Has anybody adopted LED bulbs for their home, I have a number of fittings which utilise G9 halogens and are tempted to go LED.

Looking for advice on suppliers and possible kelvin ratings for different areas of the home.

I currently have LED bulbs in hallways etc. which builders supplied, these are 5w and 6500 kelvin but would be interested in views for kitchens/living and dining areas.

Thanks.

Yeah we've got them in the Kitchen and Living Room. 

 

Had to get the lowest colour temp though.. the higher colour temps feel too white and bright.. too stressing on your eyes after a while imo, it didnt feel natural. 

 

The cooler ones are spot on though.

Yeah we've got them in the Kitchen and Living Room. 

 

Had to get the lowest colour temp though.. the higher colour temps feel too white and bright.. too stressing on your eyes after a while imo, it didnt feel natural. 

 

The cooler ones are spot on though.

 

Same experience here..... Keep to the lowest colour temp LED's for the house (normally tagged as warm white).

 

We have changed the kitchen, utility, 3 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms so far in the new house.

More to do - but i am testing out a couple of different types and will see how well they perform.

I have some standard bayonets, some SES(?) mini-screw ones, some full size screw ones and some GU10s. Mostly from IKEA. Pretty happy with them, there's instant light now instead of the painfully slow warmup of my old energy savers, less heat given off, and the temperature on these is perfectly fine. Not sure what they are (and they're probably all slightly different) but I'll take the one in the "home office" out later and check it if I remember. I prefer a warmer light though, to the point where I even have my computer screens adjusted by f.lux to around 3500K.

Just recently, Sainsburys launched a range of 2750K LED bulbs in high enough outputs to replace 35W and 50W halogens. We replaced the halogens in the kitchen (GU10) and they really are just right as replacements.

Use them all over the house (and outside). I get mine from LEDHut who have quite a good selection. As people say "warm white" (2700K) is closest to normal bulbs. IF you want something a bit more "natural" like daylight a cool white might be useful, I have one in the office for reading now, it used to be in the bathroom (has a slightly higher light output, better for the wife checking makeup   )

Replaced bulbs in kitchen and bathrooms with LED MR16 leds.

 

Also had to change the transformer to stop the flickering - something to do with the LED bulbs drawing less current than the original transformer was designed to run at.

 

Have the daylight bulbs in the kitchen which gives a nice daylight light (surprisingly.................)

We have LED GU10 bulbs in the hallways and office. We went for the warm white ones (no idea on the kelvin but probably no more than 4000k). The higher kelvin ones as above are fine but feel a bit clinical.

 

We also have a set of Philips Hue bulbs in the living room and two Philips Livingwhites bulbs in the bedroom linked to these (although the livingwhites aren't LED and not colour changing).

 

Edited 24 March, 201610 yr by Phil-E

Be careful putting them in enclosed cases, although the "bulb" end is nice and cool, the electronics part CAN get quite hot; too hot and they start failing quite quickly; first one I tried failed in under 6 weeks.

 

If you look at car headlight LEDs, they either have fins and a fan at the back, or big loops of copper braiding to radiate the heat away.

Yes the bases can get very hot.

 

The ones in our ceiling have cutouts in the insulation to let them "breathe" just like you would a halogen bulb.

 

Also avoid any cheap ebay ones as although they may work fine and last a long time the safety can be "questionable" to say the least. There are some that you buy that have a 240v live circuit exposed on the front if they are inserted a certain way round!

I bought an LED for my office from Ikea, way too bright for me so had to remove.

 

Does anyone know if LED are safe in bathrooms?

We've had only LED bulbs in the extension we had built for a couple of years.  A mixture of GU10 and MR16  - so far haven't replaced any of the GU10 but most of the MR16 (bought from the internet)  have failed (started to strobe) and have been replaced with IKEA ones which so far seem fine.

For G9 where the bulb can be a bit larger I'd seriously look at the Phillips core G9 LED, which are very bright.

If you need closer to true size then integral make some good 20W equivalent bulbs. I've got about 30 in the house and they work extremely well.

 

Standard bulbs and GU10, I'd say look at sylvania, Phillips and Osram as from personal experience these are bright and work well.

 

I tend to go for dimmable bulbs unless the cost is a lot more, as the regulation circuits are better in these.

 

 

 

I bought an LED for my office from Ikea, way too bright for me so had to remove.

 

Does anyone know if LED are safe in bathrooms?

 

I have LED GU10 in the bathrooms and they're just fine. I would add that they're in the waterproof fittings for the old halogen bulbs though.

I have had LED in shower rooms in many previous places though and they've always been fine.

 

I would think that if a normal bulb was fine, then an LED of the same type will be too.

