Do you still use incandescent light bulbs?

[BVH]

14 left - 2 in the ovens, 6 in one particular ceiling fan to difficult to convert and 6 in small "can" lights in the kitchen that make the granite look purty. 76 each, 4', 5000K fluorescents and 115 LED's. Vast majority of LED's are 5000K with less than 5 ea., 2900K.

 

[idleprocess]

Pretty much all LED, CFL, and floro in my place. Let's do an inventory...

• Porch light is a 5000K EcoSmart 60W equivalent
• Living room has an entry light with candelabra-base bulbs - the sole primary fixture with incandecents. The ceiling fan in that room has CFL's. A similar fixture over the stairs has candelabra-base CFL's that suck.
• Dining room has a T5 circline floro fixture that replaced a gaudy builder-grade chandelier.
• Kitchen area has a 3000K bulb over the breakfast nook, 2 twin T8 floro fixtures lighting the kitchen, and a Utilitech 2700K 40W equivalent bulb over the pantry door that's been burning for more than 4 years continuously
• Back porch has a ceiling fan that's hopelessly broken - last incandescent in it died years ago so it's no longer used, similar to the back porch itself
• Downstairs bathroom is sporting a trio of Cree 4Flow bulbs - 2x 2700K, 1x 5000K 40W equivalent
• Utility room sporting one of the few can fixtures in the house has a Cree LED floodlamp in 5000K 60W equivalent
• Garage sports 3 twin T8 floro fixtures
• Upstairs hallway has a purpose-built 4000K LED flushmount fixture
• Office has 3x Cree 5000K 60W equivalent bulbs in the ceiling light fixture and a cheap EcoSmart 3000K 40W equivalent bulb in its closet
• Guest bedroom has 3x Philips 3000K 60W equivalent bulbs of a vintage that are somewhat failure-prone ... since that room is almost never used, not a big deal
• Upstairs bathroom has 4x Cree 4Flow 40W equivalent bulbs (2x 2700K, 2x 5000K)
• Master bedroom sports a crude color-mixing arrangement in the ceiling fan (1x 2700K, 1x 5000K) with limited effectiveness because the bulbs point opposite directions
• Master bathroom has 2x six-bulbs fixtures with a motley assortment of 2700K 40- and 60W-equivalent CFL's. Some ancient GE ~2700K highly directional LED bulb over the toilet.
• Master bedroom closet sports the same arrangement as the office closet

Sure, there are incandescents in the oven, stove hood, microwave, refrigerator, and dryer. No huge benefit to replacing any of those and only the refrigerator is a likely candidate for it anyway.

All the living room fixtures are going to go at some point in the future - they're gaudy builder-grade faux brass and I've replaced most of the fixtures in my house with brushed-nickel. Whenever someone makes a decent LED bulb (3200-3500K anyone? anyone?) I'll probably swap for some pendants for the two candelabra fixtures alongside a new ceiling fan and be done with it.

The master bathroom fixtures are where my collection of CFL's is slowly used up. Not looking forward to replacing them, but again the faux brass has got to go.

I've not mentioned my various homebrew LED lighting projects.

Actually, if you live in cold environments and need a heater, incandescents are actually a good option and you don't gain anything with using more efficient lighting. Incandescent bulbs are mini heaters and are actually very efficient. 80% of energy comes out as light (although most is infrared) and the rest is heat. (The "inefficiency" people talk about is actually "inefficacy"). So your incandescent light bulbs help heat your home.

This is the opposite in hot environments though.

Relative to the tens of kilowatts it takes to heat or cool a home, a few hundred watts of incandescent won't make much of a difference. And as opposed to the convective effect of air, they're radiating their heat all over the place which has to be absorbed then transferred to the air.

 

[FRITZHID]

I recall while living in the WI Northwoods, there was a significant increase in temp in the house when we had allot of lights on vs. None.
I'd say it may not be a huge drop in heating costs but Def is some. Especially since you're getting a high cri light source combined with some extra heat.
I've replaced all my lights with either cfl or custom LED lighting, aside from 5 incan.... 2 on dimmers in the bed room and a 3 lamp on dimmer in the family room. These are incan only cause I have yet to find LED bulbs that will perform as well as incan with dimmer. & yes, I'm picky. Eventually I'll build LED versions that will satisfy my snobby lighting part but until then, incan it is.
When I still lived in the colder states, LED wasn't up to the task for outdoor lighting and cfl either burned out or downright failed cause of the frigid temps so incan or HID were about the only choices.
LED has really come into its own over the last few years but I still think it will be some time before their light performance/quality will equal that of incan. Just my 2¢

 

[idleprocess]

I recall while living in the WI Northwoods, there was a significant increase in temp in the house when we had allot of lights on vs. None.

The absolute best it could possibly do is displace whatever wattage/BTU/joule equivalency of air heat it's equal to, but the mechanisms aren't as direct as heated or cooled air.

 

[FRITZHID]

The absolute best it could possibly do is displace whatever wattage/BTU/joule equivalency of air heat it's equal to, but the mechanisms aren't as direct as heated or cooled air.

