Inside: I just wanted to pass on an amazing deal we discovered recently. Costco has a number of styles of Feit Electric LED light bulbs for sale in their warehouses at very good prices. The discount on the bulbs is apparently being subsidized by Georgia Power, so this may only apply to Georgia Costco locations, but it seems likely that other regional power companies might have incentive to do the same thing, so keep your eyes open wherever you are.
A few examples are below
- The final price on a 6 pack of 40W replacement chandelier bulbs is $9.99 (the same bulbs through Amazon are $18.99)*
- The final price on a 4 back of 65W replacement flood lights is $6.99 (the same bulbs at Amazon are $13.41)*
- The final price on a 6 pack of 60W replacement standard bulbs is $8.99 (the same bulbs at Amazon are $13.01)*
(Please note that affiliate links are indicated with an asterisk "*", however we are supplying the link as a reference, the better deal is at Costco).
A noteworthy aspect of this cool new technology is that they are dimmable, which is not necessarily the case with most inexpensive LED bulbs. (More on that below.)
Why LED bulbs?
LED bulbs are likely to be the future for all artificial lighting. They are much more energy efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs (keeping those power bills low!), have extraordinarily long life, and avoid the performance problems which are common in compact fluorescent lights (“CFLs” - particularly poor light quality and long warm-up time to get to full brightness).
We have a number of CFLs in our house that were put in before LED bulbs became common and are fairly happy for the opportunity to upgrade whenever they stop working! The transition to LED bulbs has been slow for two primary reasons: the cost of the bulbs is higher than incandescent bulbs and performance is still not quite on par with incandescents, with some LED bulbs not having any capacity to be dimmed (also true with CFLs). The Costco sale mentioned above deals with both of these concerns, as the price point is approaching the cost of typical, inefficient incandescents, and the bulbs are dimmable (although the technology still isn’t perfect in that regard). Bulb Performance
We installed some of the Feit chandelier bulbs above in a kitchen fixture and have been generally very happy with them.
The only trick is that bulbs are not fully dimmable. An incandescent bulb will give you close to full control over the light level from fully off (0%) to fully on (100%) and everything in between. Even LED bulbs listed as dimmable struggle with low light levels. The bulbs tend to come on at about 30% of the maximum brightness and then can be dialed continuously all the way up to 100%. After they are on, you may be able to dial a bit below the initial turn-on brightness level, but continuously dialing down to 0% is next to impossible.
An example of this is shown with three recessed lights we have on a single dimmer switch.
The outer two bulbs are conventional incandescents and the middle bulb is one of the Costco Feit flood lights listed above. At full power, the bulbs are indistinguishable from one another. At lower light levels, the limited dimmability of the LED bulb is apparent. Final Words
The above bits about the dimmability of the LED bulbs are worth keeping in mind if you want complete control over light levels (and improved LED bulbs in that regard are likely on the horizon). However, at the Costco price point, these bulbs are an amazing deal even in non-dimmable fixtures.
Feit has a 5 year replacement warranty and a 20+ year expected life, so you can feel confident you’ll get a good life out of them. (Tip: write the install date in magic marker near the base of the bulb. It could come in handy and may be interesting at some point in the future to see how long they lasted!) These are recommended for purchase so stock up on this cool new technology if you have the opportunity.
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AuthorHi, I'm Debra. Helping others make savvy choices for better living is what I do. Archives
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