let there be slightly less light

In a poignant echo of the current pandemic sweeping the nation, I'm afraid I have to report the tragic demise of another kitchen light bulb, latest victim of the current highly-infectious outbreak of bulb demises that started in November 2019 after a gap of around four-and-a-half years and has now accounted for five of the twelve bulbs in the kitchen layout (we replaced one, so you only see four in the photograph below). The latest one was number 3 (layout diagram here), one of the first two to expire as part of the original experiment back in May 2014 and be replaced with IKEA LED bulbs. It therefore replaces its predecessor as the longest-serving bulb in existence (well, not any more) with a lifespan of 2329 days.

twas light years of time since his mission did start

You'll recall my tentative wager on it being either bulb 5 or bulb 12 that bought the farm next in the kitchen; well in a salutary lesson about the dangers of gambling it's actually bulb number 2 that has gone. Previous self-immolations of this particular spot in the lighting layout include being part of the very first pair of bulbs to expire back in May 2014, whereupon I replaced it with an IKEA LED bulb which then led an entirely uneventful existence for just over six years (2229 days, to be precise) until expiring a few days ago. 

That is, hardly surprisingly, the longest single life-span on record (on this blog, anyway) for a single light bulb. I can't remember exactly how much I paid for the original set of IKEA bulbs, but I have a feeling it was around £4 each; if so then that works out at something like 0.18 pence per day.

hello darkness my old friend

Just a quick update on the kitchen light bulb situation, as I know you've been positively moist with anticipation. You'll recall I made a fairly low-risk (since there are only twelve bulbs) nomination of bulbs 5, 7 and 12 as the next one to go; well, sure enough bulb 7 has now bought the farm. Previous demises of this particular bulb occurred on or around May 27th, 2014 (a mere 28 days after the start of the experiment) and then around October 8th of the same year after a span of 134 days.

The greatly increased lifespan of the non-incandescent bulbs means that it's only now that it's gone phut and indeed fring again after a span (if you take today as the date of its demise; it was actually a week or so ago) of 2048 days. That's all great, of course, though it is interesting that after a gap of around four-and-a-half years when no bulbs expired at all we've now seen three go in around six months.

As always if you have NO FREAKIN' IDEA what I'm talking about or need a refresher on the bulb-numbering protocol then please do refer to this post which will explain everything. Anyway, I'm keeping a close eye on bulbs 5 and 12 and will report back as soon as anything enlightening (or, indeed, endarkening) happens.

stay away from the light

Well, it looks like the honeymoon period is over for our kitchen light bulbs. Hot (or rather non-incandescently cool) on the heels of bulb number 4 expiring a couple of weeks ago another one has made the trip to the noxious bulb-interior recycling centre in the sky. This time it was number 10, which the record shows had previously expired on May 9th 2014 and then again on or around October 8th 2014. Apparently its first incarnation only lasted 10 days, and its second, if those dates are correct, lasted 152 days. So its third incarnation of 1878 days is pretty impressive, but the recent trend doesn't look so good. It's probably just a coincidence, though.

There was a suggestion in the midst of the original furious cycle of bulb explosions that positions 4, 5, 7, 10 and 12 were particularly prone to frying the bulbs that occupied them. That would suggest a higher-than-average probability of the next one being 5, 7 or 12. I'll be sure and let you know, but there is of course the possibility that it may happen several years from now, so don't hold your breath.

there is a light that never goes out

In hindsight, one of the genuine high-water-marks of this blog in terms of excitement and red-hot bleeding-edge consumer affairs relevance was the glorious ten-month period where I tracked in tediously unnecessary detail the regular self-immolation of my kitchen spotlight bulbs before the completion of the transition from last-millennium partially-on-fire bits of literal hot glowing metal to modern-day LED technology which basically, as I understand it anyway, involves nothing more sinister than opening up a tiny wormhole to a dimension of pure evil and chaos to harness some of the intense malevolent energy within in an entirely safe and environmentally neutral way.

The last post on this admittedly fascinating subject was in May 2015, at which point I expected (and said as much at the time) that that would be an end of it, as the full complement of LED bulbs would surely last all the way through to the eventual heat death of the universe, or the date that we eventually move out of our current house, whichever comes first. Not so, though, as it happens, as I discovered a couple of days ago that one of the bulbs has, in a very real sense, expired.

