I have the 5 inch overhead floods lights in my kitchen ceiling, a bunch of them in fact.
The life expectancy of the bulbs isn't real good, it seemed like we were constantly replacing them.
So we went to the CFL version and the life is much better but they aren't cheap at ~12-15 a bulb.

So I just got all excited when I found that a company called livonia has embedded LED versions that are reasonably bright at 1500 lumens and very efficient at 35 watts.
LED's will last forever ~50000 hrs.
oooh looking good.
then i did a quick price search.......

around $500+ per unit


so not looking like they are being replaced this week.

 

>$500 for a light bulb?! That's insane. In your searches, have you stumbled upon any CFLs that can be used on a dimmer switch?

I'm changing all my lighting fixtures over to fixtures that will accommodate CFLs, but I would also like to install some dimmers in a couple of the rooms.

 

Try looking at dimmable CFLs, I know that they are out there and you can even get them at the big box stores, but I am not sure of there performance.

 

Thanks Zippy. I really wasn't expecting a positive response. I didn't think there was such a thing as a dim-able CFL, but I was too lazy to do any fact checking.

 

5" is not as popular as 6", as you probably know, so your choices are more limited/more costly based on my experience. I have about 40 recessed fixtures in my home (overhead floods?) and they all have CFL's. In SoCal, SoCal Edison has a program every year where they subsidize the price of the bulbs. For example, I purchased a 4 pack of R30 reflector bulbs, 65W equiv. using 15W, 750 Lumens. for just over $4 for the pack at Costco. They regularly go for +- $13 for the pack. I also bought some CFL's for outside my home that were under $2 for a 3 lamp pack at Sam's Club (now they are over $10 for the pack). All the pricing expired on 12/31 but they always have this program duing the last half of the year. While at Sam's Club the other day, I saw that they have some new multi-LED reflector and flood lamps. I glanced at them quickly and want to say that they were priced between $30 and $50 each. They may have been made by Sylvania but I am not sure. NOTE: They show some on their website but they do not appear to be the same as I saw inteh store.

Finally, I did purchase some dim-able CFL floods from Sam's a few years back and returned them. They made a humming sound. I called Sylvania and they said that some older dimmers were not compatible with these bulbs. Last summer, I purchased a package at Costco (subsidized down to about $13 for 3) and they don't hum but the dimming adjustment is coarse. I never changed the switch so that could have something to do with it. They don't hum, though.

 

they probably were the 6 inch but these were the whole fixture.
Even as a whole fixture however LED's have a long way to go to become viable economically.

 

Okay. I didn't understand that you were looking at a complete fixture since it sounded like you have existing fixtures. The LED bulbs that I references will fit in a standard fixture, though, FWIT.

 

GE makes a dimming compact fluorescent light bulb (called the GE Longlife Plus Soft White Energy Saving Bulb) that is specially designed for use with dimming switches.

 

Ah yes, I have a friend who had to purchase a number of these for a restaurant where he was a principle, they are a little pricey, but they are quite a number of them out there, what I am not sure of, whether they can be used with electronic dimmers such as the Lutron Maestro

 

They will get cheaper, I believe, in the next 12-18 months. Like the CFLs when they were introduced (I paid $13@ for CFLs in 1995), but a good bit more expensive at this time.

They are actually quite attractive and reasonably priced for certain applications. MR16 replacement bulbs are fairly well priced. (MR16s are halogen pin base bulbs used in display and track lighting). Also the flashlight world has moved quite quickly into LEDs, extended battery life and nearly shock-proof.

Blue, give it a little more time and you will have LED lights to replace all of the CFLs that we just replaced the incandescent bulbs with.