Allotments 4 All

Blimey I nearly burnt the house down.  Got up and pulled the curtains, opened the windows and went and got my morning coffee. Popped back upstairs for my glasses and smelt burning, I thought somebody had a bonfire going, then I noticed that the breeze had swept the curtain over one of the small small halogen spotlights that are used as bedside lamps for reading and the curtain was smoking. Ripped it down and flung it out of the window. The smoke alarm on the stairs did not go off, which was strange as it usually beeps at the hint of a bit of toast doing.

I have now changed all the small spotlight bulbs even the ones on the ceiling with nice cool led bulbs, expensive but safety comes first, and put  some more smoke alarms around the house. Only a black scorch mark on the curtain lining so they are back up. But if I had wandered around the garden as I usually do in the morning it could have been a lot worse.

Bit of a wakeup call really but scary when you think how a simple thing like that could even cost a life.

Glad that you did not have too serious a result.

That was a close shave.  Glad it wasn't a lot worse.

I am all for ecological light bulbs but I find some of the new types get awfully hot. I like your idea about the LEDs...
Glad there was no serious damage!

Glad no serious damage.
You will save on the lecky with the LEDs so that will help offset some of the cost of the new bulbs.

While still counting myself lucky. The cost of the led's was not begrudged. The spots in that are inset in the ceiling were an accident waiting to happen what with all the hidden wooden joists, plastic covered wiring etc. They did get very hot and I should have realised this just from the heat that used to come off of the bedside ones and they are only 40w. If any of you have any of  these recessed ceiling lights I would urge you to change them. I have now found some good deals on Amazon which works out at about £1 a bulb. I have ordered a box for spares.

But as Chrispy said the running costs are 90% cheaper to run, weird sort of white light which was described as daylight on the boxes, they will take some getting used to. It took me ages to get used to the energy saving bulbs in the chandeliers when we changed.

Quote from: ACE on July 16, 2014, 11:02:26
...
But as Chrispy said the running costs are 90% cheaper to run, weird sort of white light which was described as daylight on the boxes, they will take some getting used to. It took me ages to get used to the energy saving bulbs in the chandeliers when we changed.

We've just had LED lighting installed in our (windowless) bathroom.  I have to agree that it does create0 a rather odd colour of light.  White tiles show up a sort of bright grey.

Pleased you had no serious damage Ace.

We have had LEDs in our recessed kitchen ceiling lights since last year and I find them very good as I use the kitchen table for sewing and cutting out.  We kept the halogen ones in the hall, bedrooms and bathrooms as they are all on transformers anyway and are on for less time.   We only changed them because two of the transformers died.    Never noticed any getting hot and bothered.

We had to replace the halogen lights in the caravan with
ED they did not mix with my tropical moments!!