Good Old Light Bulbs On Super Sale

[Rusty Heap]

Don't know if the good old standard light bulb is going to be banned in the near future, (seen both yea and nay on the news lately) but I HATE the spiral compact CFL bulbs with a passion.

Just passing on to other bright light lovers, that Home Depot has a 16 pack, of 60-100watt bulbs, on super truckload sale price of $2.97 (they're also selling out quickly in some stores)

Box of 16 bulbs for $3 bucks? I bought 20 boxes worth, so 320 100watt bulbs I stocked up on should last me a few years. I use them in all outdoor light fixtures and out in my shop.

Electricity in 90% of the USA is dirt cheap, I think we pay $.09 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour, so you can run TEN hundred watt light bulbs for an hour, for only 10 cents. leave the lights on, I hate dark houses!

[pwd72s]

Good on ya Dave. I stockpiled incadescents quite some time ago. But, maybe I'll add some more 100's?

After all, they don't wear out in storage...they keep forever.

[look 171]

We can't get 100 W around here anymore. I want to stock up on low voltage Halogen lamps but do not have the room. I must have put them in 95% of job I have done for clients over the past 10-15years. I really hope they do not ban those.

[Zeke]

I disliked CFL's at first. You get used to them outside in the beginning and them some on the inside. They may not be all the environmentally good, but they do last a long time. In my case anyway. I could do away with standard bulbs, but I do like dimmers on a lot of fixtures. Now I see that CFL's come in a dim-able version. I have never seen one dimmed, so I don't know if I would like the color temp.

Thanks for the tip. I will stock up for posterity, if nothing else.

[Rusty Heap]

It's the 1 minute full brightness warm up time and dismal performance, as well as they're $$$ to buy.

I still can't believe 16 bulbs for $3. Not to hoard them and be selfish, but if they ban them betcha I could sell 4 bulbs for $5 in five years on Craigslist/Ebay.

Must
Not
Go
Back
and buy
MORE.

tempting tho'

[masraum]

I've swapped most of my house to CFL except for fixtures that take special bulbs. We have some recessed lighting that seems to go through regular bulbs like mad. I've got one regular bulb, one CFL, and one LED. The LED seems to be a really nice bulb, but holy carp at the $$$. The only issue with the LED is that there's an extra half a second delay when you flip the light switch before it comes on.

[MysticLlama]

I have some dimmable CFLs, they are okay, not great though. Dimmable LEDs work better.

I have a lot of CFLs of various sizes and temps from shuffling around getting all the rooms how I wanted, so at this point I switch them to LEDs as they die. Not cheap, but someone has to help the volume so the price will come down.

I think I'm up to 15-16 LED bulbs, the rest are mostly CFL, and a couple of T8 fixtures were replaced with T5s.

Between the high efficiency HVAC, weatherizing, and management of lighting, we have a pretty cheap power bill.

Most people are impressed with the light quality of our main bathroom, which runs on less than 100w.
2x T5 26w = 52w
5x 3w LED Pucks = 15w
2x 13w CFLs = 26w

=93w total, looks way better than a single 100w bulb.

(I did go through quite a few bulb combinations to get the color right, etc. though)

[RWebb]

just use Halogens

[Mrmerlin]

Thanks for the heads up I got 96 100 w for just under 20.00

[gr8fl4porsche]

I assume those are the builders packs?

Good thing you bought a lot as you will most likely need them.

I bought (64) 65W floods from HD last year for a buck a piece - builders grade bulbs which cost about a third of the price of a standard bulb. Everyone has already been replaced. They lasted a couple months tops. Lots burned out after 50-80 hours of use.

Hopefully you will have better luck.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gr8fl4porsche

I assume those are the builders packs?

Good thing you bought a lot as you will most likely need them.

I bought (64) 65W floods from HD last year for a buck a piece - builders grade bulbs which cost about a third of the price of a standard bulb. Everyone has already been replaced. They lasted a couple months tops. Lots burned out after 50-80 hours of use.

Hopefully you will have better luck.

Yep, we put in recessed lighting and used the cheap 65W floods. They are crap. I went through my wiring once to make sure I didn't have a crap connection somewhere, but it's just the crap bulbs. I put a CFL in, but I don't like the warm up "feature" of those. I have put one LED flood in, and my wife really like's the light output. The bulb was ridiculously expensive, but puts out good light, and hopefully, will last a long time.

[Rusty Heap]

Nope, don't see anything on the package that says contractor grade or cheap sheet boxed within.

But at 20 cents each for the 16/$3 pack, big woop dee doo.


VERY interesting on your flood light long-gevity tho'......sometimes you do have to wonder when they state "double life" or such on the box. For the 65 watt floods, I assume you were using these outside, or indoor? I know outside and thermal extremes do shorten bulb life.

