Two clients in Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights have asked me to provide an alternatives to traditional incandescent bulbs. The reason, incandescents use 90 percent of their energy for heat and only 10% for light!
So Compact Flourescent bulbs with a dimmable ballast are great but you have to get with the jargon. A 100 watt bulb produces 1,700 lumens, a dimmable CFL producing 1,600 lumens and uses 23 watts is considered comparable. The savings is usually 77%! The ability to dim is limited but acceptable for most people(at some point the bulb just turns off, get out the candles!)
Then there is the quality of light or CRI (corrective light index), a high number is closer to daylight and does not change the color of what it lights and a low number is like having that crappy flourescent light where you can't tell a
red from blue!
A warm white CFL is brighter than your usual bulb but not harsh, and you are saving all of that energy. The bulb also lasts alot longer (10,000 hours) and costs about 4 times as much. The bulbs do contain mercury and there is a warning on every bulb, but there will be fewer of them in the dump.
So Compact Flourescent bulbs with a dimmable ballast are great but you have to get with the jargon. A 100 watt bulb produces 1,700 lumens, a dimmable CFL producing 1,600 lumens and uses 23 watts is considered comparable. The savings is usually 77%! The ability to dim is limited but acceptable for most people(at some point the bulb just turns off, get out the candles!)
Then there is the quality of light or CRI (corrective light index), a high number is closer to daylight and does not change the color of what it lights and a low number is like having that crappy flourescent light where you can't tell a
red from blue!A warm white CFL is brighter than your usual bulb but not harsh, and you are saving all of that energy. The bulb also lasts alot longer (10,000 hours) and costs about 4 times as much. The bulbs do contain mercury and there is a warning on every bulb, but there will be fewer of them in the dump.
Left: 5 watt candelabra CFL in warm white but not dimmable
Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E, is currently subsidizing the CFL's, non-dimmable, so that they are price comparable to regular bulbs. This way they do not have to build more power plants and upgrade their infrastructure.
Left, the PG&E 23 watt CFL that produces 1,600 lumens (about 97 watts of light)
Also, PG&E and the State of California have teamed up to give better tax and rebate deals on solar power so that its Return on Investment (ROI) will be about 4 years and not the previous 20, but that will be another blog entry.
LED's are a different ball game. Here the Light Emitting Diode (LED) comes in three primare colors (red, green and yellow). When you mix the three in the right combination you get white, remember your color wheel from gradeschool? Anyhow, these diodes are individually coated in phosphor so that they emit the white light combination and warm or lower the Kelvin Temperature of the light.
Yeah, the Kelvin Temperature of light is an old method or measuring light from sprectronomy.
Whatever, the point is that red, blue and ultraviolet light is around 4,000 Kelvin and warm white or candlelight is 2,500 Kelvin.
So I am out searching for a battery operated LED that produces candle light for Mrs. Getty's chandeliers. She got tired of repainting the ceiling due to candle smut. Her head of household, Larry Friedman asked me to use battery operated LED's for candles for parties. The staff puts them in a beeswax candle sleeve( see below) with fresh Duracell AA batteries and they last at least 3 hours and dim naturally as the Duracells discharge. No repainting the ceiling, but need to get them rechargable nickel cadnium (NiCa) batteries to reduce landfill waste.
Making the sleeve out of acrylic tube from Tap Plastics and inserting an aluminum plumbing tube to the precise length of a Mini Maglite and covering the tube in white beeswax, then grinding down the Mini Maglite to fit the tube snugly and removing the head did the trick for the three chandeliers we were working with - the Getty's entertain alot in San Francisco.
The closest I found were the amber parking lights on a car, which are basically orange. So I used an inexpensive acylic lens from TAP Plastics. it is a 1/2" diameter acrylic tube that filters the horizontal light from the LED and you don't notice it up on a chandelier. Over a dining table, use clip on shades, like the rest of us. This is an extreme condition.
