Lights
 We
had to replace twenty-four Tungsten Filament Light Bulbs
throughout the house. These were used in existing Spotlights and
in the Recessed Ceiling Light fittings. This is in addition to
four traditional pendant light fittings in most of the bedrooms.
We bought with us enough 'regular' CFL's from our previous house
to fit the pendant bayonet fittings plus we brought our own desk
lamps which are all fitted with CFL's anyway. That was the easy
part. Unfortunately the Spot Lights and Recessed fittings took
specialist Spot Bulbs.
For these we went mail order at
www.lightbulbs-direct.com. We have dealt with them before
and they are a good local source (Amersham in Buckinghamshire,
UK) of Megaman CFL's. You name it, they have it. Unfortunately
they seemed to struggle with such a "large" order. £380 is a lot
of money to spend but we look upon it as an investment as you
are always guaranteed to get your money back with a CFL. After a
couple of weeks nothing turned up so we contacted
Lightbulbs-Direct. They had trouble getting sufficient stocks
but agreed to part ship what they had. So far so good. When they
received the balance of the order they shipped it a few days
later. We had E:Mail notification and everything seemed fine.
However, the delivery never turned up. After another two week
delay we had an exchange of E:Mails with Light-Bulbs Direct in
which they insisted THREE times that FedEx HAD delivered them
and that we must just have lost them. Apparently FedEx had left
them by our back door. As here is no accessible back door to the
new property I checked the delivery address. Yes, the shipped
them to our old address. So we managed to retrieve them and had
profuse apologies from the Vendor.
 In
the meantime a walk around our local Focus DIY store reveals
that the regular Vendors are becoming much better stocked of
more 'exotic' bulbs. On the first shipment from our friends at
Lightbulbs-Direct one of the new CFL's popped and broke
immediately I switched the power on. Rather than getting a
replacement from them I decided to try one of the DIY-store
varieties. This fitted perfectly and was actually a lot smaller
than the Megaman variety. However, it performed the same for a
similar price. This trend will continue until the eventual
banning of all Tungsten Filament bulbs, by which time the
regular DIY stores should be well stocked of every fitting of
CFL imaginable. This matter is changing all the time and it is
no longer specialist.
The second lesson here is to avoid all
unusual light fittings! In our case we had no option as the
decisions had been made by the previous occupiers of the house.
To be fair to ourselves the question of "regular" light fittings
was on the check-list when we inspected properties during our
house-hunting phase. So many new houses have ONLY recessed light
fittings. This was totally unacceptable. The one thing we liked
about this specific property was that NOT ALL lights were
recessed. I imagine this purchase criteria is flying in the face
of lighting 'fashion'. Our criteria was always likely to be
slightly out-of-step until everyone else gets in step with us.
They will, eventually. Maybe there will always be a place for
unusual light fittings and recessed lights. However these will
only be acceptable if you can get the bulbs to fit them and if
the recessed lights are air-tight.
 We
have had to settle with the recessed ceiling lights only for the
bathroom and upstairs corridor. All other rooms can be lit with
desk lamps, local lighting, reading lamps and existing ceiling
pendant lights. Existing positionable spot lights (pictured -
left) are easily replaced by the amateur DIY enthusiast but the
recessed lights might need the skills of an
electrician-cum-builder as their removal will leave a large hole
in the ceiling. However, our preferred option now is to actually
seal in the recesses from above (on the top floor). As the attic
space is to be fitted with additional joists, to support a
storage area over new insulation, then there is an opportunity
to build wooden box structures around each recess. This will not
be possible on the lounge lights. However, these should be less
of a problem as the inter-floors should be sealed anyway. If not
the new Cavity Wall Insulation should help to seal this area.
Any light fitting can take a CFL these days.
However, if you wish to save a lot of money choose your light
fittings carefully.
Solar Powered Security Lights
 In
October 2008, with the Autumn nights drawing in, we decided to
invest in security lights. The new HQ does have a light by the
front door, with a CFL inside, but we kept forgetting to switch
it on. The cul-de-sac we live in has no street lights (good
thing!) but it meant we would struggle finding the lock with our
keys in the dark. As we would prefer NOT to leave a light on
unnecessarily then passive infrared (PIR) seemed the way to go.
