Illumination?

quote:

Originally posted by Axtremus:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:

You can still get curly fluorescents but not many people want them. They tend to cost more than LEDs and don't last as long.

The fluorescents are more toxic too. I can throw a spent LED light bulb into regular trash, but have to bring fluorescents to a town designated collection point for proper disposal.

That's why I thought they'd been banned, I said. They're loaded with mercury. Around here only Home Depot recycles them (or used to).

Ikea takes CFLs for recycling. I just took about seven years accumulation of dead bulbs there. Oddly, they no longer take batteries for recycling.

And Ikea only carries LED bulbs now. I recently bought some big honkin' ones there that are the equivalent of about a 150 watt incandescent.

I think I mentioned here before that I bought a bunch of SATCO LED bulbs on super-sale a while back and realized they had a ring-shaped diffuser inside. I pried off the outer bubble and removed the diffuser from the bulbs. Viola... about twice as much light!

Unfortunately I still have about two dozen brand new CFLs in a box in the basement that I got when the power company was giving them away to get people to switch out their incandescent bulbs. I still use them in several fixtures where the LEDs are too heavy.

One thing I liked about the CFLs was that, especially as they got old, they would come on dim and take a couple minutes to reach full brightness. This was great for the light in the bathroom. Switch them on first thing in the morning, and the lights wake up at about the same pace as I do.

Costco has six packs of dimmable 60 watt LEDs. You can choose from warm white (2700K) or daylight (5000K).

I think the regular price is something like $13. Com Ed, our local utility, occasionally offers a $10 rebate, which brings the price down to 50 cents a bulb.