GE Turns Out the Lights in Winchester, Virginia

[Speedy]

Florida LED manufacturer can't meet demand because he can't get financing even though he would hire Americans. Yesterday on CNBC. The Chinese and Mexicans funded him to build in their countries.

[vicrock]

Grateful11 wrote:

Have you tried any 3-way CFL's, I find quite pleasing to read by. Sufficient or the right type of light to read by?

BTW: My electrician just finished putting in about 12 recessed light in our new kitchen and dining room
today all of which have dimmable 65W floods in them. Wasn't crazy about using incandescents but that
what he said he puts for dimmable lights.

I tried the 3 way CFLs a while back and they didn't put out enough light - maybe they have advanced, but I'm loathe to spend the $$ on something that may not work.

We have dimmable lights in our great room and kitchen - so those are either halogen or incandescent - but again they are not on for a huge amount of time.

[OWC Jamie]

lazydays wrote:
We have night lights in the girls bedrooms, those bulbs are pretty small, what will we do for those? The lights in two of my ceiling fans use very small bulbs also, I wonder what I will do for them. I find this trend very disturbing. Yes they save power but the new bulbs pollute far more and can't be used for all applications.

special purpose incandescents are not on the hit list - just general purpose incandescents that have cost effective replacements.

Panopticon wrote:
The last major General Electric factory producing regular, incandescent light bulbs in the United States closed today.

Two Hundred GE employees of the Winchester, VA plant are now jobless. GE decided it would not invest to convert the plant to make CFLs as taxes, pollution controls, insurance, and last but not least
wages @ the VA factory would raise the price of GE CFL's to a level Americans would not pay. Cheaper to make in China and less regulatory interference..

[cowboyxjon]

Thanks for reminding me that I should probably go out and stock up on more incandescents.

[deckeda]

GE shareholders, and other lovers of free enterprise and capitalism, will be pleased the company is holding the line on costs.

If you're among that group, please don't complain about changes such as this. You don't get to have it both ways, 'cause the math just doesn't work.

Then again, maybe they'd be pleased also if GE had begun to innovate a premium product that combined quality of light, longevity and a "Made in U.S.A." sticker on the box. Any one of the three could potentially snag paying customers. P.S. Don't forget to advertise/promote.

[Bill in NC]

GE would have closed the plant anyway, as it's cheaper to make even incandescent bulbs overseas.

Annual volume had already fallen from a billion at its peak to 300,000 last year.

[AllGold]

vicrock wrote:
I REALLY have tried CFL's in the lamp next to my chair - with absolutely no satisfaction. None of them produce sufficient light to read comfortably.

If quantity of light is your only problem then you haven't tried the right CFL.

[OWC Jamie]

AllGold wrote:
[quote=vicrock]
I REALLY have tried CFL's in the lamp next to my chair - with absolutely no satisfaction. None of them produce sufficient light to read comfortably.

If quantity of light is your only problem then you haven't tried the right CFL.
If I only shopped at the local Home Depot and Lowes for CFLs I'd have given up on decent light from CFLs, too.

The Home Depot 20 miles away is bigger and lo and behold they carry HO ( high output) CFLs that the other store doesn't carry. 3-way that have higher output than standard 30/70/100 and 450lumen reading lights.


GE supposedly has a 150 watt equivalent ( 9 watts , I think) LED reading light incandescent replacement real soon. Will be interesting to see heat output and how directional it is. Most LED I've tried so far are a bit directional like a flashlight. Fine for some fixtures. Useless in others.

[Grateful11]

vicrock wrote:
[quote=Grateful11]

Have you tried any 3-way CFL's, I find quite pleasing to read by. Sufficient or the right type of light to read by?

BTW: My electrician just finished putting in about 12 recessed light in our new kitchen and dining room
today all of which have dimmable 65W floods in them. Wasn't crazy about using incandescents but that
what he said he puts for dimmable lights.

I tried the 3 way CFLs a while back and they didn't put out enough light - maybe they have advanced, but I'm loathe to spend the $$ on something that may not work.

We have dimmable lights in our great room and kitchen - so those are either halogen or incandescent - but again they are not on for a huge amount of time.
The weird thing about the 3 ways is the middle output is first and the lowest output is second. You
need to try a different temp. bulb. We put the daylight type CFL's 75watt equiv. in out new 4
light bath fixtrue and they're bright, very bright but not the type light I'd want to read by, too white.

They have dimmable CFL's now but they'e not cheap. We picked up 4 micro mini CFL's for our new
kitchen fixtures today because they had to be very short, the light from them is very pleasing. The
undercounter Xenon lights are going in Monday, 2-24" 3-18" and 2-12". We have enough lights
in our kitchen to land a frickin' plane now.

CFL's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

[Panopticon]

We have enough lights in our kitchen to land a frickin' plane now. -Grateful11


dayum, that's one bright kitchen...




OK when I drop in to visit, my AV-8B will need about 6k lbs of JP-5.
A canopy cleaning wouldn't hurt either :jest: