We have a five-light halogen light fixture in our kitchen that had declined to the point of having one lone working bulb in it. Every night I felt a little like Laura Ingalls Wilder, making dinner out on the prairie with only a candle to illuminate my mise en place. Evenings found me cursing my lone halogen bulb and its gross inadequacy–cursing the light fixture itself as well. Had this fixture been designed to make switching the bulbs easier, maybe we wouldn’t have avoided changing the bulbs so long in the first place. One stupid bulb will tell you how far we will go to avoid the task.
We’ve often fantasized about buying LED bulbs retrofitted for halogen fixtures, but had been hesitant for two reasons: (1) their spendy price, and (2) I wanted to avoid the tell-tale blue glow LED lights are known for. When I found myself near The Lightbulb Shop between appointments recently, I ponied up a kidney (a.k.a. $75) and purchased three “daylight” bulbs. Why didn’t I get the fourth? I couldn’t bring myself to spend a whole Benjamin on effing lightbulbs, no matter how long they’ll last. I also point out the word “daylight” because this is supposed to assure you of having light quality closer to an incandescent bulb than typical LED lights.
Excitedly, I brought home my gold ingots light bulbs and sweet talked Jeb into installing them. I have never been able to manage it–that is how ridiculously complicated it is to change the bulbs on this fixture. Once he switched them out, I flipped the switch with pride.
Only to feel transported to a garage-slash-operating-theater.
To say this light quality is hideous is an understatement. I am not sure what it is about these bulbs that would ever inspire anyone in the free world (except the marketing department) to refer to them as “daylight.” I feel deflated, ripped off, and to be honest, I so effing dread wrestling with changing the bulbs again I am temped to leave these abominations in the damn ceiling. We may resort to switching out the fixture itself and not just the lightbulbs.
I share this to prevent you from making the same mistake. For now, stick to your blasted halogen bulbs.
Thanks for the tip. Our neighbors put up led christmas lights and they were ick.
Can you return them?
Absolutely!
After looking at LED bulbs for quit a while, I finally decided to try replacing the CFLs in one fixture to see how they work. First of all, CFLs are horrible. I was replacing one every other month in a 4 light fixture, so the cost of LEDs wasn’t as much of an issue for me as they should last much longer. I spent about $120 on 4 bulbs, which is a lot, but the light is 15 feet up, and an absolute pain to get to. I went with Phillips bulbs, and they look great, and put out very good light with NO flicker. They were so good, I have replaced almost every light in my house with Phillips LED bulbs.
I guess my point is you just have to take a good look at the output on these types of bulbs before you buy. There are good ones out there, but there are bad ones, too.
A daylight label means they are NOT close to incandescent in color temperature. You should have bought “warm” or “soft” white if that’s what you were looking for. Incandescents give off a yellow light because of their low color temperature. Daylight balanced bulbs provide a white light, which could look bluish to those people who have incandescents in the same room. I made the switch to daylight bulbs years ago and will never go back. I like that they produce white light so that the colors I paint on the walls are actually the colors I painted on the wall, not tinted yellow. The house feels so much better having white light instead of a sickly yellow everywhere. It did take a few days to adjust to the white light but now I can’t stand the color of incandescents.
Thanks for the insight, Tim!
Hello,
Tim’s right. More specifically that color of light you are referring to is “correlated color temperature” (CCT) The range is in degrees Kelvin and for general lighting is often between ~2700 and 5000 kelvin.
There are other differences in quality. The better ones go through a selective binning process for consistent color and brightness. They also have better thermal and optical properties.
If you I can help you answer any questions please contact me at 512-266-2359