Fiat Lux!
A few days ago the lamp over the shower in our master bedroom burned out. Normally replacing a light bulb is, on a 1-10 scale of home repairs, practically the definition of a 1. But this one was a bit different because a) it's in a canister with an enclosure, and b) it's just over 10' up. Merely getting a ladder underneath it required a bit of maneuvering, as the ladder had to be half in and half out of the shower stall.
First I pulled off the enclosure on the bottom of the canister to see what I was dealing with. The cover came off with a bit of tugging with my fingers. It's held flush against the ceiling by a pair of V-shaped springs. Ahh, those. I haven't seen those in years... probably not since the last time I had to replace one.
Second, Hawk and I discussed how to replace the bulb. The simplest option was to go with a direct replacement; in this case, a 40W incadescent bulb. But we felt the old lamp was too dim. The safety label inside the canister stated it was safe to install up to a 60W bulb. That would get us the brightness we wanted. Then we figured since this lamp is such a nuisance to replace we should install a much longer-lasting LED lamp. We recalled seeing a sealed lamp on display at the hardware store when we were shopping for something else last weekend. So we drove out to the store and bought this:
Actually, we bought two. What's that old saying, "Why buy one when for twice the price you can have two"? But seriously, we figured after I dragged the ladder up from the garage we might as well replace the matching lamp over the bath tub. And these LED lamps were on clearance sale for $10.
In addition to lasting much longer than the old incandescent bulbs these LED lamps consume much less electricity. They are over 50% brighter (650 Lumens vs. about 425) while consuming one-fourth the electricity.
Installing the new lamps required a bit of rejiggering. I had to wiggle the aluminum reflector cone out of each canister to fit the new lamp assembly. The new lamps don't need external reflectors anyway. And I had to bolt the bulb sockets firmly against the top of the canisters as whoever had installed them originally left those unsecured. After that it was just a matter of attaching the new fixtures in, fitting their springs into the hooks.
Much improved:
We were so happy with the brighter, clearer light from the new LED fixtures that we decided to run back out to the hardware store again to buy a pair of LED floodlamps for the fixutre over the dual vanity sink. These aren't sealed, so ordinary replacement lamps are fine. The old bulbs were 65W incandescent and rated at 755 Lumens of brightness, but the 10W LEDs rated at 650 Lumens were still noticeably brighter. So again, a double win: more light for less power.
Upside: With all these new LED lights the bathroom is much brighter than before. It's even brighter than our bedroom now!
Downside: With all this light the bathroom shows dirt better than before.
First I pulled off the enclosure on the bottom of the canister to see what I was dealing with. The cover came off with a bit of tugging with my fingers. It's held flush against the ceiling by a pair of V-shaped springs. Ahh, those. I haven't seen those in years... probably not since the last time I had to replace one.
Second, Hawk and I discussed how to replace the bulb. The simplest option was to go with a direct replacement; in this case, a 40W incadescent bulb. But we felt the old lamp was too dim. The safety label inside the canister stated it was safe to install up to a 60W bulb. That would get us the brightness we wanted. Then we figured since this lamp is such a nuisance to replace we should install a much longer-lasting LED lamp. We recalled seeing a sealed lamp on display at the hardware store when we were shopping for something else last weekend. So we drove out to the store and bought this:
Actually, we bought two. What's that old saying, "Why buy one when for twice the price you can have two"? But seriously, we figured after I dragged the ladder up from the garage we might as well replace the matching lamp over the bath tub. And these LED lamps were on clearance sale for $10.
In addition to lasting much longer than the old incandescent bulbs these LED lamps consume much less electricity. They are over 50% brighter (650 Lumens vs. about 425) while consuming one-fourth the electricity.
Installing the new lamps required a bit of rejiggering. I had to wiggle the aluminum reflector cone out of each canister to fit the new lamp assembly. The new lamps don't need external reflectors anyway. And I had to bolt the bulb sockets firmly against the top of the canisters as whoever had installed them originally left those unsecured. After that it was just a matter of attaching the new fixtures in, fitting their springs into the hooks.
Much improved:
We were so happy with the brighter, clearer light from the new LED fixtures that we decided to run back out to the hardware store again to buy a pair of LED floodlamps for the fixutre over the dual vanity sink. These aren't sealed, so ordinary replacement lamps are fine. The old bulbs were 65W incandescent and rated at 755 Lumens of brightness, but the 10W LEDs rated at 650 Lumens were still noticeably brighter. So again, a double win: more light for less power.
Upside: With all these new LED lights the bathroom is much brighter than before. It's even brighter than our bedroom now!
Downside: With all this light the bathroom shows dirt better than before.