LED bulbs aaargh! Help please

[Jux]

We have new light fittings in our sitting room which have just been wired up today and we are looking for bulbs, LED for preference. I don't understand how this Wattage thing works.

The maximum wattage for the wall lights is 28W.

We used to have 60W old fashioned bulbs and they were crap and dark and gloomy.

So I can get a G9 LED at, say, 2.8W which is apparently equivalent to 35W.

To me, 35W is DARK!!!!! All it's going to do is make shadows. I'd rather have a bloody candle!

Please explain to me how a 35W output(?) is bringing light to my room. I simply don't understand how this works. Is there another equvalence I have to make after the one from 2.8W to 35W?

[mutters into beard grumpily}

Thank you.

How many bulbs are in the new fitting?

Amazon has a 7W G9 which it says is equivalent to 60W

Wattage isn't an output measurement. Light output is measured in lumens. It's hard to compare with G9 because the comparisons given at LED Hut are against halogen bulbs and I'm guessing your gloomy old fashioned bulbs weren't halogen?

Are the new light fittings in the same place as the old fittings? If they are then any shadows created by the old bulbs will be recreated by the new bulbs. More lumens means more contrast between the lit areas and the shadowed areas. The solution would be more and/or better located lights. If, on the other hand the issue was simply a lack of output, then more output will help.

Apparently a 60W incandescent is around 700 lumens and you would need roughly a 10W LED to achieve the same output.

www.thelightbulb.co.uk/resources/lumens_watts/

Unfortunately this is something that should have been worked out before you replaced the light fittings.

Thank you all.

Cruel, we can't have the lights anywhere other than where they are; the new fittings will allow more light to filter out from the bulbs anyway so I think it'll be an improvement whatever else we do, unless the bulbs really do only give the equivalent of 30W in old money.

I think there must be a difference in the type of light emitted by leds. I've read that the old bulbs emit more 'red' light and leds emit more 'blue' light. I reckon that might make them seem brighter too.

There is one bulb per fitting, but the fitting has glass bits which will reflect light, which may also help.

Everywhere round here has run out of G9 bulbs! Earliest delivery of more is next week.

As luck would have, dh bought some halogens today, but had picked up the wrong style, not G9s at all! Nutter

Be careful with high output halogens in wall lights. I got lovely lights from John Lewis and the tiny halogens ran so hot they failed and when I tried to replace them I found they had melted the bulb holder and all the lights were ruined. After replacing all the wall lights :-( I got some G4 LED bulbs from www.ultraleds.co.uk/led-bulbs/g4-led-bulbs.html Best to give a specialist a call as they can advise you on which exact bulb will work best. The trickiest thing is finding dimmable G4s. In the end I gave up on that and just got straight on/off G4s and put some of the other lights on dimmers.