Lighting Tip :)
 

Was at HomeDepot today buying light bulbs & learned a new trick from one of their licensed electricians. If instead of buying incandescent bulbs, you buy CFB's or LED's, you can put a brighter bulb in the fixture.

Here I was thinking that if the lamp was made for a 60W bulb, that meant that I had to buy a 60W (or less) equivalent LED -- that is, an 11W LED. Turns out that 60W is 60W. So I bought 19W LED's (equivalent of 120W incandescent) & omg! It's like noon at the equator now in my sewing area.

Probably a bunch of you smarties already knew this, but I thought I'd pass it along for anyone else who was sitting clueless in their dark studio space, wishing they had enough light to sew. :cool:

I didn't know this, so thank you for the tip!

OMG - NO did not know this. Putting on my shoes now and going to town to buy new light bulbs!!!!!

I didn't know either. Thanks for passing on your lighting information. I can always use more light (I'm kind of afraid of the dark).

Another tip about the CFB lights if you want the clearest brightest "white"
light get the 6500k lumens DAYLIGHT bulbs. We get the 100w equiv. bulbs.

HONESTLY you will NOT get that "yellowish" indoor light. These daylight
6500k bulbs is like being outside on a clear sunny day.

We have been using them since we found them about 8 or so years ago.
That is ALL we use in every room of our home.

I decided to do a little Googling and came up with this website:
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/28/267185...s-faq-can-help

Some of the comments about the color spectrum of newer lights is very interesting, but I am finding all of this terribly complicated! At least now I understand the wattage thing. Seems like the pros are pushing getting the same lumination (citing savings in electricity because of lower wattage) more than anything, but for me it's invaluable to find out I can get more illumination from a 60-watt fixture than was previously possible. Dh and I were looking at lamps recently, and he was complaining that they were all 60-watt lamps!

Thank you so much! I did not realize this either.

Thank you...need all the light I can get!

Hmmm, if i ever get the burned out flood type light bulb out of the track lighting in my sewing room, i intend to get some daylight type in it's place. And the good bulb too. they fit the fixture so well i can't even get my fingers around it to remove it. even had the electrician who came today to do the yearly ck on my furnace, to help me and try to remove the bulb. She couldn't either. i know i got one out before, so try and try again. I need better light!

We have several can lights in our house that are like that too, the flood light bulbs REALLY fill those sockets. I figured out that my Machingers qulting gloves really help grip lightbulbs too! With those, if I press my fingertips firmly against the face of the bulb, I can slowly rotate it and get it out (stiff fingers, rotate at the wrist). Jiggling the bulb up and down helps a little if it gets stuck and stops moving. It's a slow tedious process and honestly I'm tempted just to break it and use the old potato trick to get the base out, but so far it's worked on both the burnt bulbs I've tried it on without making me too crazy. I replaced those bulbs with LED lights rated to last 5 years so hopefully I won't be changing those particular bulbs anytime soon!

thanks for these tips writing this done will be needing them soon sadly here it will be getting dark at 4oclock before I know it ugh hate that....... I don't mind winter but don't like the early darkness and later sunrise

If you have any type of suction cup, those work great for removing recessed bulbs. And a big ol' wad of packing tape stuck to the bulb will work in a pinch, too. :)

I didn't know this! Thanks for the tip :)

Great tip. Noon at the equator! Sounds perfect to me!

I've used a non-stick jar opener for this problem. We had them in our old house and it used to drive me crazy! You can replace them with a smaller size bulb.

i got a 100W equivalent CFL bulb for my 60W fixture this past weekend... and, yes, the bright white was really bright. Really illuminated the room that is dark due to a porch over the window.

Thank you.. Heaven knows the so called "new lighting bulbs" aren't worth a darn for light. Takes twice as many to get the same light. I just got more lamps.

I'm still trying to figure out how mercury in the lightbulbs is "GREEN". They got away from that because it was a health hazard and caused issues with ground water. AND not to mention the disposal problems. Let's face it most folks are not going to make a special effort to take them to the hazardous disposal site..

If you have a fixture that is prone to hanging onto the bulbs, try brushing the base of the bulb with a very light coat of cooking oil. We have a couple of ceiling fans that do this, and the oil helps a bit.