But WHICH ONE was it, I hear you, or possibly just the voices in my head, shout. Well allow me to keep you in delightful suspense for just a moment longer with something slightly tangential but still, as you'll come to realise in the fullness of time, relevant. I acquired a new phone a couple of months ago to replace my old Samsung Galaxy A3 which was getting a bit knackered and had always been slightly flaky in the camera department. The new one is a Samsung Galaxy A40, so pretty similar, though inevitably just a few millimetres larger in every dimension. The one thing that's startlingly different about the new phone is how much better the camera is, and in particular how brilliant the built-in wide-angle lens is. I mention this because you'll recall the slightly confusing multicoloured bulb diagram from the original series of posts, and my doomed attempts to provide a real-world version of it through the medium of lying on the kitchen floor taking photos of the ceiling. Well finally, thanks to this spiffy new camera, I can make that dream a reality. Have a gander at this:

So as you can see the bulb that's bought the farm is number 4, which my research tells me blew twice during the period of the original survey, on or before May 17, 2014 and then again around September 23rd, 2014. So the stint which has just ended lasted around 1875 days, which at the original going rate for LED bulbs of 4 quid a pop works out at just over 0.21 pence per day. Compare that with the rates of up to 25p a day I was pissing away on the here-today-literally-gone-tomorrow old incandescent bulbs and it seems like pretty good value; even more so when you consider (just to get a quick plug for my wife in here) that our current Utility Warehouse package will get any expiring LED bulbs replaced for free.

filamental arithmetic

In the midst of life we are in death, sic transit gloria mundi, and all that sort of thing. I speak of course of none other than the fate of the final incandescent lightbulb in my kitchen ceiling lighting array, which has been blazing away in solitary glory for some months now, arguing by its very presence the case for white-hot threads of glowing metal as a means of generating light in the 21st century, but being ultimately comprehensively out-argued by the forces of entropy and having to concede defeat.

If you've been continuing to fill in your Bulbsplosion Bingo card then a) what the hell is wrong with you and b) you'll want to know that this was bulb number 11, whose main function is and always has been to illuminate the couple of giant foil roasting trays that we keep on top of the fridge. This has already been replaced once, way back in June 2014, an impressive 333 days ago. As I said last time, it's possible that being the only incandescent bulb in a sea of low-energy-demand LEDs may mean that the occasional random spikes could be accommodated more easily without tripping a circuit-breaker or frying the filament, but equally that could just be a plausible-sounding just-so story with no basis in actual physics.

But anyway, it's gone now. And since the failure rate on the LED ones, almost exactly a year after I installed the first one, stands at precisely zero, that may conclude this blog thread for the foreseeable future. The conclusion seems to be: yes, they're a bit more expensive, but it's well worth switching to LEDs if your spotlight wiring is a bit dicey. Buy a job lot from IKEA next time you're there; don't forget to stock up with meatballs as well.

yeah, I got your new year fireworks right here

Happy New Year, everyone. Let's kick off 2015 in style with some kitchen light bulb updates. You'll recall that after the last round-up and the replacement of the most recently demised batch of incandescent spotlights with LEDs that the only four old-school bulbs left were 1, 6, 9 and 11. So WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?!? Read on....

First to check out, on November 26th, was number 1. This was previously replaced on May 30th, so its second incarnation lasted 180 days.

Then, on December 11th, number 6. This is significant because this one was the last of the original batch of incandescent bulbs installed in April - the only other bulb to remain un-replaced since then is number 8, which is a proper long-life energy-saver which you'd expect to last a bit longer. This one was a halogen one at £4.28 a pop, which after 226 days works out at 0.019 pence per day.

Finally, today, number 9. Well, I say "today", but it could really have been any point over the last ten days or so as it's been pretty busy over Christmas and we were away for New Year. Anyway, I only noticed it today. That one was one of the original batch of 40W bulbs and so was of unknown age when it originally expired on September 18th; its second stint lasted 107 days.

So what that all means is that there is now just one incandescent bulb left in the whole kitchen, and it's number 11, the one on the right in the picture above, blazing its defiance in the face of progress like the roar of a doomed brachiosaur trapped in a tar pit as a meteorite hurtles towards it.

I suppose it's plausible that the attrition rate of the incandescent bulbs could reduce (or have already reduced) as more and more of them get replaced by low-energy bulbs and the overall load on the kitchen lighting circuit diminishes, but I am not an electrician and so it's also perfectly plausible that that's all just bollocks. What certainly is true is that IKEA (or at least their Cardiff branch) are currently knocking out the LED bulbs for a pound, a quarter of the usual price. I'd say that represents pretty excellent value for money, since the total number of LED bulbs to expire since I installed the first one in early May stands at a big fat zero.

lupin the loop

Couple of brief follow-up notes regarding previous posts, one recent, one not so recent.

Firstly, it was unforgivably remiss of me to neglect to mention that as a result of the explodey demise of bulbs 5, 7, 10 and 12 I can now declare myself the winner of Kitchen Light Bulb Connect Four! Yeah, eat my randomly coincidental linearly-connected bulb filament self-immolation pattern, losers.

