Incandescent bulbs

[JTK]

I toss any used incandescent bulbs. At least I don' think there's anything toxic in them. I hate having to deal with used fluorescent lamps. Just yesterday I converted an old 4-tube T12 2'x4' fixture to LED. There's 4 old 48" T12s to deal with. The ballasts were smoked on this fixture so I had to use ballast bypass LED lamps.

 

[opus1]

Bought a bunch of them when Wal-Mart had good Made-in-USA bulbs selling at 88 cents per 4-pack. They really don't burn out all that often, so I expect we have enough to last quite a few years.

Menard's was literally giving them away last year - I don't remember the cost but 60W GE bulbs made overseas were FAR with no limit.

 

[y_p_w]

I toss any used incandescent bulbs. At least I don' think there's anything toxic in them. I hate having to deal with used fluorescent lamps. Just yesterday I converted an old 4-tube T12 2'x4' fixture to LED. There's 4 old 48" T12s to deal with. The ballasts were smoked on this fixture so I had to use ballast bypass LED lamps.

I've done a few of those. Our kitchen had an issue with the tubes flickering. I'd replaced the 4' ballast before and I don't think the new electronic ballast had any problem, but I figured it would be cheaper over the long run than just buying one more set of glass tubes. I completely rewired (color coded the hot and neutral with black and white wires) it with dimmable 100-120V tubes, even though I'm not using a dimmer. Then I had this weird setup over the sink that uses two dual 2' T-12 fixtures but where I couldn't figure out how to take out the tombstones so I just cut the wires and used wire nuts.. It wasn't working well and I figured it would be easier to just cut the wire. I just put in a pair since ballast bypass can operate with just a single tube in each fixture. Those were non-dimmable 100-250V.

Which tubes did you choose? The big names like Philips and GE supposedly have them but they're harder to find. I chose some brand called toggled. The dimmable one turns on immediately, but the non-dimmable one takes a half second.

 

[JLawrence08648]

I use CFL bulbs in my trouble light. They can take rough duty.

 

[gathermewool]

Two more things I wanted to add:

1. The color of LEDs is bad: You can pay more for higher Color Rendering Index (CRI) bulbs if color accuracy is your thing. I use these in high-use locations, like the bedroom, where we spend the majority of our time in winter, and the kitchen.

Ive round the regular cheap bulbs look just as good at 4300K as the incandescents and CFLs they replaced, so I MIGHT HAVE wasted my money on the high-CRI Cree bulbs.

2. Cost: DO THE MATH!!! If you haven’t then how can you say it doesn’t make sense to upgrade?

3. Warm-up: The most noticeable difference between CFL and LED when I upgraded was noted in outdoor and basement lights in the winter. In particular, our street lamp had three candelabra-style bulbs. The original CFLs took MINUTES to warm up at below freezing temps. The new LEDs are instant-on. I even replaced the old CFL bulbs with new-in-package bulbs the PO left me and they weren’t much better.

The bulbs in the unheated basement warmed up a lot faster, but often still weren’t fast enough if all one of us was doing was grabbing something from storage/pantry. LEDs gave us quick on performance and lower costs when we needed them on for longer.

No-brainer, even with my experience with failure early on. Even then, most of the bulbs had already paid for themselves.

It might, it might not. Ive only been maybe 50% in terms of these new style bulbs meeting their lifetime expectations before something fails. Thats especially the case for CFL - we have some high use, long-use CFLs that are still working really well, and others that fail very early. Same for the lower cost LEDs.

So the cost savings is folly if the bulbs cost a lot to procure and then they dont last. Recently some pretty good deals on LEDs have shown up, maybe changing those economics... But certain fixtures that might get a few minutes to a few hours per year simply arent worth it. 500Wh per year, for 5 hours of a 100W incandescent is all of 7-8c at the worst case around here. It will never be recouped, even if the LED is only a dollar or two.

That‘s true of any bulb tech. Do the math and you’ll come to realize that LED bulbs pay for themselves very quickly, especially if used for hours/day.

 

[gathermewool]

I use CFL bulbs in my trouble light. They can take rough duty.

Aren’t there equivalent LED bulbs?

 

[Saabist]

It's a tiny savings, and the costs calculated seem skewed in the site y_p_w posted ($2.70 for a 60-watt bulb? Mine are 22 cents each for wattages from 25-100 watts!)

Even over a 10-year period it's not much of a savings, and for those of us who are older who knows if we'll even be around in 10 years to enjoy these few bucks saved. I'm just not seeing a compelling reason to change and will be sticking with incandescent bulbs as long as my stash holds out.

 

[gathermewool]

The newest LEDs we have are all filament-style or whatever they’re called. The four LED strings look like older incandescents. Don’t mind the candelabra; it conveyed and we’ve been too cheap to replace it.

