I did not realize US banned Halogen lights for home use?

[Clair de Lune]

My dad has this free-standing kick ass halogen lamps. They come with a gradual dimmer (for ANY level of brightness) and can get SUPER bright. Good stuff -the damn thing illuminates the whole damn livingroom. He must've bought it a decade ago or so.

In my room, the ceiling lights are too direct & harsh despite the heavy frost cover so I don't use them. I resort to a desk small lamp & artsy crap 3-bulb stuff to illuminate my room. See here

After I got my 37" monitor. They hurt my eyes at night- even with 0 backlight. So I went to Home Depot to look for the same thing my dad has.

Turns out they banned all halogen lamps for home use due to dangerous fire hazard... when did they do this?

Man I came home with a same free-standing lamp set-up, but with a meager 150-watt incandescent bulb. I'm assembling it now. Hopefully this is good enough.

 

[Howard]

My friend's house burned down because of one. Don't tempt fate.

 

[JohnCU]

wow i didnt know this either

 

[Deeko]

I remember them not being allowed in the dorms in college.

 

[lykaon78]

Those lamps rock. I have one in my garage that is 50x brighter than any other light in my house.

But have you ever felt how hot these things get? I would imagine that a sheer curtain could go up just being within 24 inches of one of those suckers.

 

[BoomerD]

Hmmm...I knew they got hot and could start fires if someone let clothing or something drape over them...maybe I need to replace the halogen puck lights I have on my computer hutch.

(dammit...I saw LED puck lights at Costco a couple of months ago and didn't buy them...last time I was there, they were gone.)

 

[Zenmervolt]

You didn't realize they were banned because they weren't.

You can buy one from Amazon. Or from this lighting store. Or this one. Or how about from here?

The lights are required to have a wire or glass screen over the bulb to keep things like drapes from contacting the bulb directly, but they remain completely legal in the US.

Relevent CPSC action.

ZV

 

[Clair de Lune]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You didn't realize they were banned because they weren't.

You can buy one from Amazon. Or from this lighting store. Or this one. Or how about from here?

The lights are required to have a wire or glass screen over the bulb to keep things like drapes from contacting the bulb directly, but they remain completely legal in the US.

Relevent CPSC action.

ZV

Just Home Depot then?

 

[preslove]

I wish congress had waited a couple years. I hate the flicker of compact flourescents, but LEDs should be getting more plentiful & cheaper in a couple years.

 

[Joemonkey]

interesting about the wire screen, we had a cat knock one of ours over that had the wire screen and it fell over a couch armrest with the screen landing on a coat I had laying there. I immediately grabbed it as soon as it hit, seriously making contact with the coat for less than a full second. When I set it back up, my wife said "what the hell?" pointing at the coat. The inside fleece lining had a waffle pattern burned into it, with the lines a dull yellow that turned black quickly. We got rid of that lap the next day figuring having cats + that lamp would = fire at some point

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You didn't realize they were banned because they weren't.

You can buy one from Amazon. Or from this lighting store. Or this one. Or how about from here?

The lights are required to have a wire or glass screen over the bulb to keep things like drapes from contacting the bulb directly, but they remain completely legal in the US.

Relevent CPSC action.

ZV

Just Home Depot then?

Prolly. Unless your state has laws that ban them.

 

[waffleironhead]

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You didn't realize they were banned because they weren't.

You can buy one from Amazon. Or from this lighting store. Or this one. Or how about from here?

The lights are required to have a wire or glass screen over the bulb to keep things like drapes from contacting the bulb directly, but they remain completely legal in the US.

Relevent CPSC action.

ZV

Just Home Depot then?

Prolly. Unless your state has laws that ban them.

or the sales person was a complete idiot

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune

After I got my 37" monitor. They hurt my eyes at night- even with 0 backlight. So I went to Home Depot to look for the same thing my dad has.

get a clip on desk lamp, mount it right behind the monitor, and have it pointed up the wall. it provides enough ambient lighting even with a low power bulb so that the difference in brightness between the monitor and the rest of the room won't fatigue your eyes.

 

[Clair de Lune]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune

After I got my 37" monitor. They hurt my eyes at night- even with 0 backlight. So I went to Home Depot to look for the same thing my dad has.

get a clip on desk lamp, mount it right behind the monitor, and have it pointed up the wall. it provides enough ambient lighting even with a low power bulb so that the difference in brightness between the monitor and the rest of the room won't fatigue your eyes.

You sure? Backlight on the monitor is what's causing the eye strain. As you can see in the OP's desktop pic, those setups hurt my eyes.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: preslove
I wish congress had waited a couple years. I hate the flicker of compact flourescents, but LEDs should be getting more plentiful & cheaper in a couple years.

