<p>We are about to move into our new house and DH brought up the subject of lighting. While the electrician is finishing up a few tasks, he will be changing out most of the light bulbs in the house (they are can lights embedded into the ceiling for the most part). DH wants to know which type of bulb I want, and I’m not sure.</p>
<p>I HATE harsh lighting. Fluorescent bulbs always depressed me. And I have bought a few of those new fangled bulbs which are supposedly more eco friendly. One lamp bulb puts out a lovely glow, but all the other ones I purchased subsequently are a very harsh white light, which I detest. I don’t know why the one bulb looks so pretty, while the others are so awful-they look the same (as it relates to shape).</p>
<p>Any recommendations for the can lights which give a room a lovely ambiance vs. harsh light highlighting every wrinkle and blemish? We have lamps for reading, so the ceiling lights are for general lighting and mood I guess.</p>
<p>We’ve replaced most of our incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs but these are mostly lamp bulbs. We do have some flood lighting that I have LED bulbs for that I haven’t gotten around to replacing. I personally think that LED is the way to go if capital cost isn’t an issue, especially if heat buildup is a potential issue and it can be with recessed lighting.</p>
<p>LED…my DH is an electrical design engineer, and LED is what we will get when the prices come down just a tad. NO incandescents…we don’t have any of those.</p>
<p>Pay attention to the color temperature of the bulb. See [Color</a> and Mood : ENERGY STAR](<a href=“http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_color]Color”>Color and Mood | ENERGY STAR) for ideas. I have gone out of my way to obtain warm lighting, which is available in both fluorescent and CFL. I have found the LED lamps to be dim, but that is improving all the time.</p>
<p>I have halogen lamps in my ceiling fan. They cost more, but have lasted forever up there. When (if?) they go, I will have to decide on their replacement and am hoping that the LED bulbs are good enough at that time.</p>
<p>The pricing on 40 Watt Equivalent LED bulbs has been decent ($10) for about two years. The 60 Watt Equivalent LED bulbs that are in the ballpark are just coming out now. We’ve put in the LEDs where it’s replacing something with a relatively low wattage incandescent. In one case, we replaced a single-bulb fixture with a multi-bulb fixture because the brightness issue.</p>
<p>For flood lighting, there are more choices but they are typically expensive. I picked up two big LED floodlights when our supermarket was selling them for $10. They were originally $40 and had sat there for a long, long time. I guess the supermarket discovered that they can’t sell expensive light bulbs.</p>
<p>Costco recently offered discount $5 to $7 off LED. Maybe regionally specific but keep an eye out for it. We swap out a couple of BR30 CFL can lights and are happy with the LED option. Instant on, bright and warm light. They are also dimmable so you can adjust for ambiance. We’ll have to see if it’s long lasting.</p>
<p>Treetopleaf - agree with paying attention to Lumens for brightness and Kevin for warmth. The lamp store person told us that this now appears more and more on packages and more important than watt usage. Not all equivalent watt bulbs produce same brightness.</p>
<p>You may also want to verify that the switch you’re using can handle dimmable CFLs & LEDs. I know even if you buy a dimmable CFL if your switch doesn’t support it then it’ll either burn out much quicker or just won’t ever turn on. You can buy a new dimmer switch for about $10 at home depot, though.</p>
<p>Something else to consider: Our original recessed lights came with reflector trims for maximum light reflection. Once we start using CFL bulbs, it’s just too harsh. My H changes the fixtures to baffle trims and that reduces the glare a lot.</p>
<p>I hate the CFL bulbs - I don’t generally like the light they produce, the warm-up period required, sometimes the noise from them, or the ecological problems of disposal when they go bad or break. I also had one start burning up on its own which could have started a fire if I didn’t happen to notice it right away! They also don’t seem to last nearly as long as they purport.</p>