These bulbs dim from full brightnessbto barely on perfectly.

 

[bluesmokertdi]

What are people doing with old working incandescent bulbs they swap out for LED?

Tossing? Saving for ?? (Hoarding).

incandescent light bulbs are in realty heaters that produce light, most "Edison" have a light efficiency in the single digits, in other words 95% (heat) and 5% (light)

Incandescent light bulb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Think of the Easy Bake Oven, it uses a 100 watt incandescent bulb!

Easy-Bake Oven - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

don't toss them, take them to your recycling depot

 

[gathermewool]

It's a tiny savings, and the costs calculated seem skewed in the site y_p_w posted ($2.70 for a 60-watt bulb? Mine are 22 cents each for wattages from 25-100 watts!)

Even over a 10-year period it's not much of a savings, and for those of us who are older who knows if we'll even be around in 10 years to enjoy these few bucks saved. I'm just not seeing a compelling reason to change and will be sticking with incandescent bulbs as long as my stash holds out.

I used an upgrade site that only takes into account the cost of the new bulb.

If I input the following it says I’ll save over $3/year:

Original bulb: 60W
New bulb: 10W
$/kW-hr: $0.20 (my actual cost!!!)
Hrs/day use: 1
Days/yr use: 365
# bulbs: 1
$/bulb: $3 (let’s assume you got ripped off or have no state incentives)

———

ROI: 0.83 years

Energy Savings Calculator

Try our Energy Savings Calculator to find out your ROI and how much money your business could be saving by switching to energy efficient light lighting.

www.regencylighting.com

 

[y_p_w]

It's a tiny savings, and the costs calculated seem skewed in the site y_p_w posted ($2.70 for a 60-watt bulb? Mine are 22 cents each for wattages from 25-100 watts!)

Even over a 10-year period it's not much of a savings, and for those of us who are older who knows if we'll even be around in 10 years to enjoy these few bucks saved. I'm just not seeing a compelling reason to change and will be sticking with incandescent bulbs as long as my stash holds out.

I just wanted to put basic numbers out there about the cost of electricity. It's the electricity that's the primary cost of lighting.

I can buy an 8 watt (60 watt equivalent) LED bulb at Dollar Tree and I've got several around the house. And my numbers were pretty solid. 800 hours is typical for a year. If it's on every day, that's about 2.2 hours per day per year, although I know that's a simplification because every user's usage patterns are different, but bear with me. 800 hours at 60 watts is 48 kWh. At 12 cents/kWh that typical year will cost $5.76 in electricity costs. That 8 watt LED for the same time will be 6.4 kWh or about 77 cents in electricity costs. That's also assuming a flat rate and wouldn't account for cumulative higher energy consumption moving the user to higher rates (my utility had 4 pricing tiers depending on monthly usage).

In that one year it's already costing $5 more in electricity. So even if the bulb is $1 plus sales tax and the incandescent is FREE the LED easily comes out just based on energy costs. For one year.

Incadescent: free (assumed) bulb + $5.76 in electricity = $5.76
LED: $1.09 bulb + $.77 in electricity = $1.86

This is one year, and there's a good chance you'll need to replace the incandescent.

 

[Saabist]

But I already have the incandescent replacements. We're talking about really tiny savings here, not even enough to buy a cup of coffee in most places. There are plenty of other areas of life where lots more money can be saved in a shorter period of time. Changing the bulbs we use is not even worth the time it takes to calculate the savings to be had in doing it. As I said, we'll be sticking with incandescent bulbs until such time as we run out of them.

 

[dinofish]

But I already have the incandescent replacements. We're talking about really tiny savings here, not even enough to buy a cup of coffee in most places. There are plenty of other areas of life where lots more money can be saved in a shorter period of time. Changing the bulbs we use is not even worth the time it takes to calculate the savings to be had in doing it. As I said, we'll be sticking with incandescent bulbs until such time as we run out of them.

Go to this website and calculate yourself:

Energy Savings Calculator

Try our Energy Savings Calculator to find out your ROI and how much money your business could be saving by switching to energy efficient light lighting.

www.regencylighting.com

 

[Ws6]

What are people doing with old working incandescent bulbs they swap out for LED?

Tossing? Saving for ?? (Hoarding).

I gave them to my parents.

 

[Dave9]

I toss any used incandescent bulbs. At least I don' think there's anything toxic in them. I hate having to deal with used fluorescent lamps. Just yesterday I converted an old 4-tube T12 2'x4' fixture to LED. There's 4 old 48" T12s to deal with. The ballasts were smoked on this fixture so I had to use ballast bypass LED lamps.