Edited 6 January, 201610 yr by cheezemonkhai

meh, from what I've read, I'm unconvinced about LED halogen replacements and I've actually just installed a number of integrated LED light fittings instead. We'll see what happens with their longevity.

I've been really impressed by round panel LED lights as I don't like the look of spotlights. the panels give a more even spread of light and don't heat up at all.

Thanks for the advice, I am inclined to look at the more major manufacturers from a reliability/safety point of view. Prob leaning more now for daylight around 3500-4000k, the higher are clinical, fine for hallways but not work or living.

I've no enclosed fittings thankfully do best wise should be ok. Time to keep looking.

I bought mine from Homebargains and replaced the drivers to suit MR16 so have 120W for 25W daylight. I have changed the driver and bulbs in my fireplace. I have ice white LED ceiling lights in my bathroom. lamps and other ceiling rose type lights have LED warmwhite all working well.

Most of my house is LED.

All main ceiling lights plus twin wall lights in various rooms and hallway triple lights x2.

Approx 32 individual lamps, my whole house if I switched on every light (4bed detached) is less than 100w!

Most are 3500-4000k as any higher they get too white for a comfy house. Lots of 1w lamps and 2w lamps but most standard fittings have 7/9w lamps.

Also have a few wireless lamps with multi colour options, handy at Christmas just set timers and put to multifunction with multiple colours and instant seasonal lights.

No particular brand, just depends what the wholesalers had as freebies or on offer.

Edited 6 January, 201610 yr by Defenderben

One of our neighbours has recently replaced all the bulbs in their house with leds.

i dont talk to them or kmow them, but i know about the bilbs due to the migrane inducingly waaay to bright glow coming through all the blinds and front door glass the last 6 weeks. Its vomit inducingly bright!

meh, from what I've read, I'm unconvinced about LED halogen replacements and I've actually just installed a number of integrated LED light fittings instead. We'll see what happens with their longevity.

I've been really impressed by round panel LED lights as I don't like the look of spotlights. the panels give a more even spread of light and don't heat up at all.

 

Cheap ones are either not bright or fail quickly.

The £4 sylvania GU10 bulbs run at 4W instead of 50W and give out as much light.

Unlike the Halogen bulbs they also last longer than 6 months to a year.

 

Even if they only last 5 years rather than the stated 20, I'd be quids in on the electric, the bulbs and my time.

As for the G9, honestly it's the best thing I ever did as I don't have to change one of them every 5 minutes.

Both I mentioned above are 1WLED = 10W halogen and they are equally as bright.

 

I bulk purchased the Phillips capsules as it was cheaper to buy more in a trade pack than just the number i needed.

If you (Nokiauk) wanted to drop me a PM, I'm happy to send you a bulb for the cost of the bulb to me plus P&P.

 

This is the bulb in question:

 

http://www.ledbulbs.co.uk/philips-corepro-g9-2-5-25w-ledcapsule-very-warm-white?kw=&fl=1000&ci=49439920833&network=pla&gclid=CMiC8cvFl8oCFQMcGwodY-oAeA

Edited 7 January, 201610 yr by cheezemonkhai

Approx 32 individual lamps, my whole house if I switched on every light (4bed detached) is less than 100w!

 

The difference in power is crazy isn't it!?

 

When we first got our motorhome (inherited from elderly relatives in Germany) it had all old lights in that used 10w (12v) car tail light bulbs! They drained the battery down in no time so I swapped all the lights/bulbs and can run all the lights (and I've added extra) using less power than one of the old bulbs.

I've done the kitchen and most of the lamps (SES fitting) - also gone for the warm white colour.

 

Just got a few odds and ends bulbs left to do, mainly lights we don't use that much.

 

 

Got an outside security light with 500W halogen in - can this be converted to LED does anyone know?

Easiest to replace as led floodlights are primarily supplied as whole units.

Lidl were doing LED security flood lights for (I think) £15 a couple of weeks ago, and I picked up some smaller "doorway" type LED PIRs for £9.99

I've done the kitchen and most of the lamps (SES fitting) - also gone for the warm white colour.

 

Just got a few odds and ends bulbs left to do, mainly lights we don't use that much.

 

 

Got an outside security light with 500W halogen in - can this be converted to LED does anyone know?

As others have said I would just switch the unit out as it should be a simple change.

So you know when we bought the incandescent and then halogen, we called them lamps ('cos bulbs go in the ground), but an LED is a diode, so what are we supposed to call them now?

 

Ikea have reduced some of their 2700 200lm E14 reflectors to £2, the 400lm are still £5.

They have 2700K twin packs of E27 400lm GLS (i.e., 'normal' lightbulbs) for £5 as well, and twin pack adaptors to convert bayonet light fittings to E27 screw for £1. The 400lm 2700K seems virtually identical to any 60W incandescent/42w Halogen that I've used before.