Light Bulb Changes for 2014

In the past few years standard 100W and 75W incandescent bulbs have been discontinued in the manufacturing process.  For the start of 2014 now 60W and 40W bulbs can no longer be manufactured.  You can still buy them, and many stores, such as ours stocked up heavily before the companies couldn't make them anymore.  But once they are gone, they’re gone.  You can get a similar looking bulb that is halogen, so less wattage is used, but there is similar light output, or lumens, and these halogens look like standard incandescent bulbs – they dim the same, they don’t have any warm-up time and saves about 33% energy over its standard counterpart.  Compact fluorescent bulbs and LED bulbs are also options, but you have to be careful in selecting these.  Compact fluorescent (or CFL) bulbs may not fit in your fixture, they sometimes take a bit to warm up, and they don’t work very well in the cold.  There is no option yet in town to properly dispose of the CFLs bulbs, except to wait for the annual hazardous waste disposal day.  LED bulbs are the latest development in light bulbs, but the prices are still very high, and not all fixtures can handle LED technology.  A 75W LED equivalent standard bulb runs about $40 right now.  And there isn't a true omni-directional LED bulb, which is why they look very different from standard incandescent bulbs. 

Many of the CFL and LED bulbs cannot be used with standard dimmer switches, so you need to purchase special dimmable bulbs.  Also, you need to watch out for the heat output.  If you have a closed lighting situation, you need to make sure you get the right bulb that doesn’t emit too much heat.  Or some of the recessed lighting fixtures need to have entire retrofit kits installed.

What hasn’t been affected yet are 3-way incandescent bulbs, appliance bulbs, plant light bulbs, rough service or shatter-resistant bulbs.