Disagree with wife over bulb temp, Help

Some last longer than incandescent. Their quality is quite variable. They may save enough electricity to pay for themselves, but in our use, probably not. They're ugly, the light quality is poor, they're slow to start, and don't work worth shit in cold weather. Other than that, they're perfect. ;-)

I replaced the incandescents in the basement of this house with CFLs, at least until I can replace them with T-8s. The previous owner left them in the ceiling fan in the bed room. They'll go soon enough (ugly).

Other than the basement, our lights aren't on long enough for CFLs to save any money. ...and they're ugly.

Rosco makes color correcting gels and filters. For $2 (or thereabouts), order their Swatchbook from BHPhoto or Adorama and then sit down with the Mrs. to find a solution you can both live with.

then sit down with the Mrs. to find a solution you can both live with.

If the spectral components you want to emphasize are weak it's going to be difficult to get good results with a filter.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

To the OP

get a dimmer

you'll both like it

Mark

One teensy problem, CFL lamps do not work well with dimmers. Oh Well.

?-)

I'm not sure what problem. Many years ago I rewired a living room 500 watt halogen to cfl. The cfl was bought at the home depot. Using the same dimmer, I didn't see any problem. There was a threshold, but I have thresholds with incandescent lamps too. The bulb cost $15-20. It had a wonderful color. I'm not sure if I have come across the same color tone lately. Moving, I broke the cfl, and the home depot quit selling them. I bought some FEIT ceiling dim-able spots at Costco. A complete joke, garbage. Appears to be a design thing.

Greg

so don't use CFLs,

you can still buy incandescent..

and they keep you warm in the winter so you can turn the heat down a bit

??? Mark

Some are designed to run on dimmers, and others aren't Running the second type on a dimmer can set the thing on fire, because the thing is trying to run on a much higher peak current than when it is run without a dimmer.

Did you call in a hazardous clean up team to decontaminate? Or close off that part of the house?

Mikek

I put in a 23 watt 5000K bulb, she thinks it's the 6500K bulb she bought, so all is well. She does *accommodate me if she hears me coming to the kitchen by changing lights. I do notice this this bulbs is not as harsh as the original.

Mikek

• It's only a morning thing, before I become light adjusted.

For another couple of weeks. Maybe. I needed a couple of 100W incandescent bulbs yesterday. Of course no one had them.

No, you still have to set the thermostat to the same temperature. That's sorta how they work.

Not needed, they're already dim ;-)

-- "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." (Richard Feynman)

te:

l.

no you CAN turn the thermostat down...

the bulbs are typically near you so you feel the heat directly and can have the overall room colder for the saem level of comfort...

also the heat from the bulb does warm up the overall room (a little) so the furnace does not need to run as long (a little) in order to satisfy the thermostat.

Either way you look at it, in the winter, the heat from the bulb is NOT wasted.

Mark

I think it actually broke outside. Oh yes, they were specified dimmable. I don't know how much variation there is amongst various dimmers.

Greg

My random bargain-brand CFLs have always run great. That's mostly what I use. Bare. The slow-starters are annoying, but most start quickly these days. With no enclosure I get plenty of life. And, some have decent light quality. Not as good as a halogen, of course.

I'm using a string of LED Christmas lights in the basement, as a quasi- nightlight for navigation. Saves me cycling the T-12 fluorescents' filaments on the occasional scouting mission. $4. Draws 2W. I might throttle it down later, so they'll last forever.

If you hug them, perhaps.

So you agree that you're wrong.

Obviously. The thermostat is still a thermostat.

Either you're damned lucky or blind. ;-) I've never seen a CFL that was "instant on" or wasn't ugly as sin. The bulb is part of the fixture for most of my lamps.

I need more light than that even for a "scouting mission". Maybe when I was 20. ;-)

I've got a guy who does work around the house for pretty cheap as my hip keeps me from doing some things and makes everything hard. He does electrical and has been putting in a few fixtures when I find some I like. I tried some 3" CFL fixtures in an open hallway ceiling and they give off ok light, but the tiny, bright sources aren't very nice in your eyes if you look at them.

I'm thinking of adding some lighting to the basement stairs and I don't want to have that same problem which would be in spades with the lights at eye level going down the stairs. It occurred to me that an LED tape might be better, a lot of little spots rather than a few very bright spots. The only one I've found is about $100 for 15 foot (five meters) of tape with coupling adapters and the power supply. I think the tape is around $75-$80 of that. Seems rather high. Also, they don't spec the brightness. Know of anything similar that is brighter than holiday lights and won't break the bank? I'd also like to add this to my deck railing which would be some 60 feet. I haven't seen anything like this at the hardware stores. I haven't done a google search yet. It just occurred to me the last couple of days.

Rick

I think you will find they are dimmable with "most" or "some" dimmers. I bought a $10 60 Watt equivalent, dimmable LED bulb and a dimmer only to find they weren't compatible. The LED couldn't be dimmed by any dimmer I had in the house. The funny part is it worked ok on the dimmed settings, but when I stepped it up to full brightness it would get brighter for a moment and then got very dim. All three dimmers are the dim, bright, brighter types.

I think I ended up putting the LED bulb in the new ceiling fixture over the shower and found that it is a bit *too* bright for that. Now I need to keep the durn shower a lot cleaner, lol.

Rick