Secondly, you might remember my amusedly baffled WTFery at being presented with Wagamama's list of possible food allergies. To be honest, after getting a link to a Monty Python sketch and a couple of cheap fart gags out of it I thought no more about it, until today when I was presented with a list of allergy information from Chef & Brewer's website (a Chef & Brewer establishment being the likely venue for the office Christmas lunch some time in December). And what do I see listed? Lupins!

A bit of internet research reveals that the lupin bean is actually quite widely-used as a foodstuff, particularly in Latin America and the Mediterranean, and crops up (in dried and ground-up form) increasingly frequently as a gluten-free substitute for wheat flour in various culinary applications. Anyone planning, on learning this, to pop straight out to the garden and dig up some lupins for dinner should be warned that unless carefully prepared the lupin bean can contain toxic quantities of certain alkaloids, and you don't want to get lupin poisoning. And that's if you're not allergic to it.

That's all very well, you'll be saying, but I DEMAND to know which of Chef & Brewer's delicious generic pub grub options have potentially dangerous lupin products in them, lest I start tucking into a portion of cod and chips only to unexpectedly have my liver turn inside-out with alkaloid poisoning. Well, you'll be relieved to hear that the answer appears to be: none of them. Not a single one. Still, it's nice that they at least allowed for the possibility.

the light stuff

It's been a while, hasn't it? And great things have been afoot, so listen up.

Following the last round-up, I decided that it was time to re-populate the ceiling with some new bulbs, as we were down to five and it was getting a bit dark. This was on September 21st; I know this because I tweeted about it at the time:

As luck would have it, I had exactly seven incandescent bulbs left (all bog-standard 40W ones from B&Q), so I was able to exactly fill all the slots and briefly have the full complement of a dozen bulbs blazing down. Needless to say it didn't last.

By September 23rd we'd already lost one, number 4. By September 30th we'd lost number 5 as well, and by October 8th we'd also lost numbers 7, 10 and 12. We're HAEMORRHAGING FILAMENT HERE, PEOPLE.

There is a pattern to the way they've expired, though. The original batch expired in the following order: 2, 3, 10, 4, 5, 12, 7, 1, 11, 9. I replaced 2 and 3 with IKEA LED bulbs, thus effectively taking them out of the equation. The new ones have expired as follows: 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, i.e. the same 5 as last time (different order, admittedly). At this point the only bulbs to remain intact from the batch installed in April are numbers 6 and 8.

So at the weekend I'll install the 5 IKEA LED bulbs I've got in the cupboard (again, spookily, just the right number) and the whole cycle will begin again, although hopefully periodic exploding activity will be confined to the remaining bulbs which are not either long-life or LED, i.e. bulbs 1, 6, 9 and 11. Once these all buy the farm and are replaced with LEDs this particular topic will hopefully be replaced by a yearly bulletin saying NOTHING TO REPORT. We'll see.

bulbous developments #5

You'll be moist with suppressed anticipation at the state of the kitchen light bulbs, given that the last update was back in mid-June, and there had been lots of bulb-exploding action in the previous month or so. Well, as strange as it might seem, there haven't been any bulbs expiring since then, so it's not like I've been holding out on you, it's just that nothing much has been happening.

Up until yesterday, anyway. The uneasy truce that's been in place for three months or so bit the dust yesterday when bulb number 9 died. This was the last of the original surviving 40W incandescent bulbs, so, again, no pence per day calculation, but what can be said is that it lasted at least 142 days, at a pence per day rate of at most about 0.01 pence.

If it helps, here's a little animated GIF of the gradual darkening of the kitchen lights over the last five months or so. Note that as I've documented I have replaced a few of the bulbs, so we're not actually down to two bulbs. There are in fact five in there at the moment, but it is getting a bit dark in some corners so it may be time to do the rounds and replace some.

bulbous developments #4

Right, you know the drill by now, so no frills, here's the low-down: latest bulb to expire was bulb number 11, which went a week ago on June 6th. This was another of the surviving 40W incandescent jobs, so no money/days calculation here. I just thought you might like to know.

filamentary, my dear Watts on

More exciting developments with the kitchen lighting, so I hope you've got your Bulbsplosion Bingo cards handy. First to expire was bulb number 12, one of the surviving 40W incandescent bulbs of indeterminate age (but given the general instability it's probably a few months at most), which gave out on May 24th. No pence per day calculation for this one, for obvious reasons.

Then, on May 27th, two more - firstly bulb number 7, another of the valiant surviving incandescent 40W brigade.

Also, bulb number 1, the first of the 28W halogen bulbs to expire. This one clocked up 28 days, which at an initial cost of £4.28 works out at an eye-watering 15.3p per day.

