Love your light bulbs like they’re going out of style? Bad news: some of them actually are. As of January this year, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) began its push to phase-out inefficient incandescent, fluorescent, and halogen light bulbs.
This is the first in a three part series to help you find the perfect replacement for almost any discontinued light bulb. In this post we’ll review the incandescent phase-out, which household A lamps are on the way out, and the benefits of various replacements. In the next two posts we’ll probe new territory, learning about discontinued reflector lamps and fluorescent light bulbs, why they’re getting the boot and how to handle the changes…
Discontinued Household Lamps
General service incandescent lamps (the run-of-the-mill medium screw base light bulbs) have already begun to disappear, and will continue to do so for the next few years (excluding only certain lamps). This phase out will probably affect the general public most directly, since these lamps are so popular, but it’s also one of the easiest changes to adapt to. The new regulations have raised the standards for rated life and lumen output, and have set a ceiling for how many watts a single lamp can use. The iconic incandescent A lamps just don’t cut it.
Here are your new standards:
|
Lamp |
Date Discontinued |
New Lumen Range |
New Max Watts |
New Min Rated Life |
Replacement Options |
|
100W A19 |
Jan 1, 2012 |
1490-2600 |
72W |
1000 hours |
Halogen, CFL, (and LED coming soon) |
|
75W A19 |
Jan 1, 2013 |
1050-1489 |
53W |
1000 hours |
Halogen, CFL, and LED |
|
60W A19* |
Jan 1, 2014 |
750-1049 |
43W |
1000 hours |
Halogen, CFL, and LED |
|
40W A19 |
Jan 1, 2014 |
310-749 |
29W |
1000 hours |
Halogen, CFL, and LED |
*A heads up: 60W B10 chandelier and 60W G25 globe light bulbs are also getting the boot on 1-1-14, but you can also replace them with halogens, CFLs, and LEDs.
As a self-proclaimed penny-pincher I have to admit I was sorry at first to see these guys leave the market. When I could initially save a few bucks by purchasing an incandescent on the cheap instead of one of those newfangled pieces of technology, I was all for it. Looking back now, all I can say is, “Oh, little child, you had so much to learn.”
While an incandescent may be cheap upfront, it sucks energy like a big hungry baby (most of it given off as heat). It costs $65.04 to power one 100W incandescent light bulb over the course of a year, while it costs $46.83 to power a halogen and only $14.96 to power a CFL at equivalent brightness.
LED A19s might cost significantly more than incandescents, but they can last up to 23 years (over 30 times longer than the life of an incandescent) and they help you save even more on your energy bill, using fewer watts for a comparable light output.