Forums Forums National News panic buying last stocks of conventional lights

Britain has signed up to an European Union decision to replace conventional 100-watt bulbs with supposedly greener, low-energy alternatives.
It means that the staple household item is vanishing from the high street after 120 years.
Leading supermarkets and DIY chains, including Sainsbury's, Asda and Homebase, have already sold all their final stocks of the bulbs.
Other stores have reported that the only have enough to last until the end of next week.
Ministers claim that switching from old-fashioned lightbulbs to their newer fluorescent counterparts will reduce carbon dioxide by around five million tons each year.
However, fears have been raised over suggestions that low-energy bulbs can trigger skin rashes, migraines and epilepsy.
There is also concern because the fluorescent bulbs are generally more expensive and contain mercury, which makes disposal more dangerous.
An average supermarket price for a six pack of standard 60W pearl light bulbs is £1.21, but a single 60W low energy stick light bulb costs around £2.19.
Retailers stopped replenishing supplies of conventional incandescent 100W bulbs at the start of the year under a voluntary government scheme to force people to buy green compact fluorescent lights.
However, many shoppers have resorted to stockpiling supplies of traditional bulbs over worries about the quality of low energy alternatives and the fact that most of them do not work with dimmer switches.
Sainsbury's said it had "virtually run out" of traditional 100W bulbs, while Homebase, John Lewis, and Asda confirmed they no longer had them on their shelves. Tesco, Britain's biggest seller of bulbs, said it had enough for a few days.
The death of the conventional incandescent bulb was announced by Gordon Brown in 2007. The government wants people to switch to low energy compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) to help meet its climate change targets.
The EU will impose a ban on sales of 100W bulbs from September.
An energy efficient bulb uses a fifth of the energy of a conventional bulb and can save £7 a year in bills

low energy bulbs trigger skin rashes? WTF?

I know about migranes and things...but skin rashes???

Unless its talking about the powder if they break.

At uni, all the rooms have these bulbs, and we cant spend the entire lecture time in there. We have to have breaks.. you start feeling dizzy, nauseous, and your eyes hurt. Worst invention ever

RANT ALERT !!!!

The use of the so-called energy efficient bulbs is just yet another scam/con. They are reasonably "cheap" at the moment at the point of sale. There will be a few months lull until all available incandecent bulbs have gone, then watch the price of these new babies leap up. All great news for Philips, Siemens etc.

Once again Great Britain has sucked up to our European "friends" (pass the spitoon)and goes along with any cock-eyed idea that will bolster the coffers of big multi-nationals and of course good old Gordon Brown and all the others on his Gravy Train !

Apart from the mercury vapour and various nasty powder coatings inside the envelope, the production of these wannabe flourecent tubes is much more costly cashwise and environmentwise than tungsten bulb production.

Grrrr. The cat's expecting a headache and I've got to go....

Here endeth the rant..... for now !

There are new power saving bulbs coming out now (they have them in B&Q), instead of using Flurescent tubes, these use 12V bulbs with a high efficiency convertor in the base of the bulb, this seems a much better solution (but not as good as having the convertor in the lamp fitting!).

For an almost technical explanation of why a 12V bulb is better than 240V bulbs ... lower voltage bulbs have higher currents, higher currents means you can/must have thicker filaments, thicker filaments means you can use higher temperatures, higher temperature means more light.

It will spell the end of dimmer switches - ever tried putting one of these 'energy-saving' bulbs in a dimmer? It doesn't know if its coming or going!! I like my dimmers

this is bad news

@Missguided
That is the advantage of the new power-saver bulbs I mentioned above - they can be dimmed - forgot to mention that

First I've heard of this switch of light bulbs
Judging by the posts about how quick the old bulbs are disappearing off the supermarket shelves (why didn't they do it gradually} there must be a greater profit in selling the new bulbs.
I'll have to break out the candles and windup torches if any bulbs break I won't be able to nip across the road to a local shop in a minute for an ordinary bulb
Better start saving now to buy new bulbs

some good View's guys

FEAR NOT fellow wikiwirralers

Hmmph, i shall import thousands of bulbs from other countries and open a normal bulb shop

Great idea Ste, or theres always good old ebay, wonder how many bulbs I would have to order to get 1 that was broken on delivery.

you may be onto somethink there are kid

I have four energy saving light bulbs here in the cupboard for £1,000 you can have all four.. LOL well you gotta try havnt you....

Have used over 6 of these bulbs in the past 6 months - all stopped working. Bathroom one went last night after it had its 'strobe' session, the bulb lasted nearly 2 weeks! The one in the dimmer lasted 10 seconds! The place looks like a 'disco inferno' when switching them all on. These were all Philips makes. They don't fit into the table lamps fittings. Wonder if they will bring out something for these. From the switching on of these bulbs and the flickering, they must be capable of bringing on an epileptic fit. Wonder if Gordon Brown has these in Checkers? Wonder if he liked disco in the 70s.