Do you still use incandescent light bulbs?

I’m switching over to mostly CFL’s since I had a bunch sent to me free courtesy of the local power company. I just pop a good one in when an incan dies and I’ll get there with the process eventually. Most of the time the only light on here is my only LED bulb; a Sylvania 40W equivalent on my desk. I don’t like the 2700K color but it was free and I ain’t rich or complaining! There will always be an Incan at my radio desk to keep RF noise down; that’s the only situation I know where the old is better than the new!

Phil

In that case, then yes. I still have a few. But more than half are now CFL

> amber … midnight snacks
Yep, that’s the reason — to be able to snack without having trouble going back to sleep.

Incandescent because, well, it’s what I found available at the hardware store 20 years ago and they’re still working fine.
Amber coated 25-watt bulbs from Ace Hardware.

Being incandescent the color rendering is very good because it’s a continuous spectrum, just with the blue end cut off — not a narrow LED amber emitter but rather an amber ‘color temperature’

My only incan is my bedside lamp for reading.

I realized most of my lights are not Compact fluorescent but the long tubed ones.
Are they even classed as CFL?

I moved to CFLs years ago as soon as they started becoming moderately affordable. Due in large part to the reduced electric bill, as they use less energy, and dump less heat into the house, requiring less energy to A/C back out. In NE Texas, humidity is very high, 90%+, the summers are about six months long, and 100+F days are common, so we already run the AC a lot. I preferred the CFL and LED bulbs for the increased comfort caused by not pushing all of that heat into the house.

At this time, I have five incandescent bulbs in my house that I can think of:

  1. In the garage door opener
  2. In the microwave oven
  3. In the conventional oven
  4. In the freezer
  5. In the attic (as the incan bulb can take being left in the severe heat all summer)

I've been primarily using CFL bulbs, but am now migrating to a larger number of LED bulbs, due in part to (Shill-On!) Lowe's new low pricing on their Utilitech bulbs (Shill-Off!)

My largest frustration is thatlight manufacturers have switched to the "Specialty" E12/Candelabra base fixtures. Now I'm stuck having to buy extremely overpriced E12 CFLS, while affordable LED replacements have been impossible to find. I have a drawer full of unused incan bulbs taking up space now, that I have no use for, courtesy of this change...

If you’re a little bit handy with a screwdriver and a set of pliers, you can buy replacement sockets at Lowe’s in the Electrical and/or lighting department. I did that once, because I bought a ceiling fan that came with four sockets for those worthless “High Output” bulbs. The socket size is just larger than a candelabra. After changing the sockets, I put four “100W equivalent” CFL’s in them and had some real light!

Wow, high temperatures AND high humidity, that must be terrible!! Like a jungle!

95 % of my house is now LED, with a couple CFL and only three Incan in the three outdoor motion lights. (the LED bulbs seem to flicker in my motion-light fixtures.)

So you’ve never eaten green/furry meat/cheese/milk/etc? It’s not very tasty…

I just had a Sylvaina 10W/95CRI/PAR20 bulb die in the kitchen. The fixture it is in is hell on bulbs. It has killed lots of halogens and one other LED bulb.

My house has around 300 LED bulbs. The only hot-wire bulbs are in the fridges and microwaves/ovens… they don’t count. No CFLs… never had ’em, never will…

Garage door openers are hell on incandescent bulbs. The vibration kills them… even the ruggedized specialty bulbs. They were some of the first bulbs I LED’d and have never had a failure since. The old incandescent bulbs even melted/cracked the sockets and discolored the bulb cover.

I have 3 x 100W eq CFLs, and the rest are 60W eq LED (purchased for $5 each or less). Hopefully the CFLs last a few more years then 100W LEDs fall in price. I put a 60W eq LED in the fridge to replace 40W incandescent, it is amazingly bright now!
I calculated the fridge bulb saves me 15 cents a year based on fridge open time, electricity saved and reduced heat generation

[quote=texaspyro]

Good for you! No toxic mercury in your house. Should also make sure you don’t have mercury thermostats and other toxic chemicals around.

I really suggest you don’t use a CFL in your fridge. First of all, if it’s the bare spiral type, the only thing between you and your food, and toxic mercury vapors and phosphors, is some very thin glass. That could easily break and sprinkle tiny bits of glass coated with toxic phosphors and absorbed with mercury all over your food.

If you have a CFL in your fridge, it really really should be a covered one. Then if you hit the bulb, you only break the glass shell but not the tube.

The best thing you should do is put LEDs in there.

I meant LED, long night.

The mercury bit is a red herring anyways, its contained and less mercury is in a bulb then is produced by power plants burning fossil fuels and releasing into the atmosphere.

Yes true, but there’s still the phosphor coated glass. And the phosphors are toxic I think.

You should know the issues before spouting them, the ‘phosphor’ is inside the glass

I know it is, but I mean when it breaks.

Bulb breaks are not common, how many have you broken?

No, they aren’t, but they can happen, and if you have some hard dishes or pots or whatever in your refridgerator on the top shelf near the light bulb, there is a chance you could accidentally break the bulb as you slide the dish/pot out of the shelf and it lets loose and slides farther than you wanted.

It’s rare, but it does happen.

Speaking of still using incandescents…
I just now changed two incandescent bulbs in two similar fixtures not used much in rooms not used much… Both fixtures each had one CFL and incan, and I found out that the incan bulb in both fixtures was a Sunbeam 130v 60w bulb… must’ve been from Dollar Tree; and I saw a video about it just recently from Parrot175. Interesting.
I found an interesting 20w SATCO or whatever the name was CFL in one fixture; huge bulb for a tiny room… so I changed that and replaced both with a 9w… bla bla bla…