Still burning after 35 years

I bought 9.5 watt warm white LED bulbs from Costco last year on sale for 50 cents each. They are even dimmable. I replaced all the incandescent bathroom bulbs which had a mixture of 60, 75, and 100 watt bulbs. So in total I replaced 19 bulbs and went from 1,250 watts down to 180.5 watts. Amazing! They don’t dim as well as the incandescent bulbs, but appear brighter and still have a nice tint. None have failed yet.

I got a 100W bulb blazing bright 24/7 under the patio to keep the pipes from freezing in this coldwave.

The inside valve is cranked shut as tight as possible, but still “trickles”, ie, opening the outside valve to drain the pipe still leaves a constant trickle that never stops.

So, a 100W heater should help…

When I lived in the woods, I had to replace incans every month or two. Power fluctuated enough to hammer them. I bought a CFL when they were very expensive and I don’t think I ever had to replace it. Probably 7 years or so till I moved.

My problem is I use incans to keep pipes from freezing. Getting harder to find high wattage lamps now.

Most problems with bulbs not lasting are spikes in voltage (AKA dirty power) coming into your home. Usually bulbs rated for 130v alleviates it

Dirty power, effects every electrical item connected to your main feed power source.

Bad wires, loose connections, overloading, also contribute to voltage fluctuation.

I’m surprised you like the tint in a bathroom. I replaced our incandescent bathroom lights with warm-white LED bulbs, but they made us look like we had a liver disease. I went back to incan lights.

I had that problem when I used 2700K LED bulbs. Switched to 3000K and now it looks much better. To match my incandescent I guess 3200K or so is needed.

Of course that is true, but dependent on where you are located. Where I live excess heat is the enemy. The A/C runs many hours, uses more energy, than our furnace. The thought of operating an incandescent with an illumination efficient of no more than 3% while operating the A/C to remain cool is abhorrent to me. We have 98% LED’s which are better with maybe a luminous efficiency of up to 20%. Still a long way to go, so that new technology is of interest.

You can buy the high CRI Hyperikon bulbs. Won’t make you look like you have liver disease

These are the LED bulbs I got. Apparently 90+ CRI. No complaints from the family.

Edited to replace a picture.

FEIT also makes an LED household lamp with a built in small battery that gives 2 or 3 hours of use if the power fails.

I read somewhere (pre internet) that lightbulbs made in the communist bloc countries lasted for ages as there was no incentive to give them a shortened lifespan other than to give the workers in the Glorious Soviet Lightbulb Factory something to do.

Could be true, but I’m pretty sure as time went on their quality of manufacturing degraded tremendously as well. As it is easily seen with Soviet era vehicles and weapons the earlier ones were well built with the good manufacturing and quality materials but several decades later the same vehicles/weapons were being made with poor quality materials and failed more often. No incentive works both ways, no incentive to keep producing top of the line products anymore :smiling_imp: .

Freezing pipes you say lol. It was 42 degrees Celsius here yesterday i am happy i changed most of light to LEDs less power usage and less heat. Most of the LED bulbs for sale here are 90+ CRI. I was probably one of the last people to change from incandescent to LEDS i didn’t like the CFL bulbs so i kept using the incandescent for a lot longer and the price of LEDs was to high. I have been able to get 1000+ lumen bulbs for under $5 on sale here. Bonus i also get more light output in a 60w socket before it would be around 800 lumen max now i have lights running 1400 lumens. Plus considering that incans may cost $3+ here and on sale comparable LEDS are $5 or $6 each its well worth the investment.

In my house incandescent dont last that long seeing as some lights stay on all night i have seen an improvement with LEDs in life spans.

Incandescent bulbs have advanced slightly they fill the bulbs with different gases to get better life spans and better wattage and use different filament materials.

Sums up how the heat has got me lol!

We have 8 can lights in our kitchen, they had 75 watt halogen bulbs in them when they were put in. They lasted about a year.
8 x 75=600 watts
8x 12=96 watts
so for a little more than one bulb we light the whole kitchen, and actually it’s brighter because the 12 watt bulbs I got put out more light than the halogen ones. the cost for the bulbs was about the same. The thing with LEDs is to get decent ones with good color. It is even more so than with flashlights. A lot of off brand ones have bad drivers and crummy leds and give some sort of bad light. Also they have been up there for about 4 years now with zero replacements. One has started to blink on occasion. So between the electricity and the $12 for the bulbs I figure I have saved at least $100 probably more. Of course these are the larger reflector bulbs. My choice had zero to do with any sort of government thing.

Replaced every light in the house last year when local power company partnered with Home Depot . Dropped the price to a buck a bulb .Never realized how many bulbs in a house . I think it was about 75 and I don’t have a overly large house. I guesstimate my bill dropped $10-$15 a month .

We’ve done the same. We’ve been in this house for 30+ years. The power bill is now for fewer kWh but more dollars. Pretty much everything that uses power has been replaced with more efficient units, but the cost per Kw has risen more.

Given the choice, I would rather a small electric bill and heat with piped natural gas, I realise not everyone has it but to go from gas>electricity>heat seems rediculous in my opinion when you can just burn gas>heat in a central heating system.

Oh DO NOT even get me started about the electric bills (LOL).

But my primary start to an LED shift was the “Ladder” lights in the house, in other words the 7 bulbs that require a ladder to change.
Then I swapped all the outdoors floodlights to LED which was cheaper to run AND almost twice as much light as before. I think about the farm I grew up in where we had a 90 watt incan by the back door and you’d turn it on and you could still barely see the barn out back so you still walked with a flashlight (Rayovac Sportsman anyone) As I get older and the eyes start to get weaker at night I’m very VERY happy for the improvements in lighting!

Never used CFL's but swapped out quite a few LED bulbs until I discovered that the $1.50 leds from Walmart were the ones I should have been getting as they never seem to fail. All mine that failed in the past were the more expensive GE leds.

I definitely had a bad run of GE bulbs. The Feit ones I’ve been using have all been great so far.