Light Bulb Rant

[jayb111]

I need to replace some light bulbs in my house. They're in places where I need a good light, so I use 100w bulbs. I haven't had to buy any in a while, but I've used all I had in the cupboard, so today I went shopping for 100w bulbs

Comments

[carole_london]

I'm finding that now Woolies has gone south, it's getting harder to find those things like lightbulbs in any variety. The supermarkets don't really carry much of a stock of them and pretty soon we'll all have to take what they are offering - ie these expensive ones that take half an hour to actually come on. Though they should last longer than the ordinary bulbs, which I have been finding I get through at a rate of knots!

Hope you had a good Christmas, in spite of the need for lightbulbs!

[jayb111]

Yes, Woolies is where I'd have bought things like this in the past.

I wasn't here for Christmas, I was at my Mum's, where there isn't much to do over the holiday but eat and watch telly. Hope you had a good one.

[dorsetgirl]

2.7 hours per day sounds like an intriguingly arbitrary random number - I wonder how they justify that. Even in Summer my kitchen light goes on about 8pm, what with facing East, which makes 3-4 hours per day.

I can't be bothered making special trips for things so I buy my light bulbs (and my newspaper, and my Radio Times with Philip Glenister on the front - yet again, YAY!) in Waitrose, where they have 100W pearl with bayonet fittings on about 30% of the occasions I want to buy some.

I think I read somewhere last year that they were phasing out ordinary light bulbs (in January 2009!) in favour of the ones that like to flicker interestingly for twenty minutes before getting down to business.

[jayb111]

No Waitrose around here, unfortunately. Sainsbury's don't appear to sell light bulbs. I think I'm going to have to spend part of next week trekking around any shop that might sell them. I'm sure the exercise will be good for me after the overindulgence of Christmas.

I knew tradtional light bulbs were being phased out but didn't realise it was as soon as next month. And I didn't realie until today that the alternatives were so expensive. If I find some old style bulbs I'll have to buy up a few years' supply.

[innocent_lex]

Plus the long life bulbs aren't as bright as the ordinary bulbs, no matter what they say on the box. I have to switch up to keep the same level of brightness (use a 100w where I would previously have used a 60w).

Plus they're very dangerous to dispose of, and the 'up to' is arbitrary - could be 3 months or several years of use.

[jayb111]

Yes, the light is horrible, and as Carole and DG said, they take ages to come on properly.

And how many people will, or can, dispose of them properly? Or are even aware that disposal is an issue?

[dorsetgirl]

disposal is an issue

I had no idea. What's so dangerous about them? And what are we supposed to do with them? I read only last week that if you use one less than one foot away from bare skin, you may get sunburn! (They apparently give out measurable levels of UV light - they are so looking like cheap, practical, safe alternatives to the old way. Not.)

[jayb111]

They contain small amounts of mercury. They're not supposed to go in with the ordinary rubbish and end up in landfill sites. We're supposed to take them to council waste disposal sites.

So the carbon emissions of motorists dutifully heading off to their council tips with their dead bulbs will cancel out the supposed savings from the low energy bulbs. And I have no idea what those of us who don't drive are supposed to do, given that these sites are usually in very out-of-the-way places.

And if you break one, there are things you're supposed to do and not do.