UKC

My new house has a lot of mains halogen down lights (20W to 50W GU10's) which is wasting an awful lot of electricity, so I'm considering getting LED-based GU10 bulbs instead.

Given that they are pretty expensive (£5 to £25 each!) I'm hoping that there are some UKC users with recommendations for particular models to go for, or those to avoid at all costs!

Many thanks

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:
Look at athe mega man site for dimmable CFLs. The only viable LED replacements for GU10s are the new philips LEDs at £25 each and these are not worth it yet, but themegaman CFLs are dimable and pretty quick to warm up. and a lot cheaper.

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

The comment the Thorn rep made about their LED fittings was there was no point supplying spares as by the time the LED's fail they will be out of production. We have yet to get a suitable job for specifying GU10 type LED lamps so I can't be of much help beyond suggesting you do a net trawl as most of the LED light bulb replacements are made by new players in the market. The likes of Phillips and Osram are playing catch up.

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC: That auction site has plenty- search for gu10 energy saving.

I have replaced my 9 x 50w gu 10s in the kitchen with a mix of the plastic looking ones you will see if you do such a search, and the slightly more expensive Megaman ones. Not much to choose between them save that one of the cheapo ones was a dud.

So far as the light they give out, I'm impressed. They are quite quick to get to full luminosity too, albeit woth a short lag.

Now when I turn on the kitchen lights I am using 99 watts, not 450.

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC: I had loads of MR16s that I replaced with LEDs, most of which I got from ebay and they all work really well, in fact I feel the light quality is better than the old halogen ones. Not sure if the GU10s at higher voltage are any different but I certainly would recommend giving LEDs a try. Go for at least 2w bulbs though, anything less is just too low in terms of light out put. There are loads of people selling them, I got some from an outlet in Ireland, and some from a place in Manchester. The last lot cost me about £15 for five plus p&p. My electricity metre ticks over a lot less since I replaced them!

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

Alok Jha had an article about them in the Guardian last week. Perhaps a wee trawl of their website might help.

In reply to eagleopus: Thanks, there are certainly dozens of websites selling a lot of different models, but the price differential is huge - very hard to know which ones are good quality.

I'm really hoping for a specific shop or LED model recommendation, that has proven reliable and is a good replacement in terms of physical size and colour temperature.

Cheers

In reply to steev: Here it is:
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/sep/09/led-lig...

Certainly plugs the expensive new Philips LED bulb, but I wonder how many of the cheaper LED alternatives they actually tried?

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC: Avoid the ones from B&Q - we tried some to replace halogens in the kitchen last year, took them back the next day as the light was very cold and blue.

In reply to chris j:
Agree here - I have 6 in my kitchen and really don't like them. Awful cold, blue light which doesn't make the place welcoming at all. Unfortunately I'm too tight to change them now... :o/

Andy

In reply to kendogcatchy:

You can now get megaman bulbs in B&Q, they are very good and quick to warm up.

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

Be wary of trying to equate wattage with brightness directly. LED technology is moving so fast that it's nigh on impossible to know if you're comparing like for like. The latest generation of Philips ones are as bright as any GU10 replacements I've seen, but £25 is still hella expensive. I have serious reservations that the technology is currently good enough to be the sole light source in a room, it's really best just for accent lighting. That said, I know a couple of electricians who have some swanky Collingwood AR111 replacement fittings which are about as bright as a small sun in their kitchens who say they're pretty good. They do cost around £100 a fitting though.

In reply to chris j: Thanks - I had seen them in B&Q, and I will now avoid them like the plague! I've also had crappy CFL bulbs from B&Q in the past...

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC: I've now put in an order for a few different LED GU10's to try out, and also some Megaman CFL bulbs for elsewhere in the house. I'll update this thread once I've got them!

Cheers

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC: Sorry, been busy plotting prime numbers with my daughter for her homework so didn't see this thread until just now.

We've had these for the last 3 years

http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/product/2537/megaman-reflector-9w-gu10-war...

Nice warm colouring, none blown in 3 years and still going strong.

Downside is initial purchase price and 3 minutes full warm up time although they get most of the way there in the first minute. Instant strike though.
Upside is length of life and we've got 10 of them in our kitchen dinner giving out an excellent spread of light with running costs of less than 1 1oo watt incandescant.
Make sure you get the warm white ones, the cool white ones are a bit bluey and harsh.

