March 17, 2017
Dear Everyone:
Happy St
Patrick’s Day!
It’s hard to believe I’ve been living here a mere seven years, eleven
months and sixteen days.
Back when I first bought this
condominium, two
bedrooms, two full baths, dining room, kitchen, living room, laundry
closet and patio, I took one look at the ceiling light fixture in the
kitchen and said, “Hell, no!”
It was your typical
fluorescent
tube monstrosity.
The reason they put fluorescent lighting in kitchens is perfectly
logical: Fluorescent light
uses up far less energy than incandescent light.
The one room in the house where the lights tend to be on for the
longest periods of time is the kitchen.
So developers just “naturally” tend to install fluorescent
lighting in the kitchens.
I hate fluorescent lights.
Mostly, I hate them because those perishing tubes are so ridiculously
difficult to get into place.
There you are, standing on a ladder, trying to fit those two tiny little
prongs into the fixture at the other end of the tube, the one you can’t
possibly see because the tube is in your way.
Then, when you think you have it in, you try to coax the two tiny
little prongs at this end into the near end; upon which the two at the
other end fall out and so on, and so on.
When you think you have it completely in place, you get down off
the ladder, flip the light switch on and…nothing.
Repeat ad infinitum.
But in recent years, manufacturers figured out how to combine the
energy-efficiency of fluorescent lights with the much more convenient
hand-held screw-in lightbulb configuration of
incandescent lights.
These days, when you buy a lamp, it often comes with a
Compact
Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) lightbulb included, just so you’ll know what
kind of light to replace it with when it becomes necessary.
In fact, the state of
California
requires that all lamps sold in-state must accommodate CFLs, period.
I have no idea what the black market is on “illegal” floor lamps
around here.
So, when I bought my current condo, one of the first things I did was
have the old tube-style light fixture torn out of the kitchen and a more
modern fixture designed just for CFLs installed.
It uses three CFL lightbulbs.
I still have to get up on a ladder, but screwing in three CFLs is
so much more preferable to the alternative.
I even made a point of writing, with a permanent marker, on the
screw-in receptacles that they each take a 19-watt
CFL lightbulb.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that the kitchen light seemed rather dim when
I turned it on in the morning. I
checked my “gadget log” and found that I had replaced the lights last
May. Earlier this week, only
two of the three lights came on.
Time to replace the lights.
In the meantime, the manufacturers had moved on to the more modern, and
seemingly more popular
Light
Emitting Diode (LED) types of lightbulbs.
The claim is that they are even more economical than the CFLs in
the long run.
However. They seem to have a
completely different mode of evaluation regarding how much energy is
consumed and how much light is emitted.
What’s the difference between a 60-watt incandescent bulb, a
13-watt CFL and a 9-watt LED?
Why do I need an advanced degree in electrical engineering just
to buy a lightbulb?
I went to the Really Big Orange Hardware Warehouse Store, since they
have a Really Big aisle devoted to electrical things, including
lightbulbs. I also took
along a piece of paper on which I had noted that the ceiling fixture
took 19-watt lightbulbs and the fact that I needed three of them.
Not that this was much help.
The store had many, many lightbulbs in many, many configurations, but it
took me a while to locate a set of four that were labeled 18-watts.
This seemed the best I could get.
Bought the set. Took it
home. Dragged the ladder out
of the outdoor closet and into the kitchen.
Left the lights turned off.
Climbed up the ladder.
Gingerly unscrewed the finial that holds the glass globe in
place. Did
not drop the glass globe on
the kitchen floor. Unscrewed
the old “bulbs”. Screwed in
the new ones. Climbed down
off the ladder. Flipped on
the switch.
In an instant, the kitchen was bathed in a ghastly orange glow.
Plenty of illumination, but the hue was straight out of a
Halloween movie.
This is one drawback to CFLs.
The light makes you look like death warmed over.
By then it was too late in the day to do anything more.
The next day, I went to the Smaller National Hardware Chain
Store. As soon as I walked
in the store, I saw a display of exactly what I needed:
75-watt (illumination or watt-equivalent) CFL lightbulbs that
take 19-watts and, most importantly, give “daylight” illumination.
Bought two sets of two each.
Took them home. Dragged the
ladder out of the outdoor closet and into the kitchen, again.
Left the lights turned off, again.
Climbed up the ladder, again.
Gingerly unscrewed the finial that holds the glass globe in
place, again. Unscrewed the
brand new bulbs. Screwed in
the even more new ones.
Climbed down off the ladder, again.
Flipped on the switch, again.
And there was Light!
Brilliant, clean ever-so-much-better light.
Happily tossed the make-do CFLs in the trash and took the
precaution of writing, with a permanent marker, “75-WE” on the light
receptacle before replacing the glass globe, which I had once again
succeeded in not dropping on the kitchen floor.
I figure I’m good for another ten months.
By which time the manufacturers will have come up with yet
another alternative type of lightbulb with yet another type of labeling.
But we can worry about that later.
Love, as always,
Pete
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