In case any of you give a SHIT! Heh heh.
So I've been jacking up my bathroom, and improving the lighting in my basement. Just cleaned up the walls, filled, spackled, smoothed and sanded. Put two coats of Kilz on. Sunday was too humid to let it dry properly, so no final painting yet.
So as it was drying, I started up on the basement lights. The existing lighting was four fixtures, far apart from each other, with two 100-watt standard bulbs in each. 800 watts total down there. Pretty wimpy lighting, created shadows everywhere, couldn't see anything in the corners, really ugly light quality. So I figured, more sources of light, spread around better, using less wattage. A budget upgrade, that would make the basement far more user-friendly.
I bought 12 ceiling boxes, and 12 flat plastic single-bulb sockets.
I intend to space two rows, and put them in every other dropped-ceiling panel. I'll just get some diffuser panels, and 2-ft sections to halve each panel space, and get some good light spread around down there.
Now I have this economy pack of 8 CFL bulbs. Yeah, they do the job. But they have a good one-second worth of delay, and start off quite dim. So I tried some Phillips 90-watt-equivalent flood lamps, so the light would shine downwards instead of lighting up the floor joists and wasting light, since these sockets don't have reflectors to shine down.
CRAP.
They are dimmer than the cheapo CFL's!!! They're barely bright enough to see where I'm walking, let alone light up the basement! Total crap. Unacceptable.
So I did some intarw3b research, and went back to buy some of these guys:
LINK: n:vision 23 Watt Spiral Bright White, 2 Pack
The bulb itself is fatter and larger than a standard 60-watt CFL. So it takes up a bit of room, but still doesn't hang below the drop ceiling. But BOY OH BOY does it make an improvement!!! They're on the instant you hit the switch, even as it warms up it provides plenty of light if you just need to run down there and grab something, and when it's full power it's even better than the huge shop lights at my work in the computer/scale room. BRIGHT. CLEAN. Hella-WHITE light. This is a huge difference. Now that I understand the difference between soft-white, bright-white, and daylight, I'ma stick with these guys, and head back to stock up. The price was a turnoff at first, with the website showing $8.97 for a two-pack. But the store had them marked at $5.87 per two-pack! So I'll go back and ask for a whole case of them, and never buy a regular bulb again.
Now, some of you may have sensitive eyes and get those eye headaches because of fluorescent light. Then these are NOT for you. Stick with soft-white CFL bulbs. They really do glow more like a regular incandescent bulb. But if you're doing guitar builds, repairs, fixing electronics, working on projects, need better lights over a workbench, then these 100-watt CFL's are what you want.
So I'm going from four 200-watt fixtures getting no actual spread of light, to 12 23-watt CFL fixtures putting out far better light than the incandescents from many more sources creating fewer shadows and dark areas, and STILL not using as much electricity as before.
I'm considering rigging my living room up with four evenly-spaced ceiling cans to get rid of any table-top lamps and that goofy overhead UGLY-AS-SIN fixture above the TV.
Next, I'll test out some of these really high-quality dimmer CFL's and see if they're better than my friend's dining room's dimmer CFL's. They're older, suck ass, and not designed the same way these new dimmer bulbs are.
I love home improvement....
So I've been jacking up my bathroom, and improving the lighting in my basement. Just cleaned up the walls, filled, spackled, smoothed and sanded. Put two coats of Kilz on. Sunday was too humid to let it dry properly, so no final painting yet.
So as it was drying, I started up on the basement lights. The existing lighting was four fixtures, far apart from each other, with two 100-watt standard bulbs in each. 800 watts total down there. Pretty wimpy lighting, created shadows everywhere, couldn't see anything in the corners, really ugly light quality. So I figured, more sources of light, spread around better, using less wattage. A budget upgrade, that would make the basement far more user-friendly.
I bought 12 ceiling boxes, and 12 flat plastic single-bulb sockets.
I intend to space two rows, and put them in every other dropped-ceiling panel. I'll just get some diffuser panels, and 2-ft sections to halve each panel space, and get some good light spread around down there.
Now I have this economy pack of 8 CFL bulbs. Yeah, they do the job. But they have a good one-second worth of delay, and start off quite dim. So I tried some Phillips 90-watt-equivalent flood lamps, so the light would shine downwards instead of lighting up the floor joists and wasting light, since these sockets don't have reflectors to shine down.
CRAP.
They are dimmer than the cheapo CFL's!!! They're barely bright enough to see where I'm walking, let alone light up the basement! Total crap. Unacceptable.
So I did some intarw3b research, and went back to buy some of these guys:
LINK: n:vision 23 Watt Spiral Bright White, 2 Pack
The bulb itself is fatter and larger than a standard 60-watt CFL. So it takes up a bit of room, but still doesn't hang below the drop ceiling. But BOY OH BOY does it make an improvement!!! They're on the instant you hit the switch, even as it warms up it provides plenty of light if you just need to run down there and grab something, and when it's full power it's even better than the huge shop lights at my work in the computer/scale room. BRIGHT. CLEAN. Hella-WHITE light. This is a huge difference. Now that I understand the difference between soft-white, bright-white, and daylight, I'ma stick with these guys, and head back to stock up. The price was a turnoff at first, with the website showing $8.97 for a two-pack. But the store had them marked at $5.87 per two-pack! So I'll go back and ask for a whole case of them, and never buy a regular bulb again.
Now, some of you may have sensitive eyes and get those eye headaches because of fluorescent light. Then these are NOT for you. Stick with soft-white CFL bulbs. They really do glow more like a regular incandescent bulb. But if you're doing guitar builds, repairs, fixing electronics, working on projects, need better lights over a workbench, then these 100-watt CFL's are what you want.
So I'm going from four 200-watt fixtures getting no actual spread of light, to 12 23-watt CFL fixtures putting out far better light than the incandescents from many more sources creating fewer shadows and dark areas, and STILL not using as much electricity as before.
I'm considering rigging my living room up with four evenly-spaced ceiling cans to get rid of any table-top lamps and that goofy overhead UGLY-AS-SIN fixture above the TV.
Next, I'll test out some of these really high-quality dimmer CFL's and see if they're better than my friend's dining room's dimmer CFL's. They're older, suck ass, and not designed the same way these new dimmer bulbs are.
I love home improvement....
