Question about lights

Specifically your lights. In your house.

See my dad used to buy and slow flip houses. A new one every few years thereby avoiding capital gains taxes but I digress. He noticed that in these big luxury homes he'd buy that the lights would mostly be out. Not the fixtures either, just burned out bulbs. And he developed the theory that many people were so lazy or uninterested in things like changing a light bulb is just not on their radar and when the house gets too dark to see in they sell it and buy another one.

Back in 2004 I bought a big luxo-home to live in and fix up and sure enough. House had 120 light bulbs and over 40 were burned out.

This popped into my head a few minutes ago so I checked my current homes status. 84 bulbs and one is burned out (kids bathroom where I never go).

I assume this being GRM that most of you have a similar rate but I wonder if anyone else has noticed this little quirk of humanity.

i'm active at nite too much to tolerate stumbling in the dark...

for me: step one, buy house. step two, count bulbs. step 3, order LEDs for everything, even cabinet and closet bulbs i never use. so for me, im at 56 and zero.

we did notice in the last house we rented, the PO had replaced everything with 60-100 watt bulbs, and the basement, garage, and other outdoor areas had 150watt bulbs!!! all told there was over 40 amps of frickin light bulbs. LEDs all told were under an amp.

the power bill dropped $50.

-J0N

I see very well in the dark.. to the point that people come over and complain that my place is too dark for them.. but I do understand where you are coming from.

Could be worse.. on low income and cheap houses, usually the tenets steal the lamps when they leave

You are making me count lightbulbs now. 84 seems like a tremendous number of bulbs for a house.

All leds. Very few things make me angrier than flipping a switch and getting nothing.

KyAllroad wrote: ...he developed the theory that many people were so lazy or uninterested in things like changing a light bulb is just not on their radar and when the house gets too dark to see in they sell it and buy another one.

Some houses have bulbs that are remarkably difficult to replace. Some have bulbs that are remarkably expensive to replace. Some have bulbs that consistently blow out after just a few hours of use.

Just something to consider.

KyAllroad wrote: ...And he developed the theory that many people were so lazy or uninterested in things like changing a light bulb is just not on their radar and when the house gets too dark to see in they sell it and buy another one. [...] Back in 2004 I bought a big luxo-home to live in and fix up and sure enough. House had 120 light bulbs and over 40 were burned out.

Ho...lee...E36 M3. These dumbass, ultra-lazy idiocracy characters are the ones who can afford big houses!?!?

The number of bulbs burned out in my house is usually between zero and one.

I switched the ones in my rental to led or cfl. I will however be taking my bulbs with me lol

I rent. All the light bulb sockets THAT WORK have a working bulb in them.

It's expensive to buy light bulbs when you're house poor.

Small house here, 36 and zero. I bought the place 5 years ago and put CFLs in everything. Once they start to go I'll replace them with LEDs.

How do the led compare in the real world vs old incandescent bulbs? Iberking hate t cfl, and the invaincandescent bulbs I've bought recently die a quick death. Got to be something better.

If you like the dingy yellow light of an incandescent, you can get LED bulbs in that color, but most put out white light.

A co worker of mine came in one day bragging about how she had just switched to CFLs in her whole house. But it was only about 30 lights. I had that 120 light house at the time and at 5$ each a full changeover seemed pricey. Now LEDs are the hot ticket but still expensive for a full buy in. Then factor in things like the ceiling fans (8) all use candelabra base bulbs which are even MORE expensive than conventional based bulbs, it gets expensive.

I recently moved, and while it's not a big luxury home, there are a lot of bulbs out. And it seems like the previous owner had a stockpile of cheap bulbs that they were putting in before they stopped because bulbs are burning out pretty much continuously. I have some cheap CFLs that I got from Ace Hardware on sale that I am using up, but after that I'm going to LEDs.

The most annoying bulb that burned out first was the bulb in the garage door opener. It's also going to be the most expensive, because I have to go buy a ladder to replace it (to be fair, I knew I would need to buy a ladder anyway; at my old condo I could reach everything from a step stool but this new place has some higher areas).

Previous owners were not big on maintenance apparently. But that's fine, it gives me something to do.

first thing we did when we moved in was pull out the CFL's that worked like E36 M3 with the dimmer switches and put in regular bulbs. I love me some dimmer switches.

Been working on replacing lights. I have these 15" flush mount lights that are like gold or brass plated in the kitchen; I don't like the color, so I bought some silver LED replacements from Menards. Installed one, only to have it burn out or whatever LEDs do after about 15 minutes total. It has a big plate inside with LED bulbs embedded in it instead of standard replaceable bulbs. But, seems like it must be too cheap so back to the drawing board.

I just changed out the (8) 45W flood bulbs in my kitchen for retro-fit dimmable LEDs.

Went from 360 watts to 24 watts and increased light output dramatically. I do catch a little bit of a flicker every once in a while, but not enough to bother me.

LED technology has got cheap enough to switch over every assembly sooner than later.

As to the original post- I bet it's more along the lines that the bigger the house, the less DIY happens. If you have to call a handyman to change a light bulb, might as well do it in bulk.

I've done a couple of those retrofits also. Pleased so far, and have some more to do also. What brand did you use? The first ones I did are Menards brand (Patriot Lighting) and the retention springs are not great. Wondering if other brand are better?