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I've never seen an energy-saving lightbulb that didn't make the room look like a 1970's pr0n film, and it should be individual choice as to what to buy when it comes to things like this

We use energy-efficient bulbs because they save an absolute fortune on electricity bills and the 15w varieties are just as bright as their counterparts. My only complaint is that the quality of the light isn't as good.

I don't think conventional bulbs should be banned, though I would support a tax to make them slightly more expensive, with the proceeds going towards subsidising energy-efficient bulbs. Save the planet and all that .

I agree it should be down to choice rather than Govt. control. A better way would be to reduce the price of energy-saving bulbs to comparable levels with standard bulbs. It gives people a real choice. Of course, what the Govt. would do is to increase the price of standard bulbs or ban them. That's their mentality.

Personally, I've not found one energy-saving light bulb that I like. Tried various ones and they all either take ages to illuminate (not handy when you need to pop into a room for the thirty seconds it takes to light up) or break quickly (before the '5-year warranty' expires). They're also more expensive. Granted, they should be okay for most purposes but there are times and places when you need 'proper' light bulbs.

The "energy bulbs" were not great when they first came out, but the one's I've bought more recently cost less than £2, come on at pretty much full brightness and look just fine.

The only place in the house I use incandescent bulbs is in the fridge and cooker hoods, where I need pygmy bulbs and they're only on for a very short time.

My only concern is that many people are irresponsible when it comes to recycling them. They mustn't be disposed of in landfill, but many people are too lazy and selfish to care about anyone else but themselves. The way I see it, being environmentally irresponsible is a worse crime than raping a few children. In effect, you're f*cking every child on the planet.

We use a lot of energy-saver bulbs in the house, most notably on the top landing as my Mum still insists that the light stays on all night, it doesn't burn brightly, but it burns more than bright enough to light the landing which stops you falling down the stairs...

I am in two minds about these. Yes, they save electricity, but don’t break one. You have to evacuate the room for a while to let the dust settle.

Some flicker, some don’t. My guitar teacher has them, and the flicker, make clicking noises and make me wonder if Im sensitive to flickering lights.

I’m waiting for the LED varieties to be more affordable. At the moment, the current energy saving bulbs have a half-way house feel to them in terms of development.

+1, me and my mate mentioned that yesterday when his LED bulbs for the car turned up cheaply from eBay

I have a bunch on halogen lamps buried in the ceiling (the landlord installed them), looks good, but I have a single lamp in the middle of the room with a 15W bulb, it is more than enough to light the whole flat for normal use - doing the washing up, I need a second light under the cabinets, but I need that with the halogen lights on as well...

That one 15W bulb saves a fortune over the 30 or so 60W halogen bulbs, but provides more than enough light...

I'm sure I read that Halogen bulbs were banned in China many years ago. It wasn't so much a green issue; rather they simply can't provide enough power on the grid for them all!

It sickens me when I see brand new kitchens being designed with halogen light fittings, such as my neighbour installed last year. Seriously, how retarded are these people? The ones in his kitchen don't even function properly - they illuminate about six bright patches, totally blinding you and making it impossible to see anything in the 90% that is in shadow. I believe they call it form over function, or blonde and stupid. He'll have to replace them all with LED ones in a few years I guess, provided the regulations continue to be sensible and ban the evil things.

My kitchen has a 30W fluorescent strip. It is not pretty, but it provides a fantastic bright and diffuse light which enables me to cook without chopping my fingers off. I generally turn it off when I'm not in there.

Unless I have guests, there is generally a single 11W or 15W bulb on. That's a saving over a 100W bulb of more than 80W x 8hours x 365 days = 233KWhr/year. That's about thirty quid, which easily covers the 99p it cost even if you don't care about the future.

It's not the normal energy savings bulbs I have a problem with, it's the LED ones that are to replace spot lights/down lights. Whereas all other bulbs are that kind of yellowish white light, LED one are a blueish white. It looks pretty stupid. We have eleven of these bulbs in our kitchen, nine are normal and two are LED. The colour difference (even though they're all supposed to be white) is obvious.

You can get LED lights in many different shades, so you need to look around for what suits your needs. My only problem with them is the price...

Even incandescent bulbs came in different shades. Just like LEDs, the "warm" ones are more yellow.

Seriously if you know which LED bulbs are a yellowish white light, let me know. The B&Q ones I bought are far too blue.

The biggest lighting unit I have in the house is for my (largish) fish tank.

It has a unit with 2x36W T5 tubes, and 2x24W T5 tubes.

I hate to think how much power I'd be using if I were using Halides instead!!

As for the light colour debate, I don't know about LEDs, but I can guarantee that you can buy tubes that have different qualities. Tubes for fish tanks give a graph on the back of their different properties. Their output at different frequencies peaks for different bulbs, to emphasise different colours. I have two blueish bulbs which look white through water (white bulbs look blue through water) and two pink bulbs which make the fish look brilliant.

I'd imagine LEDs can be made similarly.

The problem is that the general perception on energy saving bulbs is that they take a while to heat up, yes that's true, but only on the really cheap ones you get from Tesco. You need to spend a bit more on them, but then people are reluctant because they still want to pay the tungsten bulb prices.

The other issue with the energy savers is that they're a complete 'mare to deal with when they're dead.
Nowhere near as recyclable as the old ones, and at least the old fashion kind contribute some heat to a room...
I've stuck in an LED halogen replacement for one of the one's in the kitchen, and it's a noticeably blue light compared to the usual yellow tinge. That said, the new under lights also give a blue tinge to things, so perhaps migrating all the halogens to the LED flavour might the colour cast less noticeable.