What’s the right bulb for the job?

The low down on watt (pun intended) you need to know about bulbs and how to find what bulb you or your customer needs.

Over the next while we will be putting out a series of posts all based on the breakdown of information on bulbs to make sure you always choose the best part for the job. In these posts we’re going to cover such things as the lifespans of bulbs, Kelvin ratings and what those mean, fitting types, lumens, and of course, Watts and how the new LED bulbs relate to the older style of incandescent, halogen and CFL bulbs.

So to start with here are the different things you need to think about. Keep checking back as we will be posting additional articles and linking them from here.

• Kelvins

  - Essentially this is the colour of the light produced by the bulb in terms of heat. The lower the number, the ‘warmer’ the light and the higher the number the ‘cooler’ the light. Another way to think of this is Lower = Orange/Yellow, Higher = White/Blue

• Fitting types

  - As many of you will be aware of there are dozens of fitments each with its own characteristics. We will look to cover the popular ones and where you are likely to see them.

• Bulb Lifespans

  - A hot topic at the moment with the advances in LED technology vs older styles, with most bulbs now lasting over 10x longer than previously, better for the pocket, better for the environment.

• Watts

  - Again LED technology has turned the idea of watts and what they mean on their head, for example, an old 100 Watt Incandescent would only be around 10 Watts in an LED form. 

• Lumens

  - The real way of knowing what ‘performance’ you’re going to be getting from your bulb.

Here at Lamp Source, one of the things we do very well is making sure you always get what you need to get the job done right and to keep your customers coming back. We use our years of expertise and technical know-how to help the likes of yourself reading this now to provide you with the confidence when dealing with your clients to know you are doing right by them. With this in mind we don’t want to just horde this knowledge but instead share it out to help empower you, our trusted customers.

So if you still need some help finding the best lamp, CONTACT US now.