Grow up never changing a light bulb?

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
I just had one of those "old man" moments.

I've been slowly changing the lights in our house over to LEDs as it becomes practical as the prices drop (e.g. a whole chandelier that used to eat up 375W, now only 55). Also doing some renovations, and LED-based light fixtures are going in.
In many cases, there's no separate "bulb" to replace, you'd have to replace the whole thing. But given a 15-20 year life expectancy... who cares.

This got me to thinking.
My son is 10 (and been helping), daughter is 4.
By the time she graduates high school, and is in college... if say I had replaced everything now... if these thing have anywhere close to the projected life, it's entirely possible she'll grow up never even seeing/learning how to change a light bulb! Not hardly know what her brother will only vaguely remember as an oddity of the old days.
Holy cow! I almost feel compelled to save a couple just to have as a relic, lol.

(Only exception will be in my old Toyota, which will still probably be sitting in the back yard)
 
Doubtful. We're not seeing lifespans anywhere near 15-20 years in actual use. 5-7 seems more likely. Related, the CFLs that we were previously getting 5yrs out of are now only lasting a year or two. The pre-ban ones I have are still going strong, but the ones purchased since have already burned out.

I think I've said this here before, but we had an LED fixture here in the office blow.the.fuck.up a week or so ago.
 
Hurley said:
ha, what part blew up?
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Apparently, they come standard with integral pipe bombs. I wasn't aware of that.

If I had to guess, it was the element itself. You're not going to put the power of the sun on a little chip the size of your thumbnail and not lose one every once in a while. The shards of glass and whatnot didn't come from the driver. When those go, it's more of a smoldering-and-letting-the-magic-smoke-out sort of problem.
 
Don't believe the 15-20 year life span shit.

Most of the time this is based on 3 hours of use a day.

I use alot of LED lighting in the plant here and I am a big fan of it.
 
I like those LED shop lights I seen somewhere else on here but then I looked up the cost..... LOL NOPE! I have 12, 48" fixtures in my garage, looks like Im going to stay with the fluorescent bulbs for a few more years. All the bulbs in my house are LED now though
 
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I just did 48" t8 leds... 14 bulbs was $240
Well worth the money
 
Have you compared them to the fluorescent T5 High Outputs? Thats what I've got in my shop and garage and I'm extremely impressed with them, but LED's were prohibitively expensive when I installed the T5HO's.
 
I bought the t8 for the tool truck but missed the part that you bypass the ballast, well the truck is 12v not 120 so i bought cheap fixtures and used what i bought...
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don't worry, by then no one will be able to know how to do anything for themselves. They'll have to call an electrician to change a bulb!

I'm finding that people are loosing the ability to problem solve and figure out how to do shit on their own. Be it laziness, entitlement, or those that know how, just get aggravated and say "get out of the way, I'll do it" and the knowledge isn't passed on. even if it's just changing a light bulb.
 
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^just call it evolution of skill.

there's plenty of skills commonly required to survive in the 1800's that have fallen by the wayside now. Should they be forgotten, no, but there's no need for everyone to keep on doing the same things every generation, else there would be no ingenuity or progress.
 
My grandfather died back in Nov.He and my grandfather bought in bulk,paper towels,can food,ect.They even had three freezers full of food.So after the funeral we were all back at her house to eat and do the usual post funeral things.Somebody was on the shitter so I had to go to the spare bathroom in the utility room.There on the shelf,beside the 10 boxes of 22LR,was 6/8 four pack boxes of bulbs.Shes 83 so its safe to bet she'll never change a/or to a LED bulb.
 
My Brother-in-law, works for Duke Power. He says, at 1 Old Plant, there is an Original 100W Incandescent, that is said to have Never been turned off, & it's over 50 years old! I forget the date. He is 59, & says he's never seen a bulb similar to this one. Regardless of age, he says when you see it, You Know it's OLD!
 
Hurley said:
^just call it evolution of skill.

there's plenty of skills commonly required to survive in the 1800's that have fallen by the wayside now. Should they be forgotten, no, but there's no need for everyone to keep on doing the same things every generation, else there would be no ingenuity or progress.
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I don't think there will ever be a time that we don't need to problem solve and figure things out. I hope I never find myself wrong about that statement.
 
Edison Bulb is what Ive always heard them called.

And actually the LED life expectancy is much longer likewise if you just turn it on and leave it. The cycle is much harder on them.
 
Old Scout said:
Walked out of Lowe's the other day with $45 worth of light bulbs and started the whole "back in my day, you could buy incandescents for 10 cents each."
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There's a reason for that. Everybody in this thread is talking about spending all sorts of money on light bulbs... and for what? You won't save any real energy. But the ban wasnt about saving energy. It was about a government handout to a bunch of manufacturers who had a neat product that no one would buy.
 
I have a few LEDs in use around the house. They are very bright and put out way less heat. The spot light on my flag pole used to go out about every six months with incandescent bulbs. The LED I finally tried is just as bright as a 250W bulb and is going on a year old. I kept the box and receipt, it has a 15 year warranty.

I hate the CFL bulbs. About a year ago I was in Roses Discount Store and found 2 flats of GE 100W incandescent bulbs. Bought them all for around 10 cents each. I smugly took them home thinking how wise I was. Each bulb I used lasted around 2 months or so. When I was a kid it seemed bulbs would last a year or more. The quality of even the name brand regular bulbs had gotten to be abysmal.

I put new light fixtures in my bathroom over the two mirrors. Each has 3 100W equivalent LEDs, it is like daylight at the beach in there.

Costco has 60W equivalent LEDs in a 3 pack for $11. I have been slowly switching over. Was it a conspiracy to kill the old bulbs? yes. I still like LEDs better.
 
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