That’s a good point. Here in Germany most people don’t have AC. We only need it for around one month year. Heating on the other hand for a few months.
Using light bulbs for heating still doesn’t make sense though. They are too weak to be effektive and they would also heat your home when you don’t actually want heating.
My stupid neighbors replaced all their outdoor lights with cheap ultra turbo bright 8000k LED lighting. They are an irritating eyesore in the neighborhood
And let’s not forget that incandescent themselves are not 100% efficient at producing heat.
Computers and resistor based heating is 100% efficient however.
@RobertB, OK wut?!
That’s… bad.
CFL’s can also tend to burn at failure which happened to me, after which all were tossed in the trash on orders of the Misses.
Now slowly proceeding to LED’s (buying when on sale) as the the old incandescent’s burn out. But not the bright white cool blue crappy ones.
LED’s are not all that they are cracked up to be IMHO, as compared to the natural light incandescents provide. Also several of the LED’s I bought within the last few years have burned out already, well before the advertised life span claimed by these lights.
NO! We looked at this and wound up replacing the entire warehouse and office fixtures with LED fixtures and bulbs. The payout is fantastic, and the light is much better than florescent as well. The electricity bill dropped a bunch.
Maybe its your fittings LED bulbs are not meant to be enclosed?
Is there moisture around the fitting?
In my house we have candelabras and they hang with bulbs facing upright and dirt and dust builds up inside and creates issues.
I’ve moved all of my spare CFL bulbs into the rental properties as I picked up great deals on 60 and 40w LED equivalents when Lowes puts them on sale for a couple dollars each. Now I’m gradually converting the rentals to led.
I’ve gotten some brand name ones recently that had horrible tint, and I returned them. I’ve been using some better ones in my own house for a couple of years now, and I don’t think I’ve burned one out yet.
My 2 cents - I like the LEDs a lot for the efficiency, longevity, and tint, for the most part, after trying different ones. To me, the 60w are great for overhead room lights, basement & porch, and 100w in the garage. HOWEVER, I have about 3 reading lamps and 2 three way lamps that all get used after dark, and they still have 40w soft traditional incan bulbs & incan 3 ways. As of today, I have not yet found a pleasing enough LED bulb to replace them.
zen
This is an interesting thread. It is illuminating (pun intended) to go back to the thread’s origin in 2012. My, my: How LEDs have taken over. It is all but impossible to find general purpose CFL’s in the store these days. And incandescent lights? I am saving one to show my grandkids.
I have kept careful record of my electricity usage since 2010. I’ve watched consumption drop (I am in the same house) from 6,617KWH in 2010 to 4,102KWH this past year - a 38% drop. While not all of the decrease is due to my conversion to LEDs, about half of it is. The other half comes from more efficient appliances. If I had used 6617KWH this year it would have cost me $1,401. Using only 4,102KWH cost me $868.39, a savings of over $500 - about what I spent on LED flashlights this year. 
Perhaps it is no surprise that the electric utility company here keeps raising its rates - justifying the increases to cover their fixed costs in the face of declining electricity consumption. I paid $868.39 for 4,102KWHs this year. Guess what I paid for 6,617KWHs in 2010? $868.93 
Yet there is another reason I am happy to have made the conversion - and it has nothing to do with preventing global warming/reducing my carbon footprint/saving the world from climate change/blah…blah…blah. No, am happy because I have all but eliminated the regular chore of changing burnt out light bulbs. I have yet to have a single LED expire. LEDs are like Methuselah - they will outlive me (I’m kind of old). Imagine: No more climbing on chairs and ladders to change them. No more bulbs to buy. LEDs are the Holy Grail, the Promised Land of lighting.
Hallelujah! Shine thy everlasting LED upon me.
Yeah, about 5% is wasted as light…
The longevity of LEDs is questionable, I’ve had $6 bulbs last less than a year, as well as 2/$1 bulbs.
Cost doesn’t seem to matter.
wle
The longevity of the leds themselves is fine, however cheap or expensive, it is the electronics that is often not on the same level as the leds. I hope that there is a development going on that brings the electronics last as long as the leds.
right - it;s some semiconductor thing burned out due to heat - or in really cheap lights, crimped connections to 120VAC that vibrate loose
or - dreaded failure - they just start flashing
probably the overheat detector falsing out
wle
What kind of fixtures did you use?
I’m talking about high-cri lighting for home (and maybe office) use, nothing else. I’m not talking about warehouses.
A modern 940 (90CRI, 4000K) T8 (or better T5) fluorescent tube from Osram (or Philips) like this one inside an efficient fixture in combination with an electronic ballast (not a starter) has a very long lifetime and a similar efficiency compared to the above mentioned Philips Master LED ExpertColor GU10 halogen replacement spots. The fluoro does 80lm/W, the Philips led spots do 90-100lm/W.
But it all depends. If you need high lux values in your work area, spot fixtures might be better. But I’m note sure if high-cri LED flouro tube replacements even exist? Most offices only have 80cri lighting where the efficiency advantage of LEDs is greater (less red content in the spectrum).
I’ve never had an LED bulb burn out. That said, I’ve had most of my first gen Cree LED blub glass globes fall off due to the carppy glue they used to attach the globe to the base. I’ve since been using Philips consumer grade 60 watt LED non-dimmable bulbs in my outdoor fixtures for over a year now. They run 12 hours every night and not one failure.
For years i had few failures, now i have a few LED failures.
One Philips LED, they sent me a gift card.
4 Feit failures, 2 buzzing so replaced at store within 1 year, 2 flicker, 1 replaced by mail, other on the way.
A Bazz bulb (no name brand), replaced by mail.
Years ago I installed a bathroom lamp that required GU10 bulbs, bought a 10 pack in my local store and none of them lasted more than a month. The problem was that they used a LED board with low Vf and generic transformer that was putting out 3.5V, overdriving the emitters.
Last year I bought new bulbs and they have worked fine ever since. They were cheap and had great tint and CRI. LED wasn’t very reliable say 5 years ago, but there’s no reason to not go with it now.
I think they over drive the LEDs in cheap lights and / or don’t address heat management (no cooling).
I had a nicely built LED E27 bulb once (i still have the shell somewhere) which apparently pushed too much current through the LEDs.
So they burned up, despite the chunky aluminium heatsink…
The quality of fluorescent lighting is extremely sensitive to the lamps you use. In most industrial environments, the cheapest lamps they can find are used, and almost by definition, they don’t look very good. If you are willing to pay more for the lamps, you can get much better color rendition as well as efficiency. I have made extensive use of very high CRI fluorescent lamps, generally GE SPX series lamps. The bind is the really good stuff isn’t cheap. Years ago when living in Phoenix I lit my family room with 12 F40 SPX lamps. The bad news was that in case quantities, the lamps were $9 each at the time, and they were sufficiently exotic that nobody in town actually stocked them, and Phoenix is not exactly a small town. I ended buying them directly from GE, they had stock. I was very happy with the result, and most of my guests never even guessed it was fluorescent lighting.
Ok, that makes sense. I’ve also noticed that 90CRI tubes are hard to get in stores here in Germany (although a lighting store can probably order them for you). However they’re easy to get online and cheap (3-5€/tube). Electronic ballasts (EVGs) are also quite cheap, usually they are included with the lamp housings.
I’ve seen these high hat flood light casings (BR30 bulb) that have CFL type bulbs inside them, still for sale. So they’re still in production?
Philips makes a great BR30 LED bulb. You can get them in 2700k or 5000k. Dimmable. No buzzing. The 2700k has a nice natural color that would make you swear they are incandescent.