"Rough service" lightbulbs

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've just been out to get a lightbulb to replace one that blew. When I got it home I noticed the packaging described it as a Rough Service bulb and contained the advice, in big red capitals, NOT FOR GENERAL HOUSEHOLD ILLUMINATION . I didn't notice this till I'd already fitted it - it seems to shine in a perfectly ordinary way but I thought I'd better check what this was about. A quick guugel threw up this article from the end of August. So it's just a dodge to avoid legislation I didn't know existed! I thought it was just higher-rated bulbs that were banned. I suppose that means strictly speaking I'm breaking the law now? Ho hum.

Anyway, "rough service" is a term ripe for puns and dodgy jokes...

[Wombat]

They are EVEN LESS efficient than a normal GLS incandescent lamp.  For use only if you really are determined to destroy our planet.*  I must admit I'm surprised tha anyone would choose to buy an incandescent lamp except for some very specialist purposes, these days.  Why not buy a CFL, they are more resistant to being knocked or shaken when switched on, than any incandescent lamp anyway. 

* may contain traces of sensationalism, but basically the purchase of incandescent lamps for general lighting is effectively illegal.

[Kim]

A better dodge of the regulations is to use a halogen lamp (you can get them in standard sizes and caps).  These don't count as normal incandescents, and are somewhat more efficient, while maintaining the other desirable features of tungsten such as a broad spectrum, instant full output (a major failing of CFLs used in storage spaces etc.) and dimmer compatibility.

I agree that CFLs are fine for most purposes, but there are always edge cases.  LEDs aren't quite there yet.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The reason for buying an incandescent in this case was that this room has two bulbs, the other is a CFL which takes ages to warm up and even when warmed up does not give as wide a spectrum of light. It really leaves the room looking very strange and not fully lit, and isn't too good for reading by - it's my son's bedroom and he likes to read in bed. So by having a CFL and an incandescent we get a bit of decent light and a little bit of efficiency.

I'm all for saving electricity but I do wonder if CFLs are energy saving and less planet-slaying overall than incandescents, when you take into account their manufacture and the substances coating the tube as well as the trigger device, some of which I understand are fairly harmful if you breathe them in. IME full size fluorescent tubes give a better, though sometimes slightly harsh, light. Shame they don't fit in ceiling sockets.

We have mini-halogens in the kitchen and they're ridiculous! A total of 250W - I don't know who decided to have so many. In fact one of them blew about a year ago and I've felt no need to replace it yet - sometimes, if I'm just making a cup of tea, I simply use the little light in the cooker hood. Didn't know you could get standard size ones - there's probably a lot of lighting types available which people don't know about unless they ask, retailers and manufacturers, as well as agencies wanting us to save energy, could be a bit more active about promoting them.

[hellymedic]

These folk are rather good IME.
http://www.nationallampsandcomponents.co.uk

[Wombat]

The reason for buying an incandescent in this case was that this room has two bulbs, the other is a CFL which takes ages to warm up and even when warmed up does not give as wide a spectrum of light. It really leaves the room looking very strange and not fully lit, and isn't too good for reading by - it's my son's bedroom and he likes to read in bed. So by having a CFL and an incandescent we get a bit of decent light and a little bit of efficiency.

I'm all for saving electricity but I do wonder if CFLs are energy saving and less planet-slaying overall than incandescents, when you take into account their manufacture and the substances coating the tube as well as the trigger device, some of which I understand are fairly harmful if you breathe them in. IME full size fluorescent tubes give a better, though sometimes slightly harsh, light. Shame they don't fit in ceiling sockets.

We have mini-halogens in the kitchen and they're ridiculous! A total of 250W - I don't know who decided to have so many. In fact one of them blew about a year ago and I've felt no need to replace it yet - sometimes, if I'm just making a cup of tea, I simply use the little light in the cooker hood. Didn't know you could get standard size ones - there's probably a lot of lighting types available which people don't know about unless they ask, retailers and manufacturers, as well as agencies wanting us to save energy, could be a bit more active about promoting them.

The agencies promoting efficiency don't have any money for promotion, thanks to our lovely Government...  local authorities do what little they can with their non-existent budgets, but largely its up to the consumer to be sufficiently terrified by their electricity bill to act.  CFLs have improved drastically in quality over the years, but whilst they are a quite good answer, they are not THE answer.  The bit about evil chemicals in CFLs is a bit of a red herring.  Apart from the fact that you dispose of far less of them because they last so many times longer, many have no mercury in them now, and even for those that do, a power station chucks out far more mercury into the atmosphere generating the power to run an incandescent lamp than you could release if you smashed every CFL you finished with.  (not my statement, that of the european lighting federation, albeit paraphrased.)  Have a good wander about online, including Megaman, and BLTdirect.com, and see what might help you.  There is a far wider and better range out there, than most people realise.  I have to know a fair bit about them, being a local authority energy efficiency officer.  we hear many people moaning abut how much their electricty bill is, but these are the same folk with plasma TVs and who leave the windows open and the heating on, and who refuse the repeated offers of free home insulation.  Me, I've used 3.9KWh of electricity today, amd I've got all the gadgets...

