What's up with light bulbs?
 

Went to Home Depot today to buy a 3-way bulb for a lamp in my living room. Geez, they hardly sell incandescent bulbs anymore. They don't carry any incandescent above 60W (aside from 3-ways).

SO...guess I have to start making the switch. Choices appear to be LED or Fluorescent. What about 3-way bulbs and dimmers? Anyone converted fully? Worth it?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'm starting to buy the fluorescents for the same reason. I hate the delayed turn on and slow warm to full brightness, I guess that called progress? On the upside they last a long time, and the color temperature is a decent approximation of soft white bulbs.

Banned.

We've been hoarding.

The road to heaven must be paved with bad intentions!

Go with LED...no warm up delay, better dimming and better light quality. Ya they cost more but you'll only be replacing them every 20+ years or so

i will miss being able to toast a marshmallow with a desk lamp.

They are getting better these days. The latest ones I've bought are bright almost (almost...) straight away. I've been getting the 23 watt ones.

buy those screw in Y adapters so you can put two CFLs where one incandescent bulb used to be to get enough light.

I hate CFLs and hate the flicker some have even worse. (I'm the guy that had to crank up the refresh rate on old CRT monitors.) Drives me nuts. I'm slowly making the transition to LED. The CREE brand LEDs sold at Home Depot work well. We'll see how long they last but instant on and bright they have covered. -J

The dimmable flourescents are horrible! I bought 15 of them for a basement project 3 years ago. I have burned out 6. I am now in the process of replacing them with standard floods.

[rant on]The story of CFLs is littered with crappy Chinese units that take forever to come to full light and short life. The idiots who banned incandescent lights forgot that some applications need full light quickly and would be turned off shorty after you turn them on (think bathroom or closet use).

I dislike the light from most LEDs. A few years ago traffic lights started using LEDs. A few years later they are hard to find. Do you think this was an accident?. [/rant off]

At out house we go through CFLs at probably twice the rate of the old style.

<green>At least CFLs don't contain anything hazardous...<green>

Someone say dimming? What, now you want luxury plus mood? Forget it. Gotta to save power, but the cost of electricity continues to go up. Now we are at even money, but somehow ended up with a sihty light. What's up with that.

This... I started using fluorescent but they don't last long enough to make it worth while.
I've just replaced two spot lights in my kitchen with LEDS. They should last much longer than fluorescent but they were $25 each!

You should be able to get efficient halogens for dimable lights.

I don't see a problem. I stop using incandescent voluntarily years ago. They last longer than than any incandescent I had installed. The only time I have had problems with CFL's was in a torch lamp with a rheostat. Even though I kept it on full, it chewed threw them. I finally went to an LED in that light and no further problems. Electricity bill is going down as well. Most of the remaining CFL's are 10+ years old. Got my monies worth and more.

The lifespan of the average incandescent is 1.5 years. The LED I am using has a 8 year warranty Can't beat that either.

It's funny when I hear people mention "toxic" and CFL and then have a fit. I have never heard anyone complain about shop lights (aka the big FL's). They break all the time in shops and when they burn out we all toss them in the trash. That's a lot of mercury that no one complains about, but they complain about the mercury in CFL's.

My only complaint about my first LED, was that it put out light comparable to daylight and it really screwed with me late at night and made me feel weird. I bought another that was closer to incandescent and problem was solved.

So concensus is use CFLs in on/off light applications and LED where there's a dimmer??

I'll switch my CFL's over to LED's when they die. But yes, avoid CFL's in dimmers.

Or use a halogen with a dimmer. (if you can find them)

Don't waste your money on CFLs. Their life is SIGNIFICANTLY shorter than LEDs. LEDs only cost marginally more, are instant on, and live 35,000-50,000 hours!!! Shop around for warm color; they are available.