They’ve both worked fine for me. We had a CFL last several years in my parent’s old house. LEDs are pricey but they’re incredibly bright for the equivalent wattage of an incandescent. As with anything, YMMV.
I have several LED bulbs, mostly for outside flood lights and entryways. I don’t know about the candelabra-base types. The LEDs I have were expensive ($29 for a 100W equivalent floodlight) and burn hot. Hotter than incandescent bulbs. They’re also instant-on like an incandescent. They consume about 1/4 of their incandescent counterparts and are rated for 20,000 hr.s.
LEDs are expensive. They use almost no electricity. Look great. Are cool to the touch. Work well with dimmers.
Use them in rooms where the lights are on all the time.
The Canadian Football League?
"How many 'Hardastarboards' does it take to change a light bulb?"
"None - because of LED's, he forgot how."
The LEDs sound good but are too expensive. I’ve had good CFLs but those were from a time when we actually produced them here, now I get nothin but crap.
CFLs do not last for me. Just before they may actually begin to pay for themselves they burn out. Some have been rather interesting with the sizzling and smoking when they go. I bought a LED and wrote the date of purchase on it so I don’t forget to check how long they last. I love it so far.
I’m using some candelabra bulbs outdoor in front porch and replacing ones as they burn out. The color isn’t perfect but got tired of beating the children and wife for not turning out the lights( jokingly). Now I don’t give a rats.ass.
I have converted to LED lights almost everywhere in the house. They are great, and no failures in 2 years of service.
CFLs have many downsides. CFL’s contain toxic mercury, have limited life, generate audible and raido-frequency noise, occasionally catch on fire, have to warm up to reach full light output, have poor light quality.
I’ve got a few LED bulbs in our porch fixture that are running like champs. I tried CFLs there, but they get too hot and burn out nearly as quickly as good ol’ Tungsten bulbs do.
I recently installed three in various locations in the house. They are bright, instant on and have a good “warm temperature”. They say they will last for 22 years. I won’t be around that long so I’ll have to take their word for it.
Just save the receipts for all the bulbs and get new ones when they go out.
You have the receipts, right?
</sarcasm>
My house is painted green, and I found a green cfl on sale at Lowe’s for 2 bucks, so I put it in the outdoor fixture next to the front door. In this weather it takes forever to warm up to full light. I had a white non-dim one in a fixture over my kitchen counter. My friends and I would be havin’ a beer, and I’d dim that sick puppy anyway. Gave off the freakiest illumination ever!
Just last weekend , Saturday morning about 5:00 am, the local SWAT team boots in my door, holds me and the wife at gun point while all the goons rifled my entire house and confiscated every incandescent light bulb I owned! They took the 40 watters out of the kids lava lamps and even took the 7 watt night lights!
To add insult to all this they wrote me a ticket for the wasteful toilet I have in the basement bathroom.
Had the Fire Dept. out for a CO leak and while in house they noticed all CFL’s I had in the garage. I was in the process of changing out all my old bulbs.
I was told the CFL’s are turning out to be a bit of a fire hazard and the department was seeing more and more fires started by these bulbs as they become more widely used. I plan on switching to LED’s as the price comes down. They produce better light anyway.
I find CFLs to be under bright and they don’t last nearly as long as advertised. Haven’t tried LED.
We remodeled our kitchen a year ago and the laws required us to put in “high efficacy” lighting. We chose LEDs which caused a HUGE increase in the kitchen budget. The LEDs are in recessed fixtures, not globe lights like you are considering. We also installed “Diode LED” under-cabinet lighting to light the counter tops. The recessed fixtures cannot have removable bulbs (too many people were cheating and tearing out the LED and putting in regular incandescent bulbs), so the LED element is permanently attached.
1. Likes.
* Low electricity consumption (grasping at straws). But our kitchen lights are not on enough to notice any difference in the electricity bill (it’s dominated by the electric oven, electric dryer, and refrigerator).
* No mercury in the bulbs. If the God damned government is going to force me to install things I don’t want, then at least there’s a mercury-free alternative.
2. Dislikes.
* Turn-on lag. There is maybe a 300 - 400 msec before the lights come on.
* Light quality sucks. Even though we got “warm” LEDs, they still have a light quality like those high-intensity headlights we all hate.
* Strobe effect on the under cabinet light strips when pouring food out of boxes, especially cereal.
* Poor dimming. I went through several dimmers before finding one that works on the under cabinet LED strips. The last dimmer seems to have “solved” the problem by not letting you turn the light down very far.
* Unstable dimming. With a couple of dimmers on the under cabinet lights, the lights would periodically “flash” to higher intensity. This is a common problem with dimming LEDs.
I haven’t tried a dimmer yet on the recessed LED cans. That’s up next. Maybe the Cree bulbs in the recessed lights will work better with dimmers than the under cabinet LEDs.
Luckily we’ve got traditional incandescent bulbs in our pendant lights and chandelier light in the DR — instant on, excellent dimming, no flicker, warm light. Plus I’ve got enough Edison base traditional incandescent bulbs stashed away to last the rest of my lifetime.
Bottom line: Do I like LEDs? No, not yet, as much as I wanted to like them. Eff the Government for this travesty. These things are really not ready for commercial sale.
My bathroom has no windows and the light switch is in an awkward position to try to find.
I bought a small lamp and put a 10w CFL in it. It is on 24-7. It provides enough light for general bathroom use.
The CFL burned out just a few weeks ago, so I replace it with another. It ran 24/7 for about 4 years.
I replaced most of my lights with CFL years ago. I have only had 2 burn out. One was in a dining area light fixture; that bulb only lasted a few weeks. Its replacement still works. The other was the bathroom lamp light mentioned above.
I figure the lesser utility bills for the last 8 years have more than paid for the CFLs. I haven’t tried the LEDs yet, as they are still kind of expensive.
In the last year I’ve started slowly replacing incandescent a and CFLs around the house with the 40 and 60W equivalents that Lowes is selling for less than 10$ (the 40W’ers I’ve been catching on sale some times <7$). I have some over the kitchen sink with a dimmer switch that we have left on 24x7 for months now as task lights day and evening and night lights when we go to bed.
So far I really like them.The light has a slight tinge of blue that I only notice when I look at them directly and they seem brighter than rated equivalents when I put them next to incandescents. The 40w equivalents are much brighter than 40w incandescents and indistinguishable from 60w. And similarly the 60w equivalents are brighter too. Unlike the CFLs that seem to cook their bases within a year or so of use in the overhead fixtures, the LEDs look good as new- I never notice any heat from them even after leaving them on all day.
Been using the CFL (dimmible type) in my kitchen. They burn out almost as fast as incandesent.
I’l be switching to (warm light) LED’s as soon as i use up the CFL’s