Oh my gosh, this just cracked me up!!! LOL
I recently replaced all my sewing room lights with these new bulbs and indeed you are correct! It is BRIGHT!!! LOVE IT!!!:thumbup:
We have converted our entire home with these new brighter, whiter light bulbs and really seriously LOVE the brightness!!!

<<<So I bought 19W LED's (equivalent of 120W incandescent) & omg! It's like noon at the equator now in my sewing area.>>>>

Tucky, I don't use CFB's because of health reasons, but when I went shopping at Joann for an Ottlite & saw the warning about them containing mercury, I looked it up.

The LED bulbs do not contain any mercury & you can throw them out with your regular trash. In fact, other than the issue of them containing aluminum (which is difficult to mine), they really are a good "green" option. To minimize even that impact, you can now get up to a 60W equivalent with the new Philips LED Slimline series which have less than half the amount of aluminum. 60W is not bright enough for my sewing, but it's a good option for reading or cooking. I saw them on special at Home Depot today for about $7/bulb for the 60W equivalent & $5/bulb for the 40W equivalent (about half the price of the bulb-shaped LED's).

Hope that helps for those that are seeking a mercury-free option that gives off a lot of light per watt.

According to the website I mentioned earlier in this thread, the amount of mercury in flourescents is small. They can be recycled at places such as Home Depot. Although incandescents do not contain mercury, their need for 4 times as much energy for a similar amount of light means that they send considerably more mercury into the atmosphere by means of coal-burning power plants.

Regarding needing twice as many lamps to get the same amount of light, that issue is resolved by the original tip that was posted. You might want to go back to the beginning of this thread and check out that first post. I found it very "illuminating" (pun intended, :D).

Thank you, I did not know that either......now I will buy those bulbs!

Thanks for this article, Prism99! It's GREAT! I'm getting ready to set up a new sewing room, and this will really help.

This is great information! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[QUOTE=Prism99;6885547]I decided to do a little Googling and came up with this website:
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/28/267185...s-faq-can-help

This is a good site.
My husband found an article stating that incandescent lighting is better for putting you to sleep. Your natural sleep cycles turn on better with them. Since he spends a lot of the evening and night time in his recliner, he decided to put an incandescent bulb in his new Ottlight CFL fixture. I smelled something funny, and when we found out what it was, the white plastic had already turned quite brown. The small plastic shade had melted onto the bulb. After it got cool again, he spent hours snapping the burnt plastic off with a pliers so that we could get the bulb out.

He won't do that again!

Thanks for the info. I did not know this.

Yes, light intensity has changed with the intro of these new bulbs.

I saved the article(s) Prism99 is referring to in a Word document, in case anyone wants a copy.

All of this why? Because someone needed to make more money..............................

I gotta get off of here and go buy a bulb!

I got a thing that is supposed to go around the bulb and grip and help you remove them. Couldn't get it into the thing at all. But it also had a suction cup and that worked like a charm. I did get some day light bulbs but they are frosted and give off a blue light. Not happy.

Take the bulb back....I had to do that one time, can't remember which vendor it was. I love GE REveal bulbs (the incandescent ones), but bought a daylight bulb by someone else and it was way too blue. Couldn't even tolerate it in the basement where i just have light to make sure i don't fall on my face.

it can be trial and error.

The bulbs we use are from GE as pictured below.

http://www.quiltingboard.com/attachm...d=491461&stc=1


http://www.quiltingboard.com/attachm...d=491462&stc=1

Amen, sister.

Live and learn! Never too old to learn something new.
Thanks so much for the tip!
~Janice

Thanks for the info! I'm going to get 3 new bulbs that will make my work space much brighter and save $$ and help the environment! Win ... win ... win ... Yeah!!!

We are the ones making the money. These new bulbs use way less electricity than the old ones. Commercial installments have found their electric costs go down by thousands of dollars. Ours went down $14.00 when we got a new refrigerator. All this puts less carbon into the atmosphere, and that's good.

Will have DH read this post! He was not convinced the LED lights would be worth the cost.

My new quilting studio is all LED lights and it is wonderful. I can see no matter where I sit in the room. Of course it looks like and operating room when you turn on the lights. LOL