Energy Saving Bulbs - stupidity

[IJWS15]

My daughter has just bought a new flat and it comes with two rooms fitted with energy saving bulbs.

The builder conveniently has used large BC fittings with three pin socket and three pin bulbs (presumably so we cannot put in a normal bulb).

These will be changed for standard fittings BUT out of curiosity I have looked and not found anywhere who stocks the three pin bulbs.

What do they expect people to do!

Also the real farce about energy saving is that the lease say no washing to be hung outside so you have to have a tumble dryer/washer dryer - hardly very green and where is the overall energy saving?

 

[luminaire]

I just had a quick look on google and found these which are 3-pin

http://lamps2udirect.com/pages/browse-More-Lamps2udirect.php/Energy-Saving-Bulbs/PLE-C/40/4

 

[sm1thson]

isnt there some building reg that discourages the use of wasting energy? -hence why such fittings are becoming commonplace (together with the fact that nobody wants large electricity bills)

 

[stem]

I've just had an extension built and the architect specified on the drawings that at least one room should have low energy light fittings that cannot be used with standard tungsten filament light bulbs, in order to comply with Part L of the building regulations. Easy for me I made it one of these in the utility room.

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro.jsp?cId=101473&ts=51800&id=11298

I understand that the larger the property the more energy efficient fittings are required.

 

[IJWS15]

Luminaire

Thanks for that - will definitely be changing the units - I can get the standard BC base bulbs (nice round shaped ones) from Asda for less that £2 each!

£10 is ridiculous for a light bulb.

 

[bernardgreen]

A family who moved into a new build with energy saving lamps fitted tend to leave the lamps on. Reason. They take too long to come up to full brightness if one is going into the rrom for just a few minutes.

Have seen filament and low energy lamps in parallel in some places. The filament gives instant light and is turned of by a time delay after several minutes by which time the energy saver has come up to brightness.

Neat rick is in the cold areas (minus 10 and below ) where a energy saver may not reliably strike due to cold there is a filament lamp which comes on for instant light and provides heating in the fitting for the low energy to warm up enough to strike.