wasn’t working and had an inch of muck on bottom .

The people we bought our house off asked us if we wanted to buy their light fittings, which were those glass/crystal/glittery things with several bulbs in each one. Probably cost a fortune, but totally not our taste so we declined. They removed them but didn't replace them with anything else, so the only light we had downstairs was a hideous 1980s fluorescent strip light in the kitchen!
Fortunately though they had left a self assembly double bed in the loft with a mangy mattress, even though we also said we didn't want it. Plus a dishwasher full of dirty pots and a washing machine full of wet underwear! (And a bathroom full of black mound).
CFs phoned us 3 days later asking for their stuff back, but we'd binned it all. We did ask them to come and remove the bed, but they didn't bother.
Strangely enough, their mail seems to find its way into the recycling bin too.

Our first property the lady had painted around her bed so it was straight to b&q for paint. She had however left a variety of LED lightbulbs so maybe we got off lightly after all.

When we went to sell our home the buyers wanted our used shower curtain and our daughters bedspread. Thank goodness we didn't sell to them, but who would want a used shower curtain?

You can certainly take them, but as others have said make sure you leave cheaper replacement bulbs - it would be downright mean to leave nothing!

There is a 1980s movie called The Chain about removal men trying to do a chain of seven moves in one day. One of the people being moved (played, I think, by Nigel Hawthorne) took all the lightbulbs and door handles. He was not a sympathetic character.

If I remember rightly he even had to hop back as he'd remembered he'd left a ball of rubber bands in a kitchen drawer...

As well as yanking out the (rusted) lightbulbs and thereby exposing the wires, our vendors tried unsuccessfully to remove their 1980s knicker-blind curtains and the wooden struts holding them up were hanging off the wall. They did, however, kindly leave behind a stack of books at the back of the fitted wardrobes - all on a theme, one including, "How to make love to the same woman for the rest of your life" [euuurgh]

Hue lights have a life span of 15 years. So not bollocks.

The lifespan is up to 15000 hours. You’d only get 15 years if you had them on for 3 hours a day and they lasted the entire 15000 hours but since it’s up to then they may fail earlier. The ones in my home office are on much more and are regularly overheating after 5 years. The ones in my lounge are on from sunset to 10.30pm so well over 3 hours average per day over the year. Most LEDs also tend to be rated for a fixed number of power cycles so if they are turned off and on a lot (say in a bathroom) you’ll shorten the life of them too.

If they were expensive or otherwise "special" bulbs, I'd definitely take them. They're light bulbs, not the fixture. They screw right out, for goodness sake! The buyers won't have made their decision on whether or not to buy a house based on the light bulbs, if they even noticed them (which is doubtful), and if they did, they're very odd indeed. It'd be like getting in a snit because the seller didn't leave the same brand of toilet paper that you'd seen when you viewed the house. ("How dare they?! This is the cheap stuff. They had pillow-soft triple-ply in here when we were shown around!!)

I'd replace with cheaper bulbs and wouldn't feel a single pang of guilt for taking the more expensive ones. Modern bulbs (in my experience) aren't that easy to break, so they should survive the move.

If you want mean-spiritedness on display, try the people making nasty comments on others' personal tastes when they dare to share a photo of their home.

There is a 1980s movie called The Chain about removal men trying to do a chain of seven moves in one day. One of the people being moved (played, I think, by Nigel Hawthorne) took all the lightbulbs and door handles. He was not a sympathetic character.

If I remember rightly he even had to hop back as he'd remembered he'd left a ball of rubber bands in a kitchen drawer...

The one who took the back gate at our first house (amongst other things) sent his elderly father back for some plastic curtain track fittings left on a windowsill

Do you really want to go and get on a ladder and undo every single LED bulb? No you don't. They are likely a quarter the price now, and better than the ones you bought in the first place.

You'll have better light and better karma if you replace the ones in your new place with new LEDs. Also, the planet will love you.

We were packed for on our last move by the removals company. Our stuff went into storage for a few weeks. When we moved into the new house I was surprised to see that they had packed all of our lightbulbs. I asked about it and they said that it was standard practice.