Well of course not, I'm just stating the fact that when we had allot of lights on, the house was warmer than usual and the heat didn't have to run as much..... So, we were using the light anyway but getting the benefit of some lower heating usage with it. I'm not saying that heating your house with lights is better than using the furnace but in the colder climates I think heat from incan is a plus, espc in winter.

 

[MattPete]

I recall while living in the WI Northwoods, there was a significant increase in temp in the house when we had allot of lights on vs. None.

One of our au pairs used to turn on all the lights in the basement in order to warm it up (she had a basement apartment). To make things worse, she would leave them on all day. That was 11 BR40s, 11 MR16s, and 4 A19s. We put a stop to that by swapping out the BR40s for LEDs.

Likewise, the halogen BR40s in our kitchen did a great job of heating up the floor of our bathroom and bedroom upstairs.

 

[5S8Zh5]

Yes. I have 3 SF: 2 G2s and a 6P. The 6P got a Malkoff M61LL, and the black G2 also got an M61LL. The green G2 will stay stock with the incan bulb and will now have two spares.

 

[brickbat]

Outside of the oven and fridge, the final frontier is the GU10 Halogen lamps over our kitchen table. All I see that I'd want is the SORAA lamps. But they're too expensive to justify right now.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I'm a sucker for old fashioned antique "replica" bulbs. I bought a few different styles from the two DIY chains. I don't intend to use them for general lighting - they're way too dim, orange and inefficient - but I might find a decorative use for them someday.

 

[CoveAxe]

I'm a sucker for old fashioned antique "replica" bulbs. I bought a few different styles from the two DIY chains. I don't intend to use them for general lighting - they're way too dim, orange and inefficient - but I might find a decorative use for them someday.

I imagine these bulbs would last damn near forever with how inefficient they are. At least a few decades or more.

 

[more_vampires]

My dentist inspected my teeth recently with an incan. I asked him about it. He said it was a "Surgitech." Talking about flashlights when about to get numbed and drilled. Yay!

I must be sick!!!

 

[magellan]

My dentist inspected my teeth recently with an incan. I asked him about it. He said it was a "Surgitech." Talking about flashlights when about to get numbed and drilled. Yay!

I must be sick!!!

LOL

I would have said, "Hey doc, wanna try out a really bright bulb? (as I hand him my Polarion PH40 4000 lumen 40 watt HID light).

 

[idleprocess]

My dentist inspected my teeth recently with an incan. I asked him about it. He said it was a "Surgitech." Talking about flashlights when about to get numbed and drilled. Yay!

I must be sick!!!

No shortage of instruments that use specialty incandescent / halogen bulbs. The efficiency doesn't matter and so long as the instruments work well there's little incentive to replace them.

 

[Qship1996]

I'm a sucker for old fashioned antique "replica" bulbs. I bought a few different styles from the two DIY chains. I don't intend to use them for general lighting - they're way too dim, orange and inefficient - but I might find a decorative use for them someday.

Me to,I put 4 of them in my ceiling fan fixture and run them on a dimmer,usually cranked way back until you can just see the faint orange glow of the beautiful filaments at night.....accent lighting at it's best!

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Me to,I put 4 of them in my ceiling fan fixture and run them on a dimmer,usually cranked way back until you can just see the faint orange glow of the beautiful filaments at night.....accent lighting at it's best!

That's an interesting idea.

 

[MichaelW]

In the attic. 2x 150watt BT style.
They do not even get 10 hours of use per year.

 

[poiihy]

In the attic. 2x 150watt BT style.
They do not even get 10 hours of use per year.

I changed the one bulb in the attic to a 75w equivalent CFL.
The one that was in there was a long-life 60w! Pssh! Long-life bulb for an attic! How silly is that! It makes less light.

 

[Anders Hoveland]

Long-life bulb for an attic! How silly is that! It makes less light.

That's the main drawback to incandescent. If you wanted a bulb that had long life you were going to make a substantial sacrifice in efficiency, and probably get dull orange [2600K] light.
There are many less accessible locations where it was just inconvenient to be replacing bulbs so often, hence the need for long life bulbs. About the dull orange light, I have seen an old Duro-Test bulb. These special bulbs were krypton-filled, had an unusual distinctive shape, and were rated to last for 7000 hours. Surprisingly, the light did not really seem that dull and orangish at all. I do not know what their secret was because all the other long-life incandescent bulbs I have seen have had dull orangish light. Amazing that they could do that back then without halogen technology.

 

[CoveAxe]

An attic is typically easily accessible though. Using a long-lasting light bulb doesn't make much sense.

I know what you mean though. I just replaced some very inaccessible bulbs at my parent's house with LEDs. All three luminaires had their bulbs burn out years ago and never replaced because it required the use of a very long ladder in a difficult location. I thought I was going to break my neck just putting the new bulbs in. I definitely would not want to do it every few months (these lights are on ~12 hours/day, so they never last long). Time will tell, but I'm hoping the new ones will last at least a few years at a time.

 

[more_vampires]

We all still use incans! You pass them on the highway every night. Incans are everywhere! You cannot escape!