My wife and I were out recently looking at ceiling fans to replace the one in our dining room, which has committed no crimes, other than having the appearance of being very much from the 1980s.
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
It's bad power - transients apparently kill LEDs quickly.
Me - I have the exact same bulbs in my off grid property, and in my on-grid property. On grid, it's about 18 months MTBF. Off grid - it's been seven years and I haven't had to replace a single bulb yet. On-grid our power is anywhere between 205 and 235v, often has spikes up to 260+, and has like 99% uptime. Off grid, it's 230v, day in, day out. Grid power is terrible in most places.
I grew up in Australia and now live in Hyderabad, India. Pretty good chance I’ll be building a house in the next couple of years, and I’m of a strong mind to go off-grid for power for this sort of reason. Appliances and other devices (ACs, fridges, computers, laptops, chargers, even fans and lights) fail at far greater rates than in Australia, and I believe most of that is about power quality (though sometimes it’s about higher ambient temperatures, far more dust, possibly lower component quality). Given how often the power goes out, you want a home inverter anyway, so increasing the battery capacity further and adding solar isn’t such a huge extra cost; and if it reduces appliance failure rates as much as I expect, I genuinely suspect it’ll be cheaper in the long run, even with the grid price being 0.05–0.10 USD/kWh.
Now if only DC wiring and appliances were more common/mature, could possibly drop the “inverter” part altogether. If I were single I’d try more seriously for a full-DC system, but as a married man I’ll probably just stick with everything AC.
donatj · · focus · HN ↗
I was taken aback by how few of the fans had replaceable lightbulbs! In the entire store there were maybe three or four options with a replaceable bulb!
Call me crazy, but a nonreplaceable LED is a complete dealbreaker. I go through so many LED bulbs! I don't know if my electricity is like particularly bad or if that's just normal? The first LED bulb I ever bought (Shout out EarthLED) in 2008 for like $30 is still going strong, but every bulb I buy these days lasts like two years tops.
Anyway, we did not buy a fan.
madaxe_again · · focus · HN ↗
Me - I have the exact same bulbs in my off grid property, and in my on-grid property. On grid, it's about 18 months MTBF. Off grid - it's been seven years and I haven't had to replace a single bulb yet. On-grid our power is anywhere between 205 and 235v, often has spikes up to 260+, and has like 99% uptime. Off grid, it's 230v, day in, day out. Grid power is terrible in most places.
chrismorgan · · focus · HN ↗
Now if only DC wiring and appliances were more common/mature, could possibly drop the “inverter” part altogether. If I were single I’d try more seriously for a full-DC system, but as a married man I’ll probably just stick with everything AC.