In reply to teflonpete:
Oh yeah, forgot to say, these are compact fluorescents, don't bother with LEDs for general lighting, they're pants for that but not too bad for accent (spot) lighting.

In reply to teflonpete:

Thanks for the tips. But I have to ask about blanket statements like this... WHY are LEDs pants for general lighting?

- Is it that there isn't a single LED bulb powerful enough to replace the usual "60-100W bulb in the center of the room"?
- Is it that the initial cost of buying multiple LEDs for recessed downlighting of a room is very high?
- Is it that the angle of the beam is too narrow for general lighting? I've seen LEDs advertised with angles from 22deg to 70deg, which compares pretty well with the 36deg halogen bulbs I'm looking to replace

Thanks

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

I bought ten of these until the leds are viable.

http://www.homewatt.co.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.bro...

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

The LEDs I have seen have been replacements for MR16 (12volt halogen lamps) the low voltage equivalents of the GU10s you wish to replace.
From what I've seen of them, they seem to lack intensity over distance and overall power in ambient lighting conditions. They do seem to be better than compact fluorescents for local accent lighting (ornaments, pictures etc) but the fluorescents seem to maintain intensity over a wider angle.
Pricewise, they are dearer than compact fluorescents.
By all means, give LEDs a go and see what you think. My opinions are based on what was around 3 years ago, LEDs may have improved considerably in that time. If you do get some and some compact fluories let me know what you think of them both.
Cheers
Pete.

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC: LEDs are pretty directional so they are generally best as replacements for spot bulbs. That said, those with a useful light output often still have a narrower beam than halogen or CFL spot bulbs.

Once you start getting in to useful light outputs, LEDs don't seem to have a huge advantage, if any, over CFLs. That's based on reading various energy saving light bulb web sites which seem to suggest that, for example, a 4-5W LED is roughly equivalent to a 20-30W halogen bulb. I have not so far managed to find a GU10 LED bulb which is supposed to be equivalent to a 50W halogen. The high-powered single or triple LED bulbs are also very expensive compared to a CFL which will do the same job, like the Megaman ones suggested by other posters.

The one thing to beware of with the Megaman GU10 CFLs is that they might not fit your light fittings - the 11W ones are 20mm longer than the 50W halogen which they replace. That is probably OK for a recessed downlight (I have them for that in my study) but will look odd or just plain not fit in a lot of spotlight fittings.

The LED bulbs with arrays of small LEDs are really only useful as highlights.

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

I can point you in the direction of a replacement fitting but your going to be looking at about £75 each.

its a 7.9w unit which produces 45.1 lumens per watt, brighter than a 50w bulb.

http://www.collingwoodlighting.co.uk/cnb/shop/collingwood?search=fr+01011&a...

I work for collingwood myself but we dont sell direct but i can easliy put you in touch with people who stock our products.

Oh and just something for you to think about, initall outlay maybe be costly but if you swap 50 50w units with 50 of our fire rated fittings, based on running of 12 hours a day in 7years you would of saved 21thousand £ in lamp replacement and electricity.

If you want the opinion of someone who works with this daily LED GU10's are a waste of time.

teflonpete:
Oh yeah, forgot to say, these are compact fluorescents, don't bother with LEDs for general lighting, they're pants for that but not too bad for accent (spot) lighting.


That really shows a lack of knowledge and sheer ignorance to be honest. Best you do some research before making such bold statements

In reply to Mikey601: Thanks for the offer of help, and the advice. I'll see how I get on with the LED GU10's that I've already ordered, and I'll probably try CFL GU10's as 2nd choice. Don't want to go down the route of replacing the entire fittings if I can help it!

Cheers

In reply to Mikey601:

I was refering to the LED replacement 'bulbs' for existing fittings that I've seen on the market rather than the complete replacement fittings your catalogue shows as the OP was talking about replacing the 'bulbs'.
As a direct replacement for 240V GU10s with no other mods to the circuit, is there now an LED available that matches the light output of a GU10 or do you have to change the fittings and have LED controllers and different circuitry?
Furthermore, my opinion was based on my personal experience as you would see when you read my post in conjunction with the one before it rather than portraying myself as any sort of authority in the field. I can see my opinion may have touched a nerve with you and your knowledge but do you need to be quite so agressive?

In reply to Mikey601:

Err?

In reply to Nick Smith - UKC:

Hardly being agressive just merely pointing out that saying LED are rubbish when being used as illumination lighting is a bold statement to make.

