Gaith said:
Is it just me, or do these "environmentally friendly" LED light bulbs, that are filled with toxic chemicals requiring special disposal, fail at significantly higher rates than old-school ones? Maybe they handle the wear and tear of turning off and on less well?
Some factors I can think of explain this. An LED bulb is only as good as the electronics governing the bulb. The cheap bulbs (which honestly aren't that cheap, compared to CFL or incandescent) tend to be crap that burns out quick. If you're spending that much for a bulb, spend a little more and get a good one (yes, brand names are a decent gauge of quality in this case). Dimmers can also play hell with LED's. Not all LED's are dimmable, and they don't like all types of dimmers, and while you may have luck mix-and-matching in the short run, you may pay for it with the lifetime of the bulb and awful flicker effects -- you may tolerate this flicker on your Christmas tree, but you won't want it in your kitchen. Last, enclosed fixtures are death for an LED bulb. Fixtures
must be open -- i.e. have good airflow in and out of the fixture to the rest of the room. LED's don't make much heat, but they can't tolerate it at all. So even if your fully enclosed fixture feels much, much cooler than it did with an incandescent, your LED is still roasting itself to death inside.
My general advice is don't just replace the bulb. Replace entire fixtures with LED-friendly versions, and throw in new switches while you're at it. Yeah, that's not exactly eco- (or budget-) friendly in the short term. But those decade-long-plus bulb lifespans you hear about? That's how to achieve them.