For all of those recessed halogen lights, a dimmable MR16 LED is not quite there yet. I have found a bulb that is about $8 per bulb, warm white, but not really dimmable. It turns off as soon as you touch the dimmer. For the kitchen whiter light is OK because it is Task light and there are several Edison base (regular screw-in kind) that offer warm white.
Yeah, the Kelvin Temperature of light is an old method or measuring light from sprectronomy.
Whatever, the point is that red, blue and ultraviolet light is around 4,000 Kelvin and warm white or candlelight is 2,500 Kelvin.
So I am out searching for a battery operated LED that produces candle light for Mrs. Getty's chandeliers. She got tired of repainting the ceiling due to candle smut. Her head of household, Larry Friedman asked me to use battery operated LED's for candles for parties. The staff puts them in a beeswax candle sleeve( see below) with fresh Duracell AA batteries and they last at least 3 hours and dim naturally as the Duracells discharge. No repainting the ceiling, but need to get them rechargable nickel cadnium (NiCa) batteries to reduce landfill waste.
Making the sleeve out of acrylic tube from Tap Plastics and inserting an aluminum plumbing tube to the precise length of a Mini Maglite and covering the tube in white beeswax, then grinding down the Mini Maglite to fit the tube snugly and removing the head did the trick for the three chandeliers we were working with - the Getty's entertain alot in San Francisco.
The closest I found were the amber parking lights on a car, which are basically orange. So I used an inexpensive acylic lens from TAP Plastics. it is a 1/2" diameter acrylic tube that filters the horizontal light from the LED and you don't notice it up on a chandelier. Over a dining table, use clip on shades, like the rest of us. This is an extreme condition.
For all of those recessed halogen lights, a dimmable MR16 LED is not quite there yet. I have found a bulb that is about $8 per bulb, warm white, but not really dimmable. It turns off as soon as you touch the dimmer. For the kitchen whiter light is OK because it is Task light and there are several Edison base (regular screw-in kind) that offer warm white.
Cool white LED MR16 Below
Warm White LED MR16 above
Back to those really hot MR16's, my client Pedrero in Presidio Heights has over 70 recessed and that does not include lamps or chandeliers, sconces or flushmounts! I have over 40 in my little house and have 8 chandeliers or lanterns and seven lamps. Lighting is important to create a comfortable mood, sometimes you want to see if there is a mouse in the house (all on) and other times you want to dream (dimming to candle light).
LED's cannot handle the power coming from a 120-240v circuit that is typical in a house. Therefore, they have to have a ballast that diffuses this energy to a level they can handle. The ballast also holds the dimming capability as LED's are ON/OFF, the in between is the tough part.
If you want an MR16 that is NOT dimmable in warm white then buy one from your local ACE Hardware. If you want a dimmable one, ACE Hardware is getting them in an be prepared to pay $8 for On/Off and $10 for 80% dimmable (honestly, more like 50% dimmable).
Also, http://www.1000lightbulbs.com/ has quite a bit, but you need to know your lumens and remember Warm white or you will look like a ghost.
MWS
MWS DESIGN SF
Back to those really hot MR16's, my client Pedrero in Presidio Heights has over 70 recessed and that does not include lamps or chandeliers, sconces or flushmounts! I have over 40 in my little house and have 8 chandeliers or lanterns and seven lamps. Lighting is important to create a comfortable mood, sometimes you want to see if there is a mouse in the house (all on) and other times you want to dream (dimming to candle light).
LED's cannot handle the power coming from a 120-240v circuit that is typical in a house. Therefore, they have to have a ballast that diffuses this energy to a level they can handle. The ballast also holds the dimming capability as LED's are ON/OFF, the in between is the tough part.
If you want an MR16 that is NOT dimmable in warm white then buy one from your local ACE Hardware. If you want a dimmable one, ACE Hardware is getting them in an be prepared to pay $8 for On/Off and $10 for 80% dimmable (honestly, more like 50% dimmable).
Also, http://www.1000lightbulbs.com/ has quite a bit, but you need to know your lumens and remember Warm white or you will look like a ghost.
MWS
MWS DESIGN SF
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