I've seen the light

I'm by no means a tree hugger, but I do like to cut down on my energy use in order to save cash.  If I can get the job done with no loss in performance or convenience then I'll choose the low power option.

I've never been a lover of low energy light bulbs, they take ages to "warm up" and they are never as bright as conventional halogens or incandescents.  However, most of our house lighting is now low energy bulbs, apart from what Peter Kay would call the "big light" on the ceiling of the living room and dining room, which are low voltage halogen clusters. 

I recently bought a desk lamp and because it would be sitting 12 inches from my face, I didn't want a burning hot halogen GU10 bulb.  So while I was shopping for options I came across an LED GU10 that claimed to be the equal of a 50 Watt halogen in terms of light output but only uses 3 Watts of power.  The bulb body itself just looks like a bog standard GU10 but the face of it is covered in 60 white LEDs.  The downside is the price, it was £10 from B&Q.  On the plus side it's really bright, gives a nice crisp white light, and it's cool to the touch when on.  These bulbs also last for thousands of hours and use a fraction of the electricity of a halogen GU10.

So on to my next wee project.  My bathroom lighting consists of 3 halogen 50W GU10 downlighters over the sink, and 2 large incandescent 60W spotlights illuminating the rest of the room making a total of 270 Watts.  That's a lot of power to light what is the smallest room in the house.  So when 2 of the 3 halogen lights blew recently I decided it was time to investigate a cheaper to run alternative.  I checked out LED GU10s on the internet hoping to find a cheaper source than B&Q and sure enough there was a Chinese supplier on Ebay selling them for about £3.  Beware of some of the sellers though, they're selling low wattage ones which wouldn't give off the same amount of light.  I bought one just to see what it was like, and after 2 weeks awaiting delivery it arrived yesterday.  Fitted in seconds as the body is standard GU10 and it gives off a stunning clean light.  As you can see from the picture, it is comparable to the 50W Halogen on the left in terms of brightness. The light is almost blue/white in colour but looks fantastic, I think I'll safely invest in another couple of these and then look into replacing the 60W spotlights.  I see there are now compact fluorescent low energy spotlights available, so may look into getting a couple of them.  This should bring the bathroom energy requirement down from 270W to around 30W.