"Reduced Wattage" incandescant bulbs now in stores

[yuandrew]

I dropped by my local Home Depot on Saturday to pick up a new light bulb for my refrigerator. While browsing through the light bulb isle, I noticed that one can no longer get the "general purpose" light bulbs in the "normal" wattage. Instead, they have been replaced by "reduced wattage incandescent bulbs" in order to comply with the new "minimum energy reduction guidelines" imposed by the state of California.

So now, I can no longer purchase 40, 60, 75, and 100 watt bulbs from my Home Depot any more. They have been replaced with 38, 57, 71, and 95watt bulbs respectively.

Example of what had replaced what :

Replaced by:

After leaving Home Depot, I decided to check two other stores nearby as well. Rite Aid pharmacy is starting to stock the reduced wattage bulbs now as well although there are still some normal wattage bulbs on the shelves. Ace Hardware still has it's stock of normal bulbs currently.

One get around though; I was still able to purchase a 40 watt APPLIANCE bulb for my fridge. Decorative "Crystal Clear" bulbs are also still available in their "normal" wattages.

Anyone from Canada want to black market import some "normal" wattage bulbs for me ?

 

[asdalton]

Notice that the lumen output has been reduced.

What people are going to do is to move up to the next highest wattage lamp in order to get the light that they need. So they'll end up using even more energy than before.

 

[jrmcferren]

Yes, these are California products. The regular "Econo-Watt" (watt miser, etc) type bulbs are 52 watts for a 60 watt lamp with a code of 60A-52A/EW for a Phillips Econo-Watt with an output of 700 Lumens. The California Approved 57 Watt bulbs are coded as 57A instead of 60A for a 60 watt lamp.

 

[BVH]

What a crock! Just like low flow toilet flush valves. Now you have to flush twice, using more water than before. Darn right I'm going to buy the next higher wattage bulb. I'm in Kalifornia - how embarrassing to live here:sigh:

 

[Erasmus]

I don't understand this, why do they swap normal light bulbs by less efficient ones while the purpose is to save energy? That's not very logical...

 

[jrmcferren]

Fixtures are rated for a maximum safe wattage. If the fixture is rated for 60 watts you can only use up to the 57 watt lamp safely. If the output of the 57 watt lamp is too low, you can only use a compact fluorescent or halogen lamp of 60 watts or less safely. I speculate that this move is to make people switch to the new Halgena energy saver or compact florescent lamps.

 

[Illum]

60 watt lamps always looked like 40Watters to me except more heat, I think if I can get used to it I can shower with a 15W lamp and eat beside a 30W lamp [with tailstanding lights running on rechargeables of course ]

 

[2xTrinity]

I don't understand this, why do they swap normal light bulbs by less efficient ones while the purpose is to save energy? That's not very logical...

Efficiency isn't really lower. The 57W is nominally 1.8% less efficient than the 60W, however I suspect that much can be accounted for by rounding error.

Nonetheless, cutting wattage by 5% (and output accordingly) isn't particularly significant, even if everyone in the world were to switch to these. If even a small fraction of potential buyers jump to higher wattage, it will more than offset the savings.

 

[lpcmidst128]

Yeah I noticed other stores have those reduced wattage bulbs as well. I remember way back GE had the Miser which were 5 watts less than the usual (ie. 55W). If I remember right the packaging said something like gives similar output light to 60watts but uses 55watts.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

When I read the Subject line it triggered a memory. (Owww, the horror) Reduced wattage bulbs are nothing new IIRC. They have been sold as 'Long Life' or 'Heavy Duty' for at least decades (perhaps many decades).

As far as the specialty 40 watt APPLIANCE bulb mystery goes I'd assume that those particular items have always been 'Long Life' or 'Heavy Duty' or "Reduced Wattage" bulbs, hence the 'APPLIANCE' moniker.

 

[LukeA]

What a crock! Just like low flow toilet flush valves. Now you have to flush twice, using more water than before. Darn right I'm going to buy the next higher wattage bulb. I'm in Kalifornia - how embarrassing to live here:sigh:

If you're flushing twice on a 1.6/1.0gpf toilet and are using more water than a 6.0gpf flush, then something is wrong.

 

[2xTrinity]

What a crock! Just like low flow toilet flush valves. Now you have to flush twice, using more water than before. Darn right I'm going to buy the next higher wattage bulb. I'm in Kalifornia - how embarrassing to live here:sigh:

The type that we have work as follows: if you depress the lever and let go, only the minimum amount of water is used, however, you can HOLD the lever down and keep the water flowing as long as necessary. In practice few low-flow toilets offer this option, but this is the best of both worlds -- better than multiple separate flushes for sure.

When I read the Subject line it triggered a memory. (Owww, the horror) Reduced wattage bulbs are nothing new IIRC. They have been sold as 'Long Life' or 'Heavy Duty' for at least decades (perhaps many decades).

Long Life and reduced wattage aren't really the same. Long life is where they intentionally run the filament at a lower temperature to reduce time betewen burnouts, at the expense of efficiency, eg for difficult to reach fixtures where changing a burned out bulb is more costly than the additional energy expenditure and/or reduced light output.

Although, one thing that I've recommended to a lot of people when using lamps on dimmers is to get the lowest wattage possible to produce a reasonable "100%" output. When the lamp is dimmed even slighly, the effect is the same as the "long life", eg, it runs at a lower temp. I've seen people put very high wattage long life bulbs on dimmers, then compensate for the overilluminatin by dimming them and never running the dimmer at 100% ever, thus wasting a lot of power in the process compared to running lower wattage bulbs at closer to spec.

IMO it woudl be intersesting to see some IRC (infrared reflective coating) halogens sold -- those actually would save power, as much as half, while still producing identical output. For applications where fluorescent or LEDs done work due to thermal issues (eg recessed/insulated fixtres), these would be a great option.

 

[yuandrew]

IMO it would be interesting to see some IRC (infrared reflective coating) halogens sold -- those actually would save power, as much as half, while still producing identical output. For applications where fluorescent or LEDs done work due to thermal issues (eg recessed/insulated fixtures), these would be a great option.

IRC halogens are already being sold in Home Depot as well by Philips. I bought some but I doubt if anyone else wants to pay about 10 dollars for two light bulbs judging by the amount of dust the packages had collected.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=192881

 

[blasterman]

thus wasting a lot of power in the process compared to running lower wattage bulbs at closer to spec.

The average household dimmer introduces a huge amount of energy waste by converting a significant portion of it to heat.

Seems the California mandates are backfiring and confusing consumers, but I figured it would. Household energy consumption based on lighting use is a statistic I've always considered blown up because of political concerns. The warehouse next door uses more lighting energy at night with their 1,000watt metal halide that runs all night on their back dock than my entire block using incandescent.

I hate incandescent lights and feel people who use them have a visual cortex no more evolved than an amoeba. If 2700k looks normal and doesn't both you, the please take the rocket ship back to the red giant that circles your original homeworld. Still, this is an absurd way to educate consumers. A better idea would be to 'ban' or surcharge globe type incandescent bulbs and only allow PAR type reflector bulbs. This keeps the technology the same, and uses a bulb that puts the light where you need it.