Many of us back in the 90s jumped on the then-new halogen bandwagon when we purchased a torchiere lamp for our office, den,
or dorm room. A torchiere is one of those floor lamps that have a lamp shade that appears to be upside down, because the
light is thrown up to the ceiling, where it bounces off the white paint and fills a room with soft, diffused light. Back
in the 90s someone invented an inexpensive torchiere that used a 300 watt halogen bulb. The natural white light emitted by the
halogen bulb was a real relief from the incandescent bulb, which always shaded to yellow. As a result, millions of these
lamps were sold to households throughout North America.
Well, it wasn’t long before people began to realize that there was a downside to 300 watts of pure halogen. At full
power, the heat from the bulb was high enough to fry your favorite food. People put their shirt over the lamp and it would
catch on fire. Ditto with curtains that got too close to the bulb. Knock the lamp over and you were liable to burn down your
house - and some people did. Over time, many municipalities began banning the sale of the 300 watt halogen lamps as a fire
hazard; then the price of electricity began to rise, the environmental issues came into play, and in time it made no sense
at all to pump 300 watts of power into a floor lamp because for what you got it was a huge waste of power.
Well, happy days are here again. Flash forward to 2012, and today we now have the equivalent of a 300 watt halogen
bulb in a new General Electric CFL bulb called the 2D55. The bulbs ship with the torchiere lamps in many circumstances, so
you just buy the torchiere, take it home and plug it in. This new lamp is a compact fluorescent, or CFL, that gives 10,000
hours of life – that’s about 7 years of use at 4 hours per day. What’s more, is that unlike most CFLs, this CFL can be used
with a dimmer switch, so most new torchieres come with a full range dimmer on the stem of the lamp. Unlike the halogen,
this new CFL bulb does not hum when you turn down the dimmer, and the bulb never gets hot enough to set anything on fire.
The new 2D55 bulb is great for the environment and much safer than the halogen it replaces. It can be used with
dimmers, timers, and photocells, consumes only 55 watts of power while delivering 270 watts of equivalent incandescent light,
produces almost pure white light (3000 kelvins) up to a really high brightness (3900 lumens) and can run for up to 10,000
hours at full power without producing any noise or hum even when its dimmed. I just threw out my last halogen light and
couldn’t be happier! Goodbye halogen, hello CFL.
What is really amazing is that in Toronto you can pick up a torchiere lamