In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. — Robert Louis Stevenson, Bed in Summer This post is part of a series about building a house that looks and feels traditional in New Hampshire. However, this post can be read by itself.
This is a lot of helpful information. I just wanted to comment that what you refer to as "waste heat" from incandescents, we use intentionally (in the winter; we live in Montana) to bring localized warmth to certain areas. My favorite use of this localized warmth is in the dining room. We switch to LEDs in the dining room for the summer, although we don't use the lights in that room too often in the summer, but in the winter, we switch back to incandescent bulbs in the overhead light, which casts soft light and a little pool of extra warmth onto us as we sit at the table eating and playing board games. I'm grateful we don't have to have to the extra heat in the summer, but in the winter, it's a blessing.
My wife and I love your Designing posts, thank you! Will windows be addressed in the future? I’ve found the new construction window market to be quite dismal and I’d love to hear how you approached it.
> In general, do not use IKEA LED bulbs. They are almost all universally poor.
I’m curious what you don’t like about them? I really like the Solhetta 60W bulbs. Claimed 90 CRI, no flicker (verified with iPhone slow motion), dimmable, and very efficient at 5.9 W for 800 lumens.
Most of the light sources in my apartment are low-kelvin (warm) LEDs. That is, 2000-2500 K, the majority being somewhere around 2100-2200 K. The main issue with low-kelvin LEDs is, as you say, CRI – below 2700 K and you can hardly find any bulbs with a CRI above 80-something. In addition, warm LEDs that output more than 800 lumens don't really seem to be available, as far as I can tell. There are more warm LEDs that output 600-800 lumens than there used to be, though, so maybe this is slowly changing – although so far, they're mainly sold by slightly dodgy brands. As someone who lives in a darker country than you do, where the sun only comes out for a few hours in winter, I dream of being able to light up my living room and kitchen with 1500 lumen, 2200-2500 K LED bulbs.
One aside regarding the "slightly dodgy brands" comment above: I too for the most part trust brands like Philips when it comes to buying LED bulbs, but while I haven't had any trouble with their Hue bulbs (which in my experience are high quality bulbs, but also very expensive and only worth buying if you're sure that you'll be bothered to adjust the colour of your light sources), their "regular" non-dimmable LED bulbs emit a whine so loud and annoying that I simply can't use them anywhere except in the basement, and with the most powerful of their "regular" LED bulbs I can easily notice them flickering in my peripheral vision. From what I've read (it's been a while, so feel free to correct me if this is inaccurate) this is because the easiest way to get a good power efficiency certification on your LED bulb is for the LED driver to switch the light on and off exactly so frequently that "most people" don't notice. Philips, as a manufacturer of "high quality" LED bulbs, wants a good power efficiency certification and thus does exactly this, while many "no-name" manufacturers of cheap LED bulbs do in fact *not* do this, which means their bulbs do not flicker or whine – which, at least for me, is obviously worth slightly lower energy efficiency. (I assume they avoid this in their Hue bulbs in some sort of expensive way that's not profitable to implement in Philips's "standard" bulbs at a fraction of the price of a Hue bulb.)
This is a lot of helpful information. I just wanted to comment that what you refer to as "waste heat" from incandescents, we use intentionally (in the winter; we live in Montana) to bring localized warmth to certain areas. My favorite use of this localized warmth is in the dining room. We switch to LEDs in the dining room for the summer, although we don't use the lights in that room too often in the summer, but in the winter, we switch back to incandescent bulbs in the overhead light, which casts soft light and a little pool of extra warmth onto us as we sit at the table eating and playing board games. I'm grateful we don't have to have to the extra heat in the summer, but in the winter, it's a blessing.
This is a fantastic treasure trove of lighting knowledge - thank you!
My wife and I love your Designing posts, thank you! Will windows be addressed in the future? I’ve found the new construction window market to be quite dismal and I’d love to hear how you approached it.
What do you think about lamps on end tables, and sconces?
How about having mostly those? except for kitchen, maybe, where you need good amount of light
> In general, do not use IKEA LED bulbs. They are almost all universally poor.
I’m curious what you don’t like about them? I really like the Solhetta 60W bulbs. Claimed 90 CRI, no flicker (verified with iPhone slow motion), dimmable, and very efficient at 5.9 W for 800 lumens.
Most of the light sources in my apartment are low-kelvin (warm) LEDs. That is, 2000-2500 K, the majority being somewhere around 2100-2200 K. The main issue with low-kelvin LEDs is, as you say, CRI – below 2700 K and you can hardly find any bulbs with a CRI above 80-something. In addition, warm LEDs that output more than 800 lumens don't really seem to be available, as far as I can tell. There are more warm LEDs that output 600-800 lumens than there used to be, though, so maybe this is slowly changing – although so far, they're mainly sold by slightly dodgy brands. As someone who lives in a darker country than you do, where the sun only comes out for a few hours in winter, I dream of being able to light up my living room and kitchen with 1500 lumen, 2200-2500 K LED bulbs.
One aside regarding the "slightly dodgy brands" comment above: I too for the most part trust brands like Philips when it comes to buying LED bulbs, but while I haven't had any trouble with their Hue bulbs (which in my experience are high quality bulbs, but also very expensive and only worth buying if you're sure that you'll be bothered to adjust the colour of your light sources), their "regular" non-dimmable LED bulbs emit a whine so loud and annoying that I simply can't use them anywhere except in the basement, and with the most powerful of their "regular" LED bulbs I can easily notice them flickering in my peripheral vision. From what I've read (it's been a while, so feel free to correct me if this is inaccurate) this is because the easiest way to get a good power efficiency certification on your LED bulb is for the LED driver to switch the light on and off exactly so frequently that "most people" don't notice. Philips, as a manufacturer of "high quality" LED bulbs, wants a good power efficiency certification and thus does exactly this, while many "no-name" manufacturers of cheap LED bulbs do in fact *not* do this, which means their bulbs do not flicker or whine – which, at least for me, is obviously worth slightly lower energy efficiency. (I assume they avoid this in their Hue bulbs in some sort of expensive way that's not profitable to implement in Philips's "standard" bulbs at a fraction of the price of a Hue bulb.)