How to choose the right light bulb for every room

I know that buying a light bulb was a relatively simple process if you were of a particular vintage (ie, old). I recorded the required wattage and bought more of the same. A 40 watt bulb produced darker light than a 100 watt bulb. Easy! Indeed, there have always been more exotic light bulbs out there. Halogen bulbs for strange floor lamps that I accidentally bought after graduating from college, and small bulbs in kitchen appliances that I vowed to replace for years, were so easy that I ended up just replacing the appliance itself. — But for the basic task of illuminating a room in your home, it was a very simple process.

Things are much more complicated today. As always, this is due to technological advances. Light bulbs are not only energy efficient and long lasting, but also provide a wider range of brightness, warmth and beauty. This made it possible to fine-tune the lighting in your home, but it also means that buying a light bulb has become a rather annoying activity. Even the light bulb section of your local supermarket is now crowded with what looks like an exotic option, and the old-fashioned watt system no longer makes sense.

Good news? Choosing the right bulb for the right purpose is still a very simple process. That’s all you need to know to understand modern light bulbs.

Light bulb fitting

Fitting is how the light bulb fits into the socket. The most common is the old-fashioned Edison screw, as there are many legacy light fixtures in the world that use this fitting. Edison screws come in a variety of sizes. Standard bulbs use E26, while smaller bulbs designed for chandeliers etc. use E12. There are also E11 and E17 fittings, but they tend to be much more specialized and are rarely encountered.

Another fitting commonly encountered is a G or GU fitting that looks like two small prongs. This fitting is typically used with halogen bulbs, where the prongs are inserted into the two holes and twisted until locked. G-style fittings come in a variety of sizes (G4, G9, and GU10 are common).

There is Many other accessories It’s in the world of light bulbs, but you don’t encounter most of them on a regular basis.

Light bulb label

Like much in our consumer paradise, almost all the information you need is right there on the label. If you look at the light bulb box, you’ll see a label like this:

These “lighting facts” show three important things: watts, lumens, and color temperature.

• Lumen: Lumen is a measure of brightness. The more lumens you have, the more light you get. An old school 100 watt incandescent bulb produced 1,600 lumens. If you need to brighten your room to escape from prison, you need as much lumens as possible. If you want to be guided to the bathroom with a nightlight at 2am, you need a much lower lumen rating.
• Watt: This used to help determine the brightness of a light bulb, but nowadays it is primarily useful in determining the amount of energy a light bulb needs to produce light. For example, an old school incandescent light bulb required 75 watts of power to produce 1,100 lumens of light. Modern LED bulbs require only 13 watts.
• temperature: For all light Kelvin temperatureFrom warm to cold. Warm light is yellow and cold light is white or blue. Choosing the temperature of your light is important: Do you want a cozy reading corner? Please keep warm. Do you need to make the completed basement feel connected to the outside world? Be cool. Of course, you’ll have to adjust it to your liking, but here’s a guide.

bedroom: 2700-3000k, warm and comfortable

Bathroom: 3000-4000k, clean and clear

Living space: 2700-3000k, warm and relaxing

kitchen: 3000-4000k, clear and bright

Office and basement: 3500-5000k, cool and daylight

Light bulb type

Nowadays, almost all bulbs you buy are either light emitting diodes (LEDs) or halogens. You can find and buy old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, but they’re so energy inefficient and don’t last long that they’re even harder to find and you don’t really need them. It’s an expensive and useless choice. .. Compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs (bulbs with a “twisted” glass appearance) were some of the first high-efficiency bulbs on the market, but faded faster because they couldn’t compete with LEDs in terms of life and energy use. To do.

As a result, if you buy a light bulb with a standard Edison screw fitting, you will need an LED. LEDs are rapidly dominating the market and you may be able to find the type and style of LED you need. Other than lumens, wattage, and Kelvin temperature, the only thing to consider is whether the LED will fit into a sealed fixture as is normally found on the ceiling.If your light bulb is going to live in some kind of glass enclosure, you need Enclosure rated bulbs.. This is because LEDs emit much less waste heat than traditional incandescent bulbs, but still. Several heat. When that heat is trapped inside the enclosure, the LEDs wear much faster.

Last note about Dimmer switch. Many dimming switches are designed to work specifically with incandescent bulbs and may not work (or not at all) with dimmable LEDs. In that case, you need to replace the dimmer with the latest version.

Light bulbs are becoming more complex, but with that complexity, the power to customize our life experience is born. This is very powerful. All you need is some important information and you can go (to the lighting store).