salsa-king

as title,

we have 8x GU10 50w bulbs in our kitchen.... using a shed load of power me thinks!!
29x 50w GU10's over the whole house.


Has anyone got the same issue and swapped to LED bulb
GU10 LED lamps

or the new 11w CFL bulb?
YourWelcome Low Energy GU10

have you noticed a saving on your bills......... i know you have to buy the bulbs at £5 each but they should last longer.

what sort of light have you got from them?



Phil

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

1W LEDs & you might as well be in the dark

Use only if you want mood lighting...

We have the same problem added to which the normal ones go all the time & its a pain to replace. Tried a couple of LEDs & they're so not throwing out any useful light - ok as a night or emergency light I guess.

Haven't tried the CFL bulb yet.

David Lock

I have about the same being ceiling downlighters in kitchen, bathrooms and some bedrooms. Nice light but pain in the **** to change bulbs as lumps seem to fall off plasterboard when downlighter holding clips catch edge of hole.

Mine are 50 watt 12V. Are you talking about mains or 12V lights??

Last ones I bought were 99p each but they are about half that on e-bay and £2.49 at Sainsburys.

dl

LanCat

GU10 are 240v and don't seem to last 5 minutes, the 50w's in particular.

I swapped to the LED ones in my office in the summer, the reduced heat output was the main reason but the loss in light at this time of year is a major PITA. Obviously they do use less electric but I'd hate to have them in the kitchen.

Anyone tried the CFL ones?

john_s

iTrader: (1)

We put some CFL GU10's in the corridor at work. The boss was being tight and decided to get the 7W ones. They're ok, but it looks a bit dark... we'll replace them with 11W ones when we can be bothered. They are quite slow to start up though, and need a good few minutes to get up to a decent level of light output.

I've seen the CFL GU10's used to light a bar, and they work great. Not sure what wattage they are, but they give out a great bright, white light.

john banks

The electricity use is significant from a few clusters of GU10. We have 15 of them in our kitchen - 750W, enough to help heat the room! The cost and illumination from the low energy ones doesn't convince me yet, B&Q are £1 each in boxes of 10 for GU10 IIRC.

logiclee

The LED ones are next to useless and the CFL ones are not much better.

I buy all the electrical equipment for my company and I've had rep after rep bring me samples to try but nothing I've seen will replace a halogen bulb, yet!!

If you wan't to save money in the kitchen and still have the kitchen well lit you need to forget fancy style and put up a 5' flourescent fitting.

Cheers
Lee

David Lock

So do I get a thumbs up or down in power output terms with the bulbs I have?

These being 12v x 50W. Says Halogen Dichroic Reflector Lamp on the box.

Thanks, dl

logiclee

Voltage does not make a difference.

You have a 50W load whether they are 12V or 240V.

A unit of electrcity on your bill is 1000W for one hour.

So ten 50W bulbs on for two hours uses one unit of electrcity.

Ten 1W LED bulbs will use the same amount of electrcity if left on for 100 hours.

Cheers
Lee

David Lock

Thanks Lee - that's very helpful.

So what can I do if I want to reduce energy consumption? I think each downlighter has a transformer close to it tucked away in the ceiling cavity. I presume each one is fed by the mains. So can I simply do away with these transformers and use a low energy 240V light and fit the bulb in the same downlighter holder?

And if so could I just try one of two lights or would I need to do all the lights that come off the same wall switch at the same time. TIA, dl

MMT WRX

Just been in B&Q and they've got loads of these working in display lamps and they actually look very impressive...except they cost £10 each.

We have a load of the standard G10 fittings in our kitchen, weve just fitted a soft start dimmer switch as this will apparently reduce the number of blown bulbs we get.

The ones in our ceiling have a wire circlip holding the bulb into the housing. If you remove it, easily done just with your fingers, the bulb and holder can be pulled down to change the bulb. Its a really simple job.

logiclee

The lamp holder itself is completely different for 240V and 12V so you would need to change the entire down lighter. Simple wiring job if individual transformers are used.

There are 12V LED replacement bulbs available though so you do not have to change to 240V.

Cheers
Lee

Removed.

I've been swapping out my 50W halogens for 20W Halogens, which I buy cheap from B&Q, and I can't really see a difference. I'm still saving money, but not as much as going to CFL or LED. Might be a good compromise, I've got 18 in my house so 18x50=900W compared to 18x20=360W, if they're on for 4 hours a night that's 2700W saved, nearly 3 units, 21 units a week, or around 1000 a year. My Economy 12 tariff is about 4.5p so that's £45 saved. Blimey, that's the first time I've actually worked it out

dunx

iTrader: (3)

I was going to get four LED GU10's for my "man room"...

Only need to see where my remote/drink is !

Price is silly !

