The reduction in cost of LED lighting is surprising. An item of anecdata from my experience.

My house is somebody else's self-build - a nearly finished "reduce a bungalow to trhee walls and a hole in the ground, and rebuild as a house with 150% extra space" done in 2008-2012 to rather better than building regs, but not near-passive, standard. It was 2013 and they ran out of getting their money back so left some things undone.

He had a bit of an obsession with ceiling spots, and when we moved in there were 19 in the kitchen, and a total of 63 50W halogen GU10s in the house. I replaced them all with the new £4 Ikea ones as the first thing I did - ie the cost was about £250. It paid for itself in about 2 years.

Now 12 years later, most of my Ikea LED GU10 lights have yellowed, and maybe a dozen have gone pop, so I am replacing all the rest.

The "Trade Rated" pack of 50 in the LAP brand I picked up from Screwfix (949YY) yesterday came in at £32.

How things change. Time will tell if I bought a pup.

Very cheap. Well spotted.

Though 345 lumen is a bit tight on light output.

For all the progress, I have yet to find the perfect GU10 - 800 lumen+, dimmable, 60deg, CCT remotely controllable, CRI>90.

I wonder where we would be had they not banned people from using the old ones.

On 24/10/2026 at 11:06, Ferdinand said:

Now 12 years later, most of my Ikea LED GU10 lights have yellowed, and maybe a dozen have gone pop, so I am replacing all the rest.

We massively overpaid for downlights when we built 11 years ago. I got a bit obsessed with light quality, so we paid a lot more than we really should have, especially given that many cheap LED downlights today probably measure as well as what we paid through the nose for back then. We should have bought decent fixtures with replaceable bulbs, then replaced the bulbs with better versions over time as they deteriorated or failed.

The only upside is that we've had only one failure in that whole time. It's somewhere where it isn't particularly visible, so I haven't bothered checking what's actually failed - it could be the driver, which I can replace easily enough.

My biggest LED challenge remains extracting bulbs from the couple of spotlight fittings that have them recessed, especially when balanced on steps.

The usual technique is rubber gloves, but I also have about 6 of those rubber sucker things mislaid in different unknown places. These are what Mr Rumsfeld used to call "known unknowns".

I don't do dimming, other than in my bonce !

I was emailing an "obsessed" gent yesterday from another forum. Like me he has shifted to wet shaving with a traditional safety razor with blades at 10-20p each, rather than pay £££ for 3, 4 or 6 blade slivers set in plastic. When Gillette moved their Russian Razor Blade factory to China, he went down the rabbit hole because of quality, and bought enough razor blades to last him for this life and the next.

He sent me some "spares", and this turns out to be enough to last me about a decade at dozens per annum.

I am sure that when build-hubbers pop our clogs, our sheds or store cupboards will be found to contain 3-lifetime supplies of something, bought in packs of 10x or 20x because the unit price was 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 of the single item.

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

I was emailing an "obsessed" gent yesterday from another forum. Like me he has shifted to wet shaving with a traditional safety razor with blades at 10-20p each, rather than pay £££ for 3, 4 or 6 blade slivers set in plastic. When Gillette moved their Russian Razor Blade factory to China, he went down the rabbit hole because of quality, and bought enough razor blades to last him for this life and the next.

He sent me some "spares", and this turns out to be enough to last me about a decade at dozens per annum.

I went down the same rabbit hole 20 years ago and still have the Merkur razor I bought back then. I tried various blades at the time (although never got around to trying the famously too sharp "Feather" blades), eventually settling on the cost/sharpness compromise offered by Derby. I buy in bulk, but I have adult children who get through them at a prolific rate when they're home.

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

I am sure that when build-hubbers pop our clogs, our sheds or store cupboards will be found to contain 3-lifetime supplies of something, bought in packs of 10x or 20x because the unit price was 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 of the single item.

Several years ago I decided to get a paper towel dispenser for the garage. I thought it'd be really useful, so bought a large box of 12x refills, because it was cheaper to buy in bulk. I'm about halfway through the first refill - at this rate, my unborn grandchildren will still be using them long after I've gone.

Did the same with special Italian flour when we got a pizza oven.

And pH test strips when I got curious about the pH of my compost and soil.

It's a sickness.

On 24/10/2026 at 20:02, Spinny said:

Very cheap. Well spotted.

Though 345 lumen is a bit tight on light output.

For all the progress, I have yet to find the perfect GU10 - 800 lumen+, dimmable, 60deg, CCT remotely controllable, CRI>90.

I wonder where we would be had they not banned people from using the old ones.

I think the average energy consumption of a UK house would NOT have fallen by 20% between 2010 and 2024, as happened (if I recall the published figures correctly).

3 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

I was emailing an "obsessed" gent yesterday from another forum. Like me he has shifted to wet shaving with a traditional safety razor with blades at 10-20p each, rather than pay £££ for 3, 4 or 6 blade slivers set in plastic. When Gillette moved their Russian Razor Blade factory to China, he went down the rabbit hole because of quality, and bought enough razor blades to last him for this life and the next.

