On 18/01/2018 00:53, Johnny B Good wrote:

Twenty years ago, it made good financial sense to invest 50 quid in CFLs
to knock 250 quid off the annual electricity bill.

I think quite a few (well, me!) got them for a lot less than that. And
while there can be some pretty good savings, CFLs had more to them than
that - with warm up, slow fade to fail and not always (or often IME) as
listed light output/quality. Although personally I quite like the light
of some CFLs.

Today, it would take a
50 quid investment in the latest LED GLS lamps just to knock another 40
to 50 quid off the electricity bill. It's just not enough of a saving,

With the exception of a couple of small ES dimmable LEDs, one strip
fluorescent in the kitchen, and a couple of multi LED fixtures (which
proved better/cheaper than bulbs/shade), I don't think I've spent more
than £2 on a bulb (mainly £1), and replaced when CFLs etc failed. Not a
single failure (yet), with the oldest at about 10,000 hours. And I tend
to keep some lights on, and have a lot of table lamps (not a fan of one
main room light most of the time).

So for my use (and maybe that of a few others) it can work out at a
decent long term saving, especially if advertised bulb life can be assumed.

It would hopefully have a knock on in the sense of grid capacity
requirements, especially as street lights start to be changed to LED

My main criticism, on the loose assumption that they don't all start to
fail, is the directional nature of the light. I seem to have got used to
that - although whether that's a good thing to get used to or not is an
issue.

especially when you know you'll most likely be able to achieve the same
savings a year or two later for a mere 20 or 30 quid investment in LED
lamps.


Yep, that'll probably happen.

--
Cheers, Rob