<p>I have LED lighting in the kitchen and really like them that I installed myself during a remodel I did. They’re quite a bit more efficient than CFL but don’t have any of the downsides of CFL. The ones I have are a fairly white light, which is good for the kitchen, but they come in different color temps. These lights (can lights that produce a fair amount of lumens) were pretty expensive but I did the work myself which saved some money and and theoretically I may never have to replace them due to their purported very long life.</p>
<p>I have incandescent bulbs in more of the ‘normal lighting’ and prefer them for those locations. I might consider replacing some of them with LED once LED gets inexpensive enough and if I like the light it produces in those applications.</p>
<p>So, it’s not a one size fits all for me - it depends on the application. Before you decide you should try to see the light produced by them and imagine it for your different uses but this can be hard to do in a hardware superstore that has fluorescent lighting overhead. A place like Home Depot would probably let you buy one, take it home and try it, and bring it back if you don’t like it. They’ve accepted anything I’ve ever tried to return - they’re very good about that in my experience.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice. I think I will look into the LEDs since they apparently have various shades of “warmth” to them. Even though they are pricey, it might be worth it for DH. He is usually the one who has to change them!</p>
<p>LED lights come in yellow-ish and blue-ish. Neither is particularly flattering. But I love never having to change the LED lights and the blue-ish is okay. That said, my favorite lighting is incandescent or halogen, combined with a very slightly pink white paint (it reflects pink on your skin but looks white).</p>
<p>I installed one of the LED flood lightbulbs that I got for $10 on a closeout. They provide 75 watts equivalent for 18 watts. I put one in and it works fine. I’m letting the regular bulb cool down and then I’ll put the other one in. There is one noticeable difference with the floods - they take about half-a-second to come on. Kind of strange.</p>
<p>At least we won’t have to worry about burning our hands on the fixtures anymore. And the decreased power consumption is nice.</p>
<p>Anyone else noticed all these old post bumped up by spam. I have to say I smiled when I saw BCEagle bumped this on his own. My Home Depot had LED lights on their clearance end caps if anyone is looking. </p>
<p>They are still pretty expensive though. Is the light much better than the fluorescent? Do they last longer?</p>
<p>We don’t have fluorescent bulbs so I can’t really compare other than it’s nice that they come on at full power really quickly. These flood lights provide indirect lighting too - we don’t really look at the lighting source.</p>
<p>We only started installing these a few years ago. They are supposed to last practically forever - that is we’ll be fortunate to be around when these things give out. I have tried incandescent bulbs that were supposed to last a long time and they didn’t even though they were about twice the price as conventional bulbs. It’s one of those things where you either do a few at a time or bite the bullet and go around the house replacing the older stuff.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe it’s halogen I’m thinking of that gives such a nice cozy ambiance. But no can do on the pink toned white. Our new house was painted entirely in a darker shade of peach white for all the crown and floor molding, and a lighter shade of peach white for the walls and we absolutely hated it. So we repainted the entire interior a “designer white” for crown and floor moldings and “coconut” (probably in the gray family of whites) on the wall and love it. Guess my face won’t have a rosy glow, darn it.</p>
<p>I just wound up buying another 4-pack of 60W-equivalent CFLs for $5 at Costco last night. Compared prices with LEDs and just felt it wasn’t worth it for the amount of time I keep most of those lights on per day (using their usage estimates the LEDs will last ~100 years…too long of a repayment time for me). Check with your local electricity company, a lot of them used to give free CFLs to anyone that requested.</p>
<p>I think when LEDs finally drop below the $10 price point. It’s hard for me to justify spending $15+ on a bulb when my monthly electricity bill has only been about $35.</p>
<p>My LED lighting I put in the kitchen has about a half second or so delay to turning on as well. It’s not an irritant though and not distracting/irritating like the ‘warm-up’ period the CFL bulbs have where they can take a minute or so to come up to the full brightness.</p>
<p>I much prefer the LED lights over CFLs for most uses.</p>