Indoor/Outdoor LED Light Bulbs

[MarkTX]

Our house is five years old. ALL of the original incandescent bulbs have burned out, at least once, and some many more times than that. For sake of argument, let's say those incandescent bulbs consumed 60 watts each. However, most of the bulbs in our home were compact fluorescent (CF). ALL of those have aged in five years to the point where, when you turn them on, they are very frustratingly dim, and take 5-10 minutes to warm up to an only mediocre light output. Let's say 20 watts consumed each for the CF. Over time, we have begun replacing all with LED bulbs. The LED bulbs come on full bright instantly, at about 7 watts each. And none have failed, ever. There are even LED bulbs which mimic incandescent lighting patterns. And they are now cheaper than CF in many cases.

 

[pooldv]

I'm a big fan of LED bulbs. I do have a few of the old slow roll CFLs around. Although, the CFLs are better now, closer to instant on and better color options. But, they are going to get bypassed by LED. I recently converted all the under cabinet lighting in the kitchen from halogen to LED. Huge difference in operating temp, those halogens are hot, LEDs are nice and cool. All light bulbs that are used daily have been converted to LED. Good stuff!

 

[domct203]

Same here. Every once and a while Home Depot will have a great sale on the CREE LED bulbs & that's when I first started changing over. Right now I think I'm about 95% LED, inside and out.

 

[CJadamec]

I don't have a single CFL or incandescent bulb in my house. I'm a fan of the cree bulbs they have performed great even where they aren't supposed to like in sealed recessed lighting. For the outdoor stuff I went with LED fixtures instead of bulbs. Amazon is a great place for residential LED flood lights.

 

[Sammy2]

I re-lamped my old Jandy Color MR-16 Halogens with LED equivalents. It took me three tries to get an LED short enough with a wide enough beam to work well and to fit behind the dichormatic screen. Neither of the ones ordered from amazon were quite short enough. I finally got a set short enough from Home Depot on line and drop shipped as they weren't one normally stocked. I still had to go to the bolt supply warehouse to get the stainless screws I needed to put the dichromatic screen back on the light housing as these lights were still a couple mm too long. I got it all buttoned up and working great with new gaskets and re-installed them. Now, instead of burning 75watts x 4 lamps = 300 watts (2 in the pool and 2 in the spa) I'm at 6.5Watts x 4 lamps = 26 watts and I don't mind having them on for a couple hours each morning when I'm up before the sun and each evening too.

 

[pabeader]

Have they fixed the flickering issue? The LED lights that I have seen, flicker at a very annoying rate. I stopped trying to use them because of it.

 

[duraleigh]

I am about 95% LED by now. None of mine have ever flickered that I can notice.

 

[Sammy2]

No flickering for me. Most all of my house is LED and a lot of dimmable ones too. The lights on the back patio and gazebos seen above are 11w incandescents but there's 300 of them and that is a bit of a capital outlay to replace with LED plus I'm not so sure they'll give the look I want.

 

[pabeader]

Hay Dave, do you have LED Christmas lights? If so, do you notice a flicker with them?

 

[Jnet]

The flickering was caused by early, poorly designed (cheap) drivers. This was most prevalent in dimmable and replacement bulbs where driver space and heat dissipation are limited, as a opposed to complete fixtures. Most LEDs on the market now should have resolved the issue, although some people are more sensitive to the flicker than others. While no universal standard that I know if exists, modern drivers push the flicker well up into the kilohertz range, far beyond what we can perceive.

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[jtrovato21]

I had LEDs in my recessed lighting in my kitchen and noticed that they were flickering any time I ran my dishwasher. Turns out it was the dimmer I had installed on the circuit, it was an old dimmer, not rated for CFL or LED. I replaced the dimmer switch with one made for CFL/LED and the flickering went away completely. The newer dimmer is also adjustable so you can set the minimum dimmer level, where the old style one, even at the dimmest level, the lights were still at I'd say about 30% brightness. Now I can dim them all the way down to almost off.

 

[ping]

My house is now 90% LED and I have had a few failures in my bathroom, 3 of the 6 Crees have gone out after 1.5 years. No other failures in 2 years for most of the lights. The instant on, colors of the LED lights, and the electric savings are fantastic.

 

[cjpwalker]

I've seen the flicker on the Christmas lights, too. Usually out of the corner of my eye, and I'm guessing at about 60hz, as they're cheap and don't have any decent rectification. LEDS being a diode first, and a light source second only pass power in one direction, so when the current from your AC outlet cycles back and forth the lights will pulse at that rate.

I'm mostly still cfl in the house, but the can lights are all LED from home depot and costco now - never any issues with those - out of the corner of my eye, or anywhere else. I've got a couple of the Feit "original" edison reproduction bulbs in LED outside for fun. Good, steady appearance on those, too.

PS I'm still able to find traditional C7 Christmas lights every year - yay! They look so much warmer and more inviting on the house - they actually illuminate the house, not just themselves...

 

[tucsontico]

I am testing LEDs for my recessed cans but I still have mostly incandescent bulbs inside my house (using older Insteon home automation switches that don't like LEDs) but all LEDs in my landscape and pool lighting. One odd thing I noticed with the landscape LEDs is they give off a strong enough RF signal in the "wrong" frequency that it blocks my garage door opener remote! Not to hijack this thread but, anybody else out there having that issue?

Totally agree with cjpwalker about C7 Christmas bulbs! They just look much more inviting!

 

[pabeader]

Thanks everyone for the great info about the newer LED lights. Guess I'll have to give 'em another chance.

 

[RoaringRam]

My house is 95% LED as well. The only thing remaining is the fluorescent lights in the garage. Even my flood lights are LED. I've had zero issues in the three years they've been installed.


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[ionizer]

I am about 99% LED including replacing all my tube lights in closets/utility rooms. In fact the only CFL I have are the ones mounted under the kitchen cabinets.

I plan to replace the backyard halogens with more of the expensive LED units from (forgetting the name at the moment), but so much nicer and instant light.

I am 0% incandescent.

did this 3 years ago when i moved in and leds were a bit more expensive, but waited until i got a good deal...nowadays its a no brainer b/c they are so cheap

 

[gary300]

Most of the bulbs in my house are now LED as are my Intellibrite 5G pool lights. Also, I replaced 6 t12 florescent tubes in my kitchen and 8 t12 tubes in my garage with LED t8 tubes fitted with a dimmer. The LED tubes use a lot less power, will probably outlast me, are dimmable, run cooler and do not flicker or buzz. I think the tubes were about 20 bucks each at HD, but IMHO well worth the money.