Remodel Kitchen » cfl

LED Light

Ken — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 07:21:31 +0000

Through a generous discount, I was able to purchase a pair of LED lights from a local hardware store. So, for the past few months, I’ve been waiting for one of my incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs to burn out. Tonight, my opportunity finally arrived and the incandescent was the victim. So, in its place, I installed a Pharox LED Light 60 Bulb. Since I have a mix of incandescent, fluorescent and now LED bulbs installed next to each other in my ceiling lights, I can easily compare all of them. The LED light appears dimmer than the other bulbs and has a bit of a blue/green cast. Of course, the warmth of the light is only noticeable when I stare at the ceiling. When I am normally working, the problem is not obvious.

At 6 watts, the LED light should be more energy efficient than a CFL. What remains to be seen is whether it will last the promised “25 years.” My CFLs generally do not last the 10,000 hours promised, so I would be very surprised if the LED bulb lasts until October 2035.

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UFL-CF26TE/835 Goes Kaput

Ken — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:43:25 +0000

In California, the 2005 Building Energy Efficiency Standards require the installation of high-efficacy lighting. And, to prevent you from swapping high cost fluorescents with low cost incandescents, screw-in CFLs do not count. So, 2 1/2 years into this energy saving experiment, our first triple tube 4-pin fluorescent failed. So much for that 10,000 hours average rated lifetime. I guess the plug-in CFLs fail just as well as the screw-in CFLs.

Anyways, our triple tube 4-pin fluorescent was installed in a bathroom. If the bulb stayed lit for 2-3 hours a day for 2 1/2 years, that comes to 1,825-2,737 hours. In reality, our usage is probably far less than that. How weak. 25% of its average rated lifetime. Now I have to hunt for an expensive replacement bulb.

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Dimmable Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb

Ken — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:46:45 +0000

In November, I replaced a pair of light bulbs in one of my ceiling lights. Tonight, the light bulbs in the other ceiling light also burned out. However, instead of replacing the burned out light bulbs with incandescent lights, I installed a pair of U Lighting America dimmable compact fluorescent light bulbs.

So, this is the first time I have ever used dimmable CFLs. At full power, the dimmable CFL works just like a standard CFL. At anything less than full power, the dimmable CFL hums. At the lowest dimmer setting, the dimmable CFL flickers. So, while the CFL is technically “dimmable,” the humming and flickering basically renders this feature useless.

The only upside to this is that I now have two ceiling lights side-by-side with different types of bulbs that were installed at relatively the same time: one with incandescent light bulbs and one with dimmable CFLs. So now, it’s a durability contest between them to see which one lasts the longest. Theoretically, the CFLs should win. However, theoretically, these CFLs are dimmable as well.

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