L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree

being the maunderings of an Englishman on the Côte d'Azur

19 September 2008 Blog Home : September 2008 : Permalink

LED Spotlights

Once upon a time we bought a dual spotlight fitting for our library/living room. It takes two 40W spots and has seen heavy use because the room is a bit dark during the day (thick walls and small windows will that). The heavy use means that it seems like the bulbs burn out every 4 months or so. This was an irritation and it has to be said my scottish ancestors were also concerned about the 80W of electricity being burned for so many hours a day. Unfortunately there didn't seem to much of an alternative since the fitting is quite small so even the smallest CFL would have been too big. Then I went to the local briconautes and found some 1.5W LED spots.
LED Spotlights LED Spotlights
The lights cost €9.90 each which something like 5 times the price of the incandescent spots they replace. Allegedly though they hast 50,000 hours (13 years) powered on so on a capital cost basis they'll pay for themselves some 7-10 times over if they really do last as long as promised. This of course ignored the weeny electrical consumption - 1.5W instead of 40W - so my scottish ancestors can feel relaxed when we leave them on for 16 hours a day.

There is only one problem. They aren't quite as bright. During the day this is fine. We don't need them bright we just need them to highlight reading areas but in the evenings its not quite enough. So far we've just added a couple of standing CFL lamps (7W + 8W) and it seems to be fine. We'll see if we need more but so far I'm quite happy recommend these lights for this room.