We had positioned these all around
our old property and they were very effective in providing us
with light just when and where we needed it when approaching the
property from the outside. The only downside was that the PIR
switches won't work with CFL's. I have yet to find a PIR that
can be used with compact fluorescent lamps. It is assumed that
the switches in the standard PIR's are not rated for the high
spike voltage required to get the CFL to arc properly. We did
experiment with inserting a CFL into a PIR-controlled security
light (against the manufacturer's advice) but it didn't work. We
loath tungsten filament bulbs so were happy to have the chance
to be rid of them with the advent of solar-powered security
lights. (Pictured left & right is the mounted standard
version.)
These appeared on the market a couple of years ago and there is
very little choice. They are expensive. If you shopped around
online or at DIY stores you could probably pick up the tungsten
filament PIR controlled security light for £10 to £20. The basic
solar powered PIR controlled lamps start at around £25 with the
"pro" model costing at least £90 but the obvious advantage is
that they need no mains electricity. So we decided to splash out
on a couple to see if they were any good. We bought two models:
We fitted the "high power" model to the front
of the property (see pictures below) and the standard model
inside the garage (see pictures above). Attaching inside the
garage obviously meant we had to drill a hole through the wall
to allow the small solar panel to be attached to the outside.
This proved relatively easy although the manufacturer had put a
very wide fitting on the electrical socket in order to
weather-proof it. This was too wide for the hole so we cut it
off. Even so we had to make the hole a larger than we would have
liked. Ironically this was not an issue for the "high power"
version that used a simple plug going straight into the main
body of the device.
The decision to mount a light inside the
garage was based upon the fact that this would be more
convenient for us when entering the house via the garage. Of
course thee is a mains-powered light inside the garage already
but the PIR would save fumbling for the light switch with a bag
full of shopping. It also helped that the light would switch
itself off after you drove off to work in the morning so you
could load your car and go. On a number of occasions I had got
in the car only to realise I had forgotten to switch off the
garage light. Very frustrating.
Both devices use a pack of standard
rechargeable AA Batteries so if they wear out they are easily
replaced. The light source is very large LED's. There are three
in the standard light and an array of 45 in the "high power"
version. Each device comes with a separate solar panel that is
easily mounted alongside the light itself. (Or in our case
outside on the other side of the wall!) A cable links the light
to its solar panel. During the day the solar panel charges the
batteries and at night it operates as a regular
movement-activated security light. Well, that is the idea!
  The
high power device (pictured mounted left & right) came in
white plastic but it was not well made. It was flimsy plastic
with loose items inside that would knock around inside the
casing. The solar panels looked badly constructed and the online
retailer (Solar Kits Direct) had obviously opened and repacked
them at some point. We couldn't complain about their customer
service on online store which were both very efficient. However
we had little faith that these products might actually work as
we were convinced that something must be broken. However, we
gave them a go. Of the two the standard light is the most
rugged. However both seemed over-engineered in plastic whereas
we might have preferred something less pretty and utilitarian in
metal. The standard model even comes with a warning that it
might not be totally weatherproof! This suggests that the makers
are relying upon their novelty value more than their
practicality. However it is a nice thought to know you'll have
some security light if there was a power cut. Plus it certainly
saves on wiring or getting an electrician in.
We'll see how we get on an report the results
here. The property actually already had two external security
lights (front & back) but neither worked. We figured that the
bulbs had blown long ago. They were also mounted so high up
under the eaves of the house that we couldn't reach them for
maintenance anyway. One day we'll obtain a long ladder and
finally remove them. If this trial proves successful then we
might suggest the manufacturers allow for a longer piece of
cable between light and solar panel. It would have been nice to
be able to mount the light on the north side of your house and
then run the cable to the solar panel bolted to the south side
of your house. This was not possible. The 'high power' light you
see here is on the north side of the property with the solar
panel pointing to where the sun rises in the morning. If we are
happy with these lights then we are thinking about getting one
to cover the front driveway then another two to cover the rear
garden.
Would they ever pay for themselves? A
difficult thing to judge. Yes, they will save mains electricity
and you may save some money on the wiring. As they run LED's
they also are far more efficient than either Tungsten filament
or CFL's. However they have a slightly higher embodied energy
pecause the photovoltaic panel. You may also have to replace the
batteries every three years so they are not entirely maintenance
free. You will never be able to replace the LED's so we guess
they practically last forever. We think that, like most
photovoliac powered devices, the paypack is probably poor and
there are better ways of spending your money if you wish to
reduce you Carbon Footprint. However, if you need external
lights and extra security then we would recommend this kind of
solution - if they work and if they are reliable. This remains
to be seen. |
