For a number of months now I've resisted the temptation, but today's shopping trip was the last straw. As of now, I'm sitting at the Grumpy Old Git table with Hampshireman

Has anyone tried to buy a domestic light bulb recently?

Do you remember the good old days (not that long ago) when you could pop into your local shop and pick up a 60w light bulb for about 40p. Even better, pick up a pack of 6 in town for little over £1.00. That was before we were told that incandescent bulbs were bad for our long term health.

Therefore there was a huge promotion to get us to use 12 watt energy saving light bulbs which would give us the equivalent of 60 watts but the bulbs would last 10 times as long. They were on sale for £1.00. So a good deal.

However, recently, our energy savers are dying and when we try to replace them, they've become very hard to find unless we visit a large store like B & Q or Wilkinsons and they cost about £4.00 each and even then they are in short supply.

What is being heavily promoted nowadays are LED light bulbs but what wattage to buy? We bought 3 bulbs on-line a few weeks ago and were advised to go for 7 watts. However, we been sitting in semi-darkness ever since they arrived.

Today, we arrive at our local town to find that B & Q have moved out. We therefore try the Morrisons store. They have a large sign up stating that all my light bulb worries stop here. There is a watts comparison chart which convinces you that if you buy a 7 watt LED bulb it is the equivalent of 60 watts ( £5.00 each). However, if you read the small print on the back of any of their large stock of 7watt LEDs the equivalent wattage is only 40 watts. After consultation with a number of staff members including the duty manager they are as perplexed as we are. They advise us to try Wilkinsons.

So off we trot to Wikinsons to find that they've closed down. There is a sign on the shopfront stating that they've moved to Fairlawns. Where the hell is that? A local taxi driver informs us that it is a brand new street which hasn't been adopted yet, just around the corner. Wouldn't a big red arrow pointing the way, stuck on the door, have been a better idea?

Wilkinsons was just as bad. There was no way we could get any information regarding which equivalent size we should purchase. We ended up purchasing two of the few 12 watt energy saving bulbs that they had left.

We've now discovered that there is no comparison between LED watts and incandescent watts and we must think of lumens instead.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/five-thing...ying-led-bulbs/

The world has gone mad..............

Randa

ps. don't even try to purchase a 100 watt or equivalent (or not).

Quote: Poptop320 wrote in post #2

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I changed out my 11 GU10 50w halagens for LED 60 SMD which are 3 watts lumen out put is 420L. They are brilliant

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[quote="Ribski"|p30732 "dim able"[/quote]

Hey Martin. Is that aimed at me? Dim? Maybe. Able? Nope

MORE FROM THE G.O.G. CLUB

Passport Renewal

Mrs R's passport needs renewing so we've had to go through all the nonsense on the application form of getting someone with in a good job to state that we've been known to them for 1000 years and countersigning the back of one photograph. This is despite the fact that she's not changed her name or address and has owned a passport for decades.

When it came to a photograph, we decided to take our own using a modern digital camera, a modern computer to get the exact size and a good printer. Obviously not good enough for them. We had them returned so this morning we had to do a 16 mile round trip and pay a fiver to the train station photo booth. The result, no better a likeness than our efforts. The annoying bit, they don't need to have the new photo countersigned so it might as well have been a photo of Minnie Mouse.

Can somebody please explain?

Randa