[LEE]

  LEDs aren't quite there yet.

They are if you don't mind paying a lot an getting creative with multiple lights..

We just fitted 6 LED downlighters into our back room.  They do a MUCH nicer job of illuminating the room but they do cost £7 a bulb.

However, they use just 18W for all 6.

Check out http://www.ledhut.co.uk/?gclid=CKyx-py2n7MCFUbKtAod41sAkQ

I know they are expensive but it gives you a good feeling switching on a 3watt bulb.

I've replaced several traditional bulbs with 7Watt LED bayonet bulbs but realistically they are like 40Watt equivalents.

I'll be replacing 10 halogen bulbs in my kitchen with the 3x1W GU10 LEDs soon.

That's 500Watts replaced by 30Watts.  There isn't a significant difference any more. 

Note.  Choose the "warm" colour temperature.

They do pay for themselves, especially if you have lights on a lot, like a front door courtesy light.

[Kim]

  LEDs aren't quite there yet.

They are if you don't mind paying a lot an getting creative with multiple lights..

Like I say, not quite there yet.  You wouldn't put an LED light in your shed or cupboard under the stairs (unless perhaps it lacked a mains fixture).  For that sort of price and duty cycle, tungsten is still king.  OTOH, they're starting to be a good alternative to MR16 halogen, where getting creative with multiple sources is par (pun intended) for the course.  And those strip things are cool.

[Cudzoziemiec]

...There is a far wider and better range out there, than most people realise...

This, TBH, is part of the problem with CFLs. Filament bulbs are predictable, one brand might last a bit longer than another but in terms of light output they are much of a muchness. You know what you're getting with them, whereas CFLs vary hugely from brand to brand. I remember one I had a few years ago that was supposedly equivalent to 75W bulb but in fact put out hardly any light and that almost all at the blue end of the spectrum - red things disappeared. To try all the different makes until you find one that suits you is simply too time-consuming and expensive. I guess as the technology matures we will reach some sort of standardisation, but like LEDs, we're not there yet. Getting closer, good enough for most things, but still a lot of lack.

[Kim]

I find that buying branded lamps from a specialist lighting supplier that provides specs for brightness, colour temperature, etc. and ignoring the 'tungsten equivalent' rating is the way to go.  When they last 10 years, this isn't a big deal.

You wouldn't chose an LED bike light based on power consumption alone, for reasons discussed in threads passim.  Why expect to be able to for a CFL?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Both this "rough service" bulb and the CFL are from a specialist lighting supplier. This one (their physical shop on Bristol's Gloucester Rd, not online). We're lucky to have such a place just down the road, I'm not sure they're so common. Though not sure they're always so great either!

I don't think room lighting can be compared to bike lighting - one is an everyday commonplace, the other a bit specialist. Buying incandescents was never more complicated than buying a can of beans!

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm not, btw, trying to rubbish CFLs or defend energy-guzzling tungstens - though I do wish it was easier to know what you were getting with CFLs! - I just thought "rough service light bulb" was a comedic name and wondered what it was about.

[barakta]

Anecdatally we're getting more students with photosensitive issues (Altho the replacement of CRTs helps there) and visually impaired students with usable vision are struggling with CFLs as most lighting is horrid strip lighting or narrow spectrum stuff.  Many of my students don't understand why their issues are worsening in last few years but I'll bet it's about changes in lighting.

[hellymedic]

Anecdatally we're getting more students with photosensitive issues (Altho the replacement of CRTs helps there) and visually impaired students with usable vision are struggling with CFLs as most lighting is horrid strip lighting or narrow spectrum stuff.  Many of my students don't understand why their issues are worsening in last few years but I'll bet it's about changes in lighting.

I suspect you're right.
Grey gloom from CFLs is not 'light'.
I've had two CFLs fail within the past year, both less than three years old.

[andygates]

I have rough electricity.  Not entirely sure if that means there's a gerbil eating the wires, but I can't find the fault.  Anyway, it means that my kitchen lights are flickery, and that kills all manner of bulbs.  Ten years?  Ha! Six months to a year for a CFL, and an incandescent is a legend if it lasts three.

I was hoping that "rough service" bulbs might be tough against such grotty supply?  Or are they just  labelling dodge?

