Last week we had 5 major lighting technologies represented in our house: incandescent, florescent, halogen, compact florescent and fire. Today I’m proud to announce the addition of LED lighting.
I tricked Lauren into doing most of the shopping on Sunday by standing in front of the light bulb display and pretending to carefully read labels. As a result, roughly half of our grocery bill was for light bulbs. I’m sure I could have bought them online for cheaper, but I wanted to buy them somewhere where I could take them back and indignantly demand my money back when they don’t last as long as they said they would.
Since this is a serious science program, we will be using two different types of bulbs. The “cheap” $7.94 (11 watts 800 lumens) Wal*mart brand Soft White General Purpose LED (non dimmable) bulb with the 3 year warranty and the $12.94 (11 watts 800 lumens) G.E. Soft White Dimmable* bulb with the 10 year warranty. AND, now that I take a closer look at the packaging and receipt, also the G.E. $9.94 (10.5 Watts, 800 lumens) Soft White Dimmable* bulb with the 5 year warranty.
To ensure that this a fair test of the bulb’s ability to fail exactly one day after their respective warranties expire, I will be mixing the bulbs in our (convenient for testing) 3 bulb lights.
Lauren has written the purchased date on each of the bulbs (a step that has no doubt voided their warranty already) and the plan is to use a combination of cell phone, manila folder and blog post to try to save the receipt for when the bulbs break.
As Wal*mart requires the original package for a return, we will be saving those as well. G.E. graciously only requires the Proof of Purchase (and the bulb). Wish us luck as we boldly light where no man has lit before. Was I trying too hard to tie everything back into that star date reference in the title? It felt like I was trying too hard. I’m just going to leave it.
*Dimming performance may vary. Go to: gelighting.com/dimming for more information.
I haven’t looked at LED bulbs for a while. 800 lumens is a good amount of light. I bought an LED bulb ten years ago for $35 and I think it had 2 lumens. You could tell it was on, but no light came from it.
Ha!
I am continually surprised how bright it is upstairs, since we’ve been living for a while with one working light bulb in each fixture.
So, what will prompt risking your neck by climbing on a chair or table to clean said fixtures?
That’s a good question. I’m thinking we just won’t clean them. Whoever we leave the house to in our will can take care of that.
Boy could we use your luminosity at our house… We have lights going out everywhere -- not just bulbs, fixtures! I put on mascara the other morning holding a small table lamp up to the mirror. 🙁
I like soft lighting….so my vote for your lighting needs is…..fire.
That’s what Lauren said too.
Interesting experiment. I have yet to buy a LED bulb. I switched all mine over to compact florescent a while back and some of the Walmart brand bulbs don’t last as long as others.