DunxC

P.S. New fitting with 4x GU10 @ 50 W was £9.95 LOL

salsa-king

Trouble with some of the LEDs bulbs is the colour of the light, I've seen some that cast a blue light off them, making your room look cold.

the 11w CFL ones should be the same as the 50w halogens.

In our downstairs toilet and utility room we already have those light fittings from B&Q that had the GFL bulbs in them, a minute or two to warm up but then they are plenty bright enough.


I might try the 11w CFL bulbs in the kitchen, then if any good start swapping all them over the house.

GU10 11w White






NEW - Higher power replacement for standard GU10 Halogen lamps. Consumes just 11w power and produces a light approx equivalent to a 50w Halogen lamp.

YourWelcome Low Energy GU10


This item will not ship until 10th November

Detailed Specifications:
Light output 400 lumens
Colour temp 3000k White
Rated Life 8000 hours
Size 50mm * 76mm
Wattage 11w = 50+ watts




GBP £ 6.98

wagrain

We had 10 x 50W GU10's in our kitchen. Swapped them for 20W versions and very little loss of light but saving 60% on energy!


Have some 12V downlighters with MR16 halogens. I use 20W in those which I bought from Screwfix for 13pence each !

corradoboy

A bit of Googling should get them under a fiver each

Suresh

I bought 6 'warm white' LED SMD bulbs last week from these boys

MrLed - Home

Cost just over 70 notes to replace standard incandescent bulbs in our living room. Would theoretically pay for themselves in savings within 18 months. However, the LED bulbs were total and utter pants in terms of colour temperature (no way the 3000K advertised) and actual light output (2.3W = 40W, my ar$e), so got returned next day for a refund.

I'll be sticking with the global-warming-inducing, planet-killing items for quite a while methinks.

Dazza's-STi

Funny how peopleare thinking the same of late, I went down the LED route on the 5 Gu10 in our little kitchen and they were utter rubbish. Look very bright to look at but give no light out... So I'll either make the holes bigger and put in propper recesed low energy lights as in an office, they're very bright and plenty of light or may try some of those Gu10 LE once as above... If you get some Salsa post your results...

ta

salsa-king

I think LEDs won't give the power out to give the brightnes over all our kitchen. Hence the 11w CFL ones should be better. As these are like what we have already in the utlity room. Giving off plenty of light.

StickyMicky

in my kitchen i had 3 x 60watt spotlights

kept one of them normal and fitted led ones in the other 2

same with the living room, had 8 x mr10 (i think) downlights

kept 2 normal and fitted led to the rest, got used to the different light levels after a week or so, and refitting the "proper" lamps now makes the room feel to bright

we are all electric and have no gas and our bill is now approx 30/month which is very nice indeed!

MattW

I have GU10's everywhere

Kitchen 11
Lounge 8
Toilet 3
Main Bathroom 4
Second Bathroom 3
Third Bathroom 4
Tv/Gym 5
Study 5

I had a look at the low energy fittings, you can get some that are the same size as a GU10 fitting (65mm hole) Trouble is the cost to replace all those.

Allan

iTrader: (1)

I agree all the LED type I've tried, have been useless for 50W replacements.

Lee, have you tried any of the Luxeon 3W LED's in GU10 ? I think these are about the best you can get at the moment, I was going to buy one to try.

LED technology is advancing at a rapid pace at the moment, we may just have to wait a bit longer.

Allan

speedking

Agree. Replaced 2/7 GU10 spots with LED lamps and got a headache because of the reduced light.

salsa-king

the 11w CFL look the way to go.


group buy anyone?



Toying with getting my company (Neoquip.com) to get some from china as this might bring the costs down.

zip106

How many Goths does it take to change a light bulb?














None.
They prefer to sit in the dark.

Sorry.

samcowrx

I am an electrician, and a lot of my work is designing and installing for one building company who specializes in new build eco homes,(ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps, LE lighting etc), these homes are high spec and use 11w LE (CFL) down lights through out, the end result of the lighting for each room is very good, but you have to bear in mind that the lighting plan for me is a blank canvas so we can design to suit the room, ie: to get the correct lighting levels for each room, but if the decor is bright, white, off white etc, i have found that you can use the same amount of 11w LE down lights as you would normally when using GU10 50w or 12v 50w halogen lamps, the light itself is easy on your eyes, but the only problem is they do take a minute to warm up!

samcowrx

They are dimmable now too.

salsa-king

how much are you getting them for?

Klaatu

Go with the most inefficient you can find as we'll need lots of that "dangerously warming Co2" emissions by about 2015. Wonder why many Govn'ts are clammering at an Emissions Trading Scheme by 2010 (Aus) and the rest by 2012? Maunder minimum on the approach, will it be a Kyoto minimum? Seems that way!