You'll notice that I'm lagging behind a bit on replacing the blown bulbs. I should get on and do this as I may as well use up the remaining ones in the cupboard, plus it'll also make it easier to track which ones go phut. I'm not intending to purchase any more until I've got some more conclusive evidence of which ones I should be buying. I suspect it'll end up being the LED ones, but I don't want to jump the gun. It's also important to be self-aware enough to recognise my natural inclination towards believing it's the IKEA bulbs that are the best, just because a bulb-buying trip to IKEA will also afford me the opportunity to stock up on meatballs and bizarre fish products.

bulbous developments #2

We've been away for a week, and it appears that another few bulbs took this as their opportunity to say "goodbye, cruel world" and "hasta la vista, baby" and furiously incandesce themselves into oblivion. Actually, one couldn't wait and gave up the ghost before we'd even left, but we found two more had committed filamentary seppuku on our return. You'll be wanting to tick these off on your Bulb Bingo card, so here they are:

Firstly, bulb number 10, which went on May 9th - this was an incandescent 25W job, which at 99p for 10 days works out at, let's say, 10p per day.

Then on our return today, two more. Firstly bulb number 4, one of the new batch of incandescent 40W ones, which at £1.49 for 18 days works out at a smidgen under 8.3p per day.

Then, later, bulb number 5, another incandescent 25W one, which at 99p for 18 days works out at 5.5p per day.

So by the rule I've just invented (but which seems reasonable enough) that says the expensive bulbs need to perform at least as well as the longest-lasting incandescent bulb, the required minimum expiry dates for the 4 quid LED bulbs and the £7.98 energy-saver are now 73 days and 145 days from their respective installation dates, or, to put it another way, July 19th and September 21st. Watch this space.

bulbous developments #1

Great things are afoot - the first two bulbs from the sample group as featured in this post have gone phut and, indeed, kablooie. And already the results are interesting - it was two of the high-powered incandescent 40W bulbs that went (at roughly the same time, on Monday 5th), as you might expect, but it was two of the new ones rather than two of the old ones that had already been cycled on and off an indeterminate number of times.

If you care to refer to the original bulb layout diagram, it was bulbs 2 and 3 that expired. This is actually quite opportune, in a way, as I just happen to have in my possession two new IKEA LED bulbs which I can now slot into the two gaps that have just opened up.

At first glance they are less blue than I was led (see what I did there?) to believe they might be - they are broadly the same sort of yellowish hue as the incandescent bulbs. Their "colour temperature" rating is 2700K, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Anyway, now the science bit: the two dead bulbs both lasted a pitiful 6 days each, at a cost of a smidgen under 25p per day. At that rate of attrition the LED bulbs only need to last 16 days to be better value, but I'd hope they might manage a bit longer than that. Time will tell.

here's something bulbous you may be interested in

Allow me to introduce my Great Kitchen Light Bulb Experiment. Our kitchen is lit by, among other things, twelve recessed spotlights in the ceiling, which take the little screw-in R50 spotlight bulbs. All great, and very illuminating, but I suspect that they were wired in (probably by my predecessor, whose enthusiasm for DIY considerably exceeded my own) to a circuit that previously serviced a couple of fluorescent striplights or something similar. What that means is that the circuit is a bit overloaded, the practical upshot of which is that the bulbs tend to blow a lot and it's a constant running battle keeping enough working lightbulbs installed to see what you're cooking.

Normally we buy these standard incandescent 40-watt bulbs from B&Q, though elsewhere in the house we've gone energy-saving wherever possible. So I thought I'd try an experiment: buy a range of different ones and keep a log of when they fail. It's not especially scientific, but it keeps me off the streets. Here's the smorgasbord of illuminatory delights I purchased from B&Q yesterday:

A quick run-through from left to right:

• these 28W halogen bulbs at £4.28 each
• the standard 40W incandescent bulbs we've been using already at £1.49 each
• the 25W version of the same thing at 99p each
• the 9W full eco-warrior energy-saving version at £7.98

There is another bulb option available - LED bulbs, also available from B&Q at an eye-watering £10.98 each. The only reason I didn't purchase one of these was that I happen to know IKEA sell them at 4 quid a pop, so I'll wait until I can get a couple of those. There were four bulbs still working when I started, so I filled the remaining 8 slots with two halogens, two 25W bulbs, the single energy-saver and three 40W bulbs, distributed as randomly as possible. Here's a handy pictorial representation of the distribution:

The way to visualise this is to imagine yourself lying on your back on our kitchen floor with your head pointing roughly north, towards the utility room at the back of the house. I did try to take a (pre-bulb-fitting) photograph from exactly that position, but the ceiling isn't high enough to get it all in. This is the best I could do (same orientation as the diagram):

My intention is to keep a log of which bulbs fail and when and track which ones last the longest. As I say, it's not particularly scientific, because the two banks of bulbs (left and right in the stuck-together photo above) are separately switchable, so some may get more use than others, plus of course some of the individual fittings may be particularly prone to frying bulbs owing to the vagaries of the wiring set-up. But it's the best I can do. I'll probably post individual updates as comments here and then summarise at some later date in a separate post.