[Kim]

Rough service bulbs are for things like machinery and inspection lamps.  It's a physical design thing, rather than an electrical one, but I suspect that may well include chunkier, less efficient, filaments for a given power rating...

[Cudzoziemiec]

According to the article I found, it's wot Kim sed - physical jiggery rather than "rough current" - but now used largely as a labelling dodge. Still has to be up to the standard though.

Might your flickery lecky not be because you live way out in the sticks at the end of a very long supply that's perhaps more suited to the demand when there was fewer houses with electricity or at least fewer gadgets therein?

[Feline]

I have to say that the most recent CFL bulb I bought gets up to max brightness very very quickly (almost instant) compared to those I bought a few years ago. So much so I am now happy to put them in bathroom light fittings, where I really don't want to have to wait the necessary time for it to get bright enough to see.

I am now experimenting with LED replacements for my 240v halogen bulbs in the kitchen ceiling, the one I have tried so far is great for brightness but a little bit too blue. I am limited by it needing to fit flush in the fitting so cannot be any longer than a standard 50W GU10.

[Wendy]

Anecdatally we're getting more students with photosensitive issues (Altho the replacement of CRTs helps there) and visually impaired students with usable vision are struggling with CFLs as most lighting is horrid strip lighting or narrow spectrum stuff.  Many of my students don't understand why their issues are worsening in last few years but I'll bet it's about changes in lighting.

I suspect you're right.
Grey gloom from CFLs is not 'light'.
I've had two CFLs fail within the past year, both less than three years old.

Yes, I'm not sure CFLs last any longer than incandescents. I've had loads fail, often within a year.

[Biggsy]

I've still yet to find a CFL or LED that is really as bright as a conventional 100W bulb, let alone one with an acceptable colour.

[Wombat]

Anecdatally we're getting more students with photosensitive issues (Altho the replacement of CRTs helps there) and visually impaired students with usable vision are struggling with CFLs as most lighting is horrid strip lighting or narrow spectrum stuff.  Many of my students don't understand why their issues are worsening in last few years but I'll bet it's about changes in lighting.

I suspect you're right.
Grey gloom from CFLs is not 'light'.
I've had two CFLs fail within the past year, both less than three years old.

Yes, I'm not sure CFLs last any longer than incandescents. I've had loads fail, often within a year.

Most unusual, unless you get them from a market stall...  I have only ever had one fail, in 20 years of having them (from when they cost £15!).  I lost another, because I dropped it.  I have, however, replaced a few because I wanted newer better ones, but this was after at least 5 years, possibly 10, and some of those have been re-used on less critical applications.  As queen Kim says, don't take what they say about the "tungsten equivalent" as gospel, try it and make your own mind up.  They use so much less juice, that using one that is a tad bigger than the claim on the box is perfectly O.K.   Apparently the number of free CFLs issued by the energy companies exceeds the number of domestic light fittings in the U.K., so I'm puzzled at anyone feeling they need to buy a "normal" shaped CFL.  I still have a thousand or so left in stock in our depot, but we are being naughty, we are supposed to have issued them all 2 years ago...

Sadly its a bit like buying bikes and bits, you could just walk in Halfords or Argos and buy a bike, and well, it'd be a bike, but crappy.  Or you could make a bit of effort and get a decent one.  As for Biggsy's problem with finding an LED as bright as a 100w tungsten lamp, well that may be tricky right now, but one day...  as for a CFL as bright as that, easy peasy.  I've got a floodlamp with a 60w CFL, and my god, thats bright....  I prefer higher colour temps (above 4000 deg K), but agree that CFL's in that range tend to be a bit grim, but decent quality LEDs with their wider spectrum are just fine.  I've got 4000 deg K LED fluorescent strip replacements in my kitchen, excellent colour rendering, albeit a bit scary the first time you switch them on!

[Polar Bear]

IME cheap CFLs are shit just like cheap incandescents.   Crucially I have found that being prepared to pay for something half decent makes a huge difference to start up times, spectrum of light and longevity.

You get what you pay for.

[Arch]

I've got IKEA energy saving bulbs in my flat (think they were a quid each), that have been in for the seven years I've been there, and were moved with me from my previous house...

[hellymedic]

If CFL failure were so unusual, there would not be two people report it on this thread. I suspect we're not alone.
I keep giving CFLs a chance, despite getting miserable from their crap colour rendition.
They do not redeem themselves.

[Polar Bear]

Maybe it is just the CFLs that you are able to get?   FoE locally were involved in a scheme with the local council a couple of years back to give away thousands of CFLs.   Unfortunately these 'supplied' bulbs are shite, as are the freebees that our electrickery provider sent us.       

We have CFLs in the house which are more than 15 years old.   They are a bit slow getting to full brightness now but the colour temperature and level of output remain excellent.