CFLs flicker? Never noticed.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune

You sure? Backlight on the monitor is what's causing the eye strain. As you can see in the OP's desktop pic, those setups hurt my eyes.

maybe you shouldn't be using a tv designed to be sat 10 feet from as a monitor, then

 

[Praxis1452]

Love the halogen lamps. Lights up a huge room at max power while also being pleasant at really low settings. Course it does get hooooooooot. Make sure the base is stable and that you don't just leave it on when you aren't around.

 

[takeru]

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune
My dad has this free-standing kick ass halogen lamps. They come with a gradual dimmer (for ANY level of brightness) and can get SUPER bright. Good stuff -the damn thing illuminates the whole damn livingroom. He must've bought it a decade ago or so.

In my room, the ceiling lights are too direct & harsh despite the heavy frost cover so I don't use them. I resort to a desk small lamp & artsy crap 3-bulb stuff to illuminate my room. See here

After I got my 37" monitor. They hurt my eyes at night- even with 0 backlight. So I went to Home Depot to look for the same thing my dad has.

Turns out they banned all halogen lamps for home use due to dangerous fire hazard... when did they do this?

Man I came home with a same free-standing lamp set-up, but with a meager 150-watt incandescent bulb. I'm assembling it now. Hopefully this is good enough.

maybe you need to change the overhead light fixture instead? i have a basic round fixture on my ceiling packed with two 100 watt florescent bulbs in there. its like having the sun in my room. no eye strain for me.

 

[DaWhim]

I used to run them when I got electric paid for in a rented apt. heck, I even own like 3 or 4 myself. store like home depot stopped selling it for a long time. when the one I used for my room broke down, I had to resort to people who were moving out and I bought them off their hands. somehow, I just got a few more this way.

I used to run two 300w in my room, it made my room super bright. being in buffalo with all the snow, these lamps heat up my room pretty well too. halogen lamps just eat up too much electricity. it is not environmentally friendly at all.

 

[Nik]

Maybe it's too hard to change the fluid.

 

[0roo0roo]

get a book on lighting design. a few changes can alter the mood of a room quite a bit.

you need different types of lighting in a room. relying on a single source of light is ugly...
and yea torchier lights can have a nice ambient light reflected off the wall/ceiling that is better than lousy in the middle of the ceiling down light.

that being said, for a screen..you can reduce eye strain with bias lighting. cheap way is to put a low power cf lamp behind it. ikea grono lights work ok. and they sell very low cf watt lights. a light source to gently light up the wall behind the monitor lowers the contrast between the bright monitor and the area surrounding it in your peripheral vision.

ikea has better lighting selection. home depot is pretty lousy

looking at ur pic your lighting is bad, all from one side of the room. the lamp on the right is glaring, should be somewhere else. its the kind of light that should be in some corner because it should reflect light off a white wall...but there its just reflecting off a shelf instead of a wall and too close to your work space. all the shadows and stuff..not good. something on your desk should be quite dim, not trying to light your room. both your lights should be accent lights, not trying to light the room by themselves.
maybe install some track lighting as well to direct light down over your desk as task lighting.

 

[indamixx99]

We also have one of these in our living room. It's a 500 watt one so it makes the living room look like daytime in there when on full power. Of course we never run it that high since it sucks up power, especially with a plasma tv and a/v receiver running in the same room.
Our lamp is set up about 2 feet away from the wall, not near any fabric of any kind. I do remember about 5-10 yrs ago when there was this whole big deal about these lamps burning houses down where they were giving away free grilles to go on top of the lamp. I think we have one somewhere, but never used it. But yea.. those lamps do get crazy hot though.

 

[Baked]

We've converted all light bulbs to CFL bulbs in the house a long time ago. Never bought those ugly looking stick halogen lamps.

 

[Throckmorton]

They sell them at Fry's.

CFL is better anyway.

 

[Elstupido]

The halogen lighting you are talking about, is the minuscule 300 watt bulb in floor lamps, from many years ago. 300 watts in a 1 inch light bulb is going to get extremely hot, and has caused a hell of a lot of fires.

To this day halogen lighting has gotten a bad rap from being "too hot". The fact of the matter is, watts convert to BTU's (british thermal units) which is a measure of heat. It doesn't matter the source, a BTU is a BTU, if coming from your TV, refrigerator, computer, what have you. A 75 watt halogen has the same heat output as a 75 watt incandescent bulb, but puts out more light.

It's a fact that halogen light bulbs produce about 30% more light per watt than an incandescent light bulb, and can last 2 to 3 times longer. You just don't put 300 watts into a tiny amount of space like those of the old floor lamps. And yes the sale of these types should be outlawed.