I know for a fact, CFL's are great in Shop Drop lights, as normal bulbs elements don't last long when "you drop" the light.

Looking at Lowes.com, LED and CFLS are stupid expensive, and honestly I wonder how many years you have to run them to even break even? As I said, electricity is cheap at 9-10 cents a kilowatt hour in Seattle.

Now in Hawaii, I think it's like 27-29 cents/KWH. Triple the cost.

[MysticLlama]

Payback on LEDs is a really long time in Seattle, like 15 years or something, so yeah, I'm not winning any battles there.

It is kinda cool though that for two years running I've reduced usage over the same perior prior year by a fair amount each period.

[Geary]

When our kids house was hit by lightning last year (frying most of the house circuitry), I banned all CFLs in both our homes. Every one of those could have popped, releasing mercury gas on our grand kids.

[Rusty Heap]

The whole "payback" and ROI reminds me a buying a brand new full sized pickup truck back in 1998, my work-horse still is a Dodge V10 488 cu inch motor. Sweet engine, tons of hp and torque and the exhaust rumble is SWEET.

People always asked "that's a huge inefficient gas engine, why didn't you get a diesel?"

the diesel back then was a $7000 engine option. Yes they got 6-8 better MPG. But you're still spending that $7K up front. I ran the math, and the engine would pay for itself in 100,000 miles. Only then could you say "I'm saving money".

Life is short, I'll take the 11 mpg and do 0-40 in 4 seconds with a smile on my face in my truck.

P.S. Prius's Suckkk. Life is so much more than about MPG

[Rusty Heap]

double post, website died.


I like turtles.



'specially while diving with them at 60-100' deep on scuba.


Meka-leka-hi-meka-hinney-ho

[gr8fl4porsche]

Nope, don't see anything on the package that says contractor grade or cheap sheet boxed within.



But at 20 cents each for the 16/$3 pack, big woop dee doo.





VERY interesting on your flood light long-gevity tho'......sometimes you do have to wonder when they state "double life" or such on the box. For the 65 watt floods, I assume you were using these outside, or indoor? I know outside and thermal extremes do shorten bulb life.



I know for a fact, CFL's are great in Shop Drop lights, as normal bulbs elements don't last long when "you drop" the light.



Looking at Lowes.com, LED and CFLS are stupid expensive, and honestly I wonder how many years you have to run them to even break even? As I said, electricity is cheap at 9-10 cents a kilowatt hour in Seattle.



Now in Hawaii, I think it's like 27-29 cents/KWH. Triple the cost.

Floods were used in interior can lights. They were not marked builders grade but that is what they were. The were put on sale on pallets in the lighting area of the store.

Heavily discounted trash.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by MysticLlama

Payback on LEDs is a really long time in Seattle, like 15 years or something
...

payback times are usually 3 years for LEDs, less for CFLs

I got a bunch of CFLs for free from my elec. utility

[MysticLlama]

Originally Posted by RWebb

payback times are usually 3 years for LEDs, less for CFLs

I got a bunch of CFLs for free from my elec. utility

Only if compared to incandecents. If you're already running or willing to run CFLs, the savings on LEDs isn't that much more.

Though sometimes you can get a deal, I replaced some downlights that were 14w CFLs with 7w LEDs that I only paid $10 for, so that's not too bad.

Easier to get stuff with a better light pattern is more like 12w replacing the 14w, and $30 or so, that takes a long time to pay back with cheap rates.

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by masraum

Yep, we put in recessed lighting and used the cheap 65W floods. They are crap. I went through my wiring once to make sure I didn't have a crap connection somewhere, but it's just the crap bulbs. I put a CFL in, but I don't like the warm up "feature" of those. I have put one LED flood in, and my wife really like's the light output. The bulb was ridiculously expensive, but puts out good light, and hopefully, will last a long time.

I posted the same problem here, and an issue with the lighting in my bathrooms. I have 40+ canned lights in my house, at any given time 3 bulbs at a time just die. However turn them back on a few hours later and they work again. Some of these bulbs are 20+ feet up and a pain to change as well.

I also had an issue with the fact that we have/had 20 some odd "globe" lights in each of the master suite bathrooms. Not only did they also burn out often, they put an tremendous amount of heat. I was sweating shaving under the lights in fact. The can lights also put out a lot of heat. (fine in the winter I suppose)

I believe it was Randy that suggested I try LED floods and they have worked brilliantly. (pun intended) They run very cool, in fact I don't feel any heat at all, and they always work. Plus I actually like the light quality better than the cfl's, halogens or the incandescent.

I know I'll never get my money back, but they are a very, very nice way to light your house, or at least my house.

Just my .02.