Energy Saving Bulbs Wattage

[W4SIM]

Hello all

Im a bit confused about the wattage rating on these energy efficient bulbs and how to work them in existing sockets.

This may sound stuid but heres the dilemma:-

In the conservatory there is a light fixing which takes a standard bulb. On the bulb holder itself it says "Max Recommended = 60W". So thats a maximum of 60W, which is what iv got in there. Only thing is though, that its not bright enough for the conservatory and i want to put in a 100W bulb instead, which would provide the ideal light, but would probably mean id overload the light fixing itself?

Now iv seen these energy efficient ones which are rated at producing 100W of light, whilst drawing in an equivelent of 20W of power. So technically i should be able to use this bulb in the conservatory without overloading the light fixing.

Or does it not work like that?

 

[SeanT]

Don't panic, the light output isn't going to cause more heat than a 60w bulb, this is what the rating will be based on - bear in mind that a standard 100w incandescant bulb gets really hot, whereas I can remove an 18w energy saver by hand after it has been on for hours!!

 

[W4SIM]

Yeah i suppose your right about the heat, as the energy saving ones dont really heat up at all. But i thought it might be something to do with the amount of current being drawn by the bulb and amount the bulb socket could handle that would affect the wattage of the bulb used.

I guess in this instance the light fixing is one of them that has a glass cover so all the heat builds up in a globe, so maybe that IS why they've limited to a 60W max. Any more heat and it might crack or blow the glass dome off or blow the bulb from its own heat.

But from what i understand of your post anyway, i should be alright to replace the standard 60W for a 100W energy saving one.

Cheers.

 

[SeanT]

Yes, because it's only actually an 18/20/22W bulb.

 

[Adam_151]

The advice above is on the whole, correct, one thing you have to watch out for though, is enclosed fittings, while CFLs put out a lot less heat than GLS lamps, the electronics that make them work are a lot more sensitive to that heat than a GLS lamp is (which is just glass and metal...), a CFL in an enclosed fitting will generally fail a lot quicker than it should (and because the energy used to make it is higher than a standard GLS and because of the toxic elements inside, its hardly as green as CFLs are sold as being!)

But, yeah, your 22w that says its equivelent light output to a 100W GLS is a 22w lamp (the 100w figure has not that much to do with anything really... other than everyone knows how bright a 100w GLS is, but start talking in lux and no knows how bright anything is!)

 

[W4SIM]

Yes, because it's only actually an 18/20/22W bulb.

Cheears like.

 

[W4SIM]

The advice above is on the whole, correct, one thing you have to watch out for though, is enclosed fittings, while CFLs put out a lot less heat than GLS lamps, the electronics that make them work are a lot more sensitive to that heat than a GLS lamp is (which is just glass and metal...), a CFL in an enclosed fitting will generally fail a lot quicker than it should (and because the energy used to make it is higher than a standard GLS and because of the toxic elements inside, its hardly as green as CFLs are sold as being!)

But, yeah, your 22w that says its equivelent light output to a 100W GLS is a 22w lamp (the 100w figure has not that much to do with anything really... other than everyone knows how bright a 100w GLS is, but start talking in lux and no knows how bright anything is!)

er . . . . . to be honest i only wanted more light, without the possibility of blowing something up.

But i see what you mean about the whole heat thing and the energy savers being more sensitive, i didnt actually know anything about that. So obviously i never saw anything wrong with it being in an enclosed fitting.

But i think il just replace it anyway and see what happens, iv got the bulb here on the off chance so its worth the "experiment" i guess.

Its supposedly got an 8 year life span, but il report back here and tell you what happens if it goes bang any sooner.

(so perhaps il be back in about 3 years or so)

 

[kwikfix328]

One the subject of Energy saving light bulbs.

For years I had a problem with ordinary tungsten light bulbs failing in my house. It didn't matter what brand i tried, from the cheapest Tesco 'blue stripy' bulbs, to more expensive branded items , e.g. Osram, G.E. etc. sometimes that would only last about a month of ordinary use.
It soon became obvious that this house was very different for light bulbs than other houses that I've lived in , in the same village.

A few years ago I bought some energy saving light bulbs from Ikea, long before they dropped significantly in price. This was about 7 years ago and some of this first batch of Ikea bulbs are still working even today, they are sometimes a little slow to warm up to full brighness, but they do still work.

I reckon that changing over to Energy saving bulbs not only saves me electricity, but hassle and replacemnt costs too. They seem to be dirt cheap these days too.