re Tomin Dales comment. Paste The subsidised scheme for CFLs was to encourage a switch from incandescent (a 75% reduction in energy use), which preceded an outright ban of the sale of incandescent lights in the EU - at that time. The UK has maintained the ban post Brexit. LED lights are about twice as efficient as strip lights and nearly 3x more so than CFLs, (use about 10% of the power of an incandescent), the prices is such that for most people the payback is a year or so. As the technology is maturing the reliable lifetime of LEDs is rising, I've had some going for 4 years and the failure rate is falling with each new batch, so I guess there is no need to subsidise the switch. The other benefit of LEDs is the new phosphors give out a decent colour light and there is a wide choice of colour temperature. The biggest issue with CFLs was the poor light quality. So I guess there is no need to an incentive.
I read the above quote, I run 4 x 60watt CFLs old light bulbs in our main living room on a dimmer switch for convenience with no other lighting, but can I run a dimmer switch on those modern bulbs you mention?
Good question, There are plenty of sparkys on this forum who can give you a fuller or simpler answer than me. LEDs sold today tend to say on the box if they can be dimmed or not, so start there. I've found by buying one or two and trying them out is the simplest way to find out. If you have a long string of lights on the same circuit you can often find that leaving one traditional bulb will help stabilise the dimmer controller.
There is an issue with dimming, traditional dimmers work by trimming the voltage down on mains ac, its called leading edge trimming. Mains power is ac so is a wave form and this is modified by the dimmer to reduce the voltage and hence the power. This works well for incandescent and halogen lights but not so well for CFLs and LEDS, can casue flicker or buzzing noise. However the manufactures of LEDs and CFLs have build in compensation circuits to allow to back compatibility with older switching gear, it will say on the packet if this is the case.
Here is a link to a company selling lamps with an simple explanation
How To Dim LED Lights - The Lightbulb Co. UK
This blog is more in depth on the topic.
Using Dimmer Switches With LED Light Bulbs | Lightbulbs Direct.
I buy LEDS from regular stores (eg mr bazos's ) or the supermarket that say they are dimmable. Over time I'll probably uprate the dimmers. I read Amazon reviews where the odd person says there light buzzed or flickered whereas other reviews don't see it, one of the reasons is LEDs draw so little power that dimmers don't control them well. I've found where we have a string of lamps in our bookcase and kitchen is to replace all the bulbs bar-one with LEDS and keep one traditional lamp in the circuit that stops the flicker as it provides enough load for the controller.
Some of our lamps were low voltage halogen with a simple transformer - installed donkeys years ago. These seem to work perfectly with LEDS. The other thing I've noticed with some of our low voltage lights, the cost of an LED transformer is only about £3 so it was a simple upgrade.
You may want to start replacing your CFLs in non dimming circuits to stat with and see how you get on with LEDs.
A few things to watch out for.
- very cheap ones don't last that long - the ballast tends to wear out, so go for ones with good reviews of sold by a reliable shop, also the colour rendering is poor ie the type of white isn't that pure due to cheap phosphors so they can look greenish or orange.
- choose the colour temperature that your household like, most traditional bulbs have a colour temp in the Uk of about 3000k, in Europe colour temperature varies in the south eg Itally its high at 4000k and in Scandinavia it was low at 2700k. With old bulbs you weren't offered much choice apart from the odd specialist 'real home fire effect lights'.
LEDs are manufactured on a global scale we are offered a huge choice in colour temperature. In my experience 2700k to 3000k look a bit too yellow. I've tended to settle on 4000k as that slightly higher temperature seems to give a similar quality of light to what we were used to, slighly less yellow. I now find 3000k is quite yellow and 6000k is quite blue. One thing to get right is keep them all the same in one room, it looks odd if you mix an match in the same room. You may want to have your kitchen in the 4000k range for a clean look but the sitting room at a lower temp for a more relaxed look.
Like you I still have a box of CFLs, the mother in law was given a job lot by the council before she died, I'm using them up in the kids bedrooms, but they last for ages.
Hope that helps.