There's a tiny bit of mercury in fluorescent bulbs (more in very old ones), but it came out of the ground in the first place! There's more mercury in tuna, so just bash them to fit and throw them away like anything else.

It is strange how people get alarmist about some things but not others. Are we not allowed to defecate into a toilet that goes into a public sewer if we ate tuna? That's not nearly as wrong a comparison as some might think.

 

[y_p_w]

There's a tiny bit of mercury in fluorescent bulbs (more in very old ones), but it came out of the ground in the first place! There's more mercury in tuna, so just bash them to fit and throw them away like anything else.

It is strange how people get alarmist about some things but not others. Are we not allowed to defecate into a toilet that goes into a public sewer if we ate tuna? That's not nearly as wrong a comparison as some might think.

But I already have the incandescent replacements. We're talking about really tiny savings here, not even enough to buy a cup of coffee in most places. There are plenty of other areas of life where lots more money can be saved in a shorter period of time. Changing the bulbs we use is not even worth the time it takes to calculate the savings to be had in doing it. As I said, we'll be sticking with incandescent bulbs until such time as we run out of them.

I don't see any problem with spending $7 on a half dozen LEDs and having them ready as replacements. Especially since I find it a huge paint to change my ceiling mounted bulbs - especially if it's in an enclosure or where I have to fiddle with screws. It's just set it and forget it.

 

[y_p_w]

There's a tiny bit of mercury in fluorescent bulbs (more in very old ones), but it came out of the ground in the first place! There's more mercury in tuna, so just bash them to fit and throw them away like anything else.

It is strange how people get alarmist about some things but not others. Are we not allowed to defecate into a toilet that goes into a public sewer if we ate tuna? That's not nearly as wrong a comparison as some might think.

It's still a legal requirement in many states to have proper material handling for used fluorescent bulbs. That's the main concern. And I'm pretty sure that a can of tuna doesn't have 5 mg of mercury, which is the current limit for low wattage tubes/CFLs, but could be considerably higher in older tubes. My reading is that it's on average about 275 times less mercury in a can of chunk light tuna than that 5 mg.

I'm also wondering what I should do with my old Honeywell thermostat with a mercury switch. I used to play around with these things when I was younger - of course in a sealed glass capsule. I'd take off the cover, rock the switch, see the mercury swish around with a little spark when it made contact and I'd hear the heater start (or stop). We had mercury thermometers. I remember shaking a glass/mercury oral thermometer to reset it. At this point I'm shocked I ever put something like that in my mouth.

 

[Saabist]

Seems like a huge amount of focus put on saving tiny amounts of money in the overall scheme of things. It's really not even worth my time to bother with the calculations. People are talking about saving maybe $20 over a ten-year period on a light bulb. Lots of things one can do to save a heck of a lot more than that. How much have I saved driving my old beater for the last 10 years instead of buying new cars? Easily tens of thousands of dollars. Saving a few bucks on electricity isn't even on my radar.

 

[PimTac]

It's still a legal requirement in many states to have proper material handling for used fluorescent bulbs. That's the main concern. And I'm pretty sure that a can of tuna doesn't have 5 mg of mercury, which is the current limit for low wattage tubes/CFLs, but could be considerably higher in older tubes. My reading is that it's on average about 275 times less mercury in a can of chunk light tuna than that 5 mg.

I'm also wondering what I should do with my old Honeywell thermostat with a mercury switch. I used to play around with these things when I was younger - of course in a sealed glass capsule. I'd take off the cover, rock the switch, see the mercury swish around with a little spark when it made contact and I'd hear the heater start (or stop). We had mercury thermometers. I remember shaking a glass/mercury oral thermometer to reset it. At this point I'm shocked I ever put something like that in my mouth.

To be clear the Mercury never touched you, only the glass of the thermometer. I wouldn’t be shocked.

When we moved into our present house all the lights were old CFL or incandescent bulbs. A lot of 100 watt bulbs and most of the CFL bulbs were orange. Long past their useful life. I swapped all of them out with LED and it was a huge change. The old bulbs went into the garbage.

 

[y_p_w]

To be clear the Mercury never touched you, only the glass of the thermometer. I wouldn’t be shocked.

When we moved into our present house all the lights were old CFL or incandescent bulbs. A lot of 100 watt bulbs and most of the CFL bulbs were orange. Long past their useful life. I swapped all of them out with LED and it was a huge change. The old bulbs went into the garbage.

Well - the thing these days is that I'm shocked about placing a glass thermometer, and on top of that something with mercury. I've heard of them breaking before, which could result in cuts plus the possibility of mercury poisoning. It was also weird shaking them in order to reset them.

Before CFLs were common, there were the circular fluorescent lamps meant for tabletop lamps. They had issues with placing a lampshade.