Today 100 watt light bulbs are officially Banned in the EU.

This is the start of their phase out of lightbulbs all together.

I am not against energy efficient bulbs all together but they do not exactly omit the right light and take half an hour to heat up ~ by that point I have usually left the room! They dont look nice either!

So whos off out to stock up on light bulbs then

They will command a high price soon as epilepsy sufferers buy them up as the energy efficient ones are known to trigger attacks.

Kate x

Aye, some low energy bulbs are pretty dismal. The GE candle bulbs in our bedroom come on stupidly dim and take a couple of minutes or so to reach full brightness. I am tempted to replace them with LED candle bulbs (that kick out slightly more light than the GEs when they have warmed up) but use less than half the electricity (3W each compared to 7W).

My top recommendation though is the Varilight DigiFlux dimmable low energy bulbs though - OK they cost over a tenner each, but they reach full brightness pretty much instantly, emit a pleasant spectrum, don't have any noticeable flicker (Sonia suffers from photo-sensitive epilepsy and they don't affect her), and they also dim down very smoothly to a low level of light as required. So a very acceptable replacement for a 100W bulb, as well as only using a fifth of the electricity!
Posted via Mobile Device

Someone has put one in the toilet at work where there is no windows.
But the time its bright enough to actually see, im done and on my way out.

lol its mental isnt it! The idea of a bulb is to give off light!

Does anyone know if this is regular bulbs or will it cover spot lights? What is the alternative for spot lights and those bulbs used in downlighters and stuff.

I am sooo off to asda to fill my trolley with bulbs lol

Ten pound a bulb...... Thats £150 to light up my whole house. Bearing in mind people in my house leave lights on ALL day long what would that save on electricity?

No, I don't think halogen spots are for the chop yet. The alternative to those is already available though - LED spot lights - although these are of variable quality. The cheap ones like you can get in B&Q for around £9 for a pack of two only use up 1.2W each, but don't give out much light, and project it in a very tight beam. Although the LEDs themselves are supposed to last for 50,000 hours, I have had a few of them fail over the past couple of years - and I am suspecting that is due to other components, e.g. capacitors, failing, rather than the actual LEDs themselves.

I have had much better success with more expensive ones though - I bought some from www.ultraleds.co.uk last year for my computer room and Sonia's bathroom, and they give out a very good amount of light. The advantages of LEDs are that they reach full brightness instantly and don't give out much heat.
Posted via Mobile Device

We did notice our electric bill drop a lot after installing the Varilight bulbs in the lounge though. But then we had 6 x 60W candle bulbs that would burn 360W in total on full brightness. Whereas now we have 3 of the Varilight bulbs, using up only 60W in total, so a sixth of the electricity...

Best replace the bulbs in the rooms you use the most first in order to get the most savings...

Yes there are cheaper low energy bulbs, but the cheaper bulbs probably take longer to come on, flicker more, don't have as "natural" a spectrum and will probably fail if you use them with a dimmer...
Posted via Mobile Device

We have energy bulbs pretty much throughout the house bar the kitchen and dining room - they are lit with halogens which I despise ( kitchen has 5, dining room 6!)

I can't say I have ever used a 100w lightbulb in my house so doubt this phase will effect us personally but I dread when they take out halogens too - my light fitting alone cost me nearly £300 so don't want to replace that in a hurry

I wouldn't worry - by the time they phase out halogens, their LED equivalents should be much more widespread, brighter and *much* cheaper than they are now, so your nice light fittings will continue to shine...
Posted via Mobile Device

Hope they will make them all with a GU10 fitment then Ruth hehe To be honest, I don't particularly like "bright" lighting as such and tend to use lots of accent lighting in my home anyway - my bedroom is lucky if the main light goes on once a month as I use lamps!

They already do make them in GU10! You can get them in warm white (yellowish light similar to halogen), cool white (bluish white more like a daylight white) as well as in all sorts of different colours. We have red, amber, green and blue ones in our stairwell and on the landing! And you can even get colour changing ones!

Just don't try using them with a dimmer though - you will probably fry the electronics!!!
Posted via Mobile Device

Mmmmm - I have got a touch sensitive dimmer in my dining room though - it is one of the ones you can program for holidays and stuff I don't want to bin that fro a normal switch cos Paul paid a lot for it ( was his gadget of the shopping day buy heheh)

Well I am sure that the boffins will come up with a dimmable LED GU10 one day...

We had the same problem in our lounge... hence why I switched to the Varilight dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs. We have remote control dimmers in our lounge - Sonia needs the remote control for the light because she is disabled. And the Varilight bulbs are made by the same firm as our dimmers - so we could be pretty certain they would work, as they were tested by the manufacturer using the same dimmer switches! We did have to change our light fittings though - our old ones took candle bulbs with an E14 small Edison screw - whereas the Varilight bulbs are the full size spiral ones, and currently only come in E27 Edison screw and bayonet fittings. So our old light fittings went to someone on Freecycle...
Posted via Mobile Device

Ruth ~ do you work for a lighting company lol!! Your very up on your bulbs and bits !! Its probably something more glamorous though like film and photography! That stuff baffled me. !!

Kate xx

No, I don't work for a lighting company! But it's one of my little obsessions lol! I've always been into tech stuff like photography and music technology and whatnot though! I am keen on saving energy though - helps the planet and means our electric bill is a lot smaller!!!

The energy one's are no good for eczema and psoriasis sufferers. My daughter spends alot of time at my mothers and she had the energy ones and her eczema was always bad until i saw a bit in the papers saying they affected it and mum changed the bulbs back and now her eczema is under control better there.!!!