Does he have a recomendation for a decent shaving foam? I've used up my dad's supply of original recipe Erasmic (Tallow based - I inherited 6 tubs) and their new stuff is beyond useless...

2 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

I think the average energy consumption of a UK house would NOT have fallen by 20% between 2010 and 2024, as happened (if I recall the published figures correctly).

OK, so you are saying people left to themselves would have chosen to continue using traditional bulbs/halogen/tungsten etc because their own judgement would be that the benefits to them of having brighter bulbs exceeded the additonal energy costs.

13 hours ago, Spinny said:

OK, so you are saying people left to themselves would have chosen to continue using traditional bulbs/halogen/tungsten etc

Years ago when 100W tungsten bulbs were being discontinued, a friend of mine went around all the shops buying up as many as he could because he didn't like the alternatives.

15 hours ago, sgt_woulds said:

Does he have a recomendation for a decent shaving foam? I've used up my dad's supply of original recipe Erasmic (Tallow based - I inherited 6 tubs) and their new stuff is beyond useless...

Heh. I'll ask.

I currently use a Wilkinson Sword soap and / or a TABAC shaving soap stick. But I'm really not a discerning consumer, and am very much at the "OK and inexpensive" stage, following recommendations from people who seem like informed down-the-rabbit-hole bloggers and Youtubers from several years ago when I did a deep dive. Checking the dates, time flies - it is nearly 5 years.

My links: Shaving soap: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07TNJHFVX

Shaving Stick: Maurer & Wirtz Tabac Original Shaving Soap Stick 100G

I'll ask and find out.

13 hours ago, Spinny said:

OK, so you are saying people left to themselves would have chosen to continue using traditional bulbs/halogen/tungsten etc because their own judgement would be that the benefits to them of having brighter bulbs exceeded the additonal energy costs.

For me - and I argue for halving our use of energy over doubling our area given up to wind farms (to be simplistic) - I think there is inertia, which would be "use them until they are finished" or "why should I change?" or "I'm OK with what I have",

And I think when we have a technology which is no less effective for perhaps 95% of applications then measures to persuade or eventually phase out the older technology more quickly than would happen "naturally", or narrow the usage, are acceptable. I'd put tungsten and halogen lights in that category. We did it for example with non-condensing gas boilers.

For anyone who has a real need, tungsten and halogen bulbs can still be obtained - just like creosote.

Ferdinand

What, real creosote?

14 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

What, real creosote?

When I last looked, certainly. I think promotion in the general marketplace is restricted.

For example, https://www.creosotesales.co.uk/product/traditional-creosote-20-ltr/
or https://www.grangewoodfencing.com/product/coal-tar-creosote/

It is a product for Trade and Professional eg farmers for wooden gateposts, due to safety and risk protocols. When I have had things that might need it, I have usually designed it out as I do not really think substitute products are serious, eg by using wooden fence posts mounted on concrete repair spurs by bolts, or never letting wood touch soil or concrete physically unprotected.

I think stricter regulations are about to arrive in 2027.

Disposing of a large amount of it in an acceptable manner would be an interesting exercise these days.

On 24/10/2026 at 11:06, Ferdinand said:

He had a bit of an obsession with ceiling spots, and when we moved in there were 19 in the kitchen, and a total of 63 50W halogen GU10s in the house. I replaced them all with the new £4 Ikea ones as the first thing I did - ie the cost was about £250. It paid for itself in about 2 years.

Now 12 years later, most of my Ikea LED GU10 lights have yellowed, and maybe a dozen have gone pop, so I am replacing all the rest.

12 years is good going for LEDs, espescially 'cheap' Ikea ones.

When I changed to LED I tried to buy 'quality' brands (Megaman, Osram, Samsung) all costing over double what cheaper brands like GE and more like 4-6 times the cost for own brands like Wilkinsons or Woolworths that I also bought for comparison. The light quality for the more expensive brands was obviously better, but longevity has been exceedingly disapointing. I write the date of install on all lamps I fit; apart from one cheapo Woolworths lamp (that is still going strong 28 years later - albeit with awful light quality - and used in an outdoor sensor light) they all failed within 5 years.

I seem to get just over a year out of modern cheapo ones from amazon etc, but I cannot see the point of spending more for 'quality' ones when their life expectancy doesn't seem to be any better.

None of the epensive manufactuers honoured their warranties as I didn't keep the original boxes they came from / couldn't prove they were not subject to unusual switching frequency / couldn't prove that the electricity supply was stable volatge/frequency and any number of other bullderdash excuses they came up with.

Perhaps if I could get some 'Dubai' quality bulbs it would be worthwhile, if nothing else ithan to reduce the materials being consumed and wasted. I very much doub't these are ever properly recycled, plus I walk every day on one of the local fly-tipping routes - there must be a dozen LED per metre, and god knows what they are leaching.