While shopping yesterday, I noted the local Costco moved it up one notch. No longer do they simply have "under counter" battery operated LED lighting and spiral CFL's . . . no. Now Costco is carrying an honest to god, full blow selection. 5 watt L.E.D. R30 can lights (allbeit highly directional, non-warm color) Motion detector L.E.D.'s for night time hallway / closets etc. R30 CFL "DIMABLE" (yay!) can lights Candleabra flame tip WARM (yay!) CFL's comparable to 40watt output lights and other assorted goodies With the recent talk about Range Hood CFL switchovers, I was hoping to find that Costco's candleabra CFL's would work for us there. Bad luck, our 2 range lamps (40watt) are bastard sized ... the hard to find, mid size threads, so even the 'standard' adapters that convert candleabra didn't help. I'll have to rewire our range sockets to candleabras to get our switch over done. Oh well, keep up the good work, costco!
It's good to see incandescents slowly dying out. I'd like to see it happen faster, but we're getting there.
My problem w/ the range hood bulbs is that, unless the units are dimmable, they're useless in most modern microhood applications due to the dimmed settings on the bulbs. The same goes w/ LED equivalent applications. Sam's Club has simiilar bulbs, and had I not JUST invested in R30 type CFL's, the LED's would have been awesome. They had LED accent lights too, but I just don't have an application for them. Have you seen the new Road Runner type shower head (Sam's had them here)? Turns off water once it heats up to limit the "warm the shower while doing something else" waste? 1.59GPM flow is nice too. I installed one a couple weeks ago and, other than being a bit more finiky on temp setting, I like the concept.
On another note, I have a few remaining incandescent bulbs simply because I couldn't find a CFL (or LED) w/ a longer thread base to fit in a floor lamp with a rather deep socket, or the application is an appliance sized bulb in a harsh environment (fridge or oven), or the application is dimmable (microhood). Anyone have any ideas on this as I'm tired of running a 40-60w bulb for 3-10w worth of light from more energy efficient equivalents.
Take a look at the Sylvania micro-mini spirals, they just might work if the interference is taper. I've had a similar problem in a garage door opener and, as of tonight, in a refrigerator bulb.) The problem is that they are recessed with a flare out and the CFL's I have widen too close to the screw threads. However, just today I took a closer look at the Sylvania micro-minis for another application and noticed that they have a ~45 degree angle at the base. It looks like this form factor will work in the recessed applications I have, and nothing else I have tried will. I would test it, but I'm using a 100W equivalent micro-mini that is a little larger than the 60W applications mentioned above...plus I just got through placing the two I have in an enclosed fan fixture that is tricky to work with. Getting those 100's to work in that fixture saved me the time and cost of doing an older fan light-kit retrofit for which I could not find adequate look & lighting. I'm wondering if there are some simple screw in base extenders. Add about 1/4" reach for that bottom contact and the other CFL's I have would work. It would just need a counductor in the center that would extend to the bottom with a ceramic insulator wrapped around it. It's somewhat puzzling and quite a bit frustrating that there is not a standard industry form factor for most of the CFL replacement applications. The dimensions are all over the map. About 90% of the bulb dimensions are what I would categorize as "insufficient" for perhaps half of the standard retrofit applications.