GU10 LED's arent good and will never be any good, you dont have to replace the whole unit like my suggestion you can gegt mr16 fittings which will fit into a gu10 housing.

Ive stated the most cost effective way to change to LED's its the only true way to directly replace a 50w bulb with an LED

In reply to Mikey601:

OK, we're agreed that LED GU10 MR16 replacements aren't much good.
The only other point I'd like to make is that in your earlier calculation where you gave an example based on 50 LED fittings run for 12 hours a day over 7 years is that while that would be a useful calculation for a hotel corridor or something, it isn't particularly practical for someone who has stated that they wish to change luminaires in a domestic kitchen where one might expect to have 4 - 10 fittings running for 2 to 6 hours a day where the running costs would take considerably longer to offset the initial purchase price.
I don't doubt for one second that the products you have suggested are excellent or that your knowledge of them is concise but given the scenario set out in the OP, I think they are too expensive and I was trying to point the OP at a cost effective solution requiring no more involved work than changing the 'bulbs'.

This is my last post on the subject as I'm mindful that we will become the butt of a "how many UKCers does it take to change a light bulb" joke.
All the best
Pete.

In reply to teflonpete:

Its a simple cost calculator just so people can see the savings, obviously you can personalize the calculator for your own situation.

Without seeing the unit you wouldnt be able to get a feeling of how easy they are to replace, simple spring wings simply fit in the hole already cut.

Obviously (unless you live in a mansion) you wouldnt be putting in 50 downlighters in your kitchen, so obviously the intial outlay wont be as much, hence the payback period would be quicker.

Its all maths but just for your info the lowest possible wattage is 7.9w to replicate a 50w bulb.

Cheers mikey

In reply to Mikey601:

>
Its all maths but just for your info the lowest possible wattage is 7.9w to replicate a 50w bulb.


So, by my maths a 50w bulb costs around £1 a year to run so spending even that on a replacement is not going to save anything for the first year and spending say £20 is going to take 20 years to cover its cost. A reduced wattage lamp taking 1/5 of that will then take 100 years, woohoo.

In reply to sutty: I think your maths may be a bit out.

A 50w bulb uses .05 of a unit of electricity (=1kWh) every hour. Run it non-stop for a year and it will use 438 units. I pay ~12p per unit for electricity so that's £52.56. It's very unlikely that anyone would leave a 50w bulb on for a whole year but say it was in a high-usage area like a kitchen and it was on for three hours a day, that's still £6.57 per year.

Replace it with an 11w CFL and you would save more than £5 a year, which means that for example the Megaman 11w CFL at £8.98 from B&Q would pay for itself inside two years. The payback is even quicker if you factor in the cost of buying a replacement halogen bulb within that time frame, which my experience suggests is not unrealistic - I'm pretty sure that I have had to replace every single halogen bulb in our kitchen at least once since we finished the re-vamp about a year ago. I'd fit CFLs if they would fit in the lampholders. Looking at those sums I think it might be time to have a word with she who must be obeyed about changing the fitting...

If you don't trust my calculations, try this web site instead: http://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/running_costs_electricity/

If you were to use LED instead of CFL then, based on the recommendation to use a 7.9w LED bulb for a 50w halogen, you would save about another 50p per year. Given the costs of high power LED bulbs, this doesn't stack up for me (regardless of whether they perform as well as CFLs or halogens in other ways, which I don't think they do). For example, this Megaman 7W LED bulb http://www.energybulbs.co.uk/products/LED+Light+Bulbs/High+Performance+LEDs... costs £30. That's more than three times the price of the equivalent GU10 CFL, and it still wouldn't fit in my current lampholders. Note also that it is only listed as being equivalent to a 35w halogen, not 50w.

I do not think that LED technology has yet reached the point where it represents a cost-effective, easy and practical reaplcement for existing halogen bulbs. At the moment I believe that CFLs still have a significant edge over LEDs, especially since they are coming out in more and more different fittings and styles.

In reply to Martin W:

I was going off someone saying the replacement bulbs cost about £25 each. I have most lights fitted with CFL but not one on the stairs or the main one in the living room, which is as bright as I can find to read.

Personally, the thing that may save me most would be a new freezer, but the energy efficient ones cost more than the power saved would cost so it will wait till they come down in price.

In reply to sutty:

I've just bought a Bosch KGV36X10GB fridge/freezer - energy rating A++ for £400 delivered. By far the most efficient one I could find (at the price) - the next (slightly) more efficient one was close to £1000 !