Good for a laugh: Heat Balls.
 

Heatball :: Home

Apparently, the incandescent bulb has been outright banned in Germany, but one entrepreneur is selling "Heat Balls" for 1.69 Euro a piece.

Heat Balls are a home heating device that screws right into a light socket. They use a tungsten filament inside a glass globe to produce heat with >95% efficiency.

ROTFLOL
http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1289149227

I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. A lightbulb is a much more efficient heater, after all. On the other hand, I understand that even thought the HEATBALL is a 95%-efficient heater, it still wastes 5% of its energy as visible wavelength light. I've seen infrared lightbulbs (used to keep things warm) but I have no idea how efficient those are.

And yes, incandescent bulbs are being phased out in Europe. Even though many people are protesting, the Wife and I are personally happy about it, since it has made more efficient lighting options available at reasonable prices. Before the ban, halogen incandescent light bulbs (about 20-30% more efficient) were not to be found, and the price of CFLs has dropped 50% in the last 2 years.

Haha, nice one.

I read on a Polish forum today about how Russian truck drivers keep their diesel fuel from freezing in the winter: They put a headlight bulb into the fuel tank. The 60-100 watts is usually enough, but sometimes it freezes between the tank and the engine.

So they reinvented the heat lamp...

I'm wondering one thing about the incandescent or 'heat balls'. I still use these in a few places where CFLs cannot be used or where I just don't use a bulb long enough to even get past the CFL 3 minute warm-up such as closets. Also places like directly over the bathroom sink where it would be a terrible idea to have a CFL. ...or they are outdoors where it can get to -20f in Minnesota and take 5 minutes to get decent light output but probably only about 80% of full standard output.

What will we do in these cases? Don't get me wrong, I've got CFLs and flourescent tubes in my house for almost all of my daily use lighting. ...but what about the cases where the lighting is more appropriate for an incandescent. I can't put a CFL in my fridge, garage door opener, oven or in an area that gets wet either.

Luckily I've got a whole bunch because the house I bought had all 60 watt incandescents in it and I've got a good 10 spares that are probably most of the way through their life(a few have burned out and have been replaced). I really don't want to join the light bulb hoarding bandwagon but I might just get some for the reasons I mentioned above.

It's only 30s to full brightness at a normal room temperature. But I still have incandescents in the closets, which I use for less than an hour a year. My solution for diminished light output in the garage would be to install more fluorescents if needed.

I use incandescents, but if they were outlawed, I'd use LEDs. They're not ideal for general purpose lighting, but for the specialty applications you named, they're great, albiet expensive to put one in each of your closets.

Btw, why not run a CFL in the bathroom? I haven't had an issue with mine yet.

"Btw, why not run a CFL in the bathroom? I haven't had an issue with mine yet."

I've killed 5 CFLs in the bathroom of two different brands in a year. Well, the last one isn't dead but it is purple and unbelievably dim for the first 3 minutes or so and it is not nearly as bright as it used to be. When I use the bathroom, I turn the light on, use the bathroom for a minute or two, turn the light off. The cyclic short term usage causes high emission losses in the CFL which gives them a very short life, even shorter than incandescents with high cycling. Only when I take a shower did they stay on for 15 minutes or so.

The other reason is that when I went to pull a CFL out, while unscrewing it, it hopped the last thread and landed in the sink. The last thing I want is to add mercury in the water supply so I won't be putting CFLs back in, scares the crap out of me. I bought a 40 watt equiv to test one. It's 430 lumens, 54lm/watt(lower than my ~70lm/watt CFLs), 8 watts. It's brighter when shining against my hand than the two 60 watt tungsten bulbs next to it because all of the light from the LED points down.

I've done more research on LEDs and searched through LF's search engine and found bulbs that have higher l/watt than CFLs though.

6.1 watts, 615 lumens, 101lm/watt in a 2700k warm white A19 shaped bulb.
That is a very high lm/watt although slightly lower lumens then I want but would be perfect for the bathroom. I'd pay $20/bulb if they were rated 35k+ hours.

They have higher powered bulbs at slightly lower but better than CFL efficiency in the A19 package

I can't find a price on them though but specs are here and the info is tested by DOE as its posted on their LF site.
LEDnovation, LED Lamps, LED Light Bulbs | Products - EnhanceLite A19 LED

...but I'm not going to go too far off topic. I'm going to make a new thread on these and try to email the company to find out pricing or distributor information if they are willing to provide it.

Can you use halogen lights? Where we didn't want to use CFLs we got halogen light bulbs from IKEA. They look like a normal bulb and fit in the same fixtures, but have a second, smaller halogen bulb inside.
Attachment 1104
They cost a little more than incandescents, but last twice as long, use 25% less energy, and still cost less than CFLs or LEDs.

I think it was GE is releasing hybrid halogen cfl bulbs. Full brightness right away and when the CFL is up to full brightness the halogen turns off. they were just slightly more power then a CFL.

I was reading about this somewhere and they mentioned I think it was 2012 the last year of production for standard 100watt bulbs and 2013 being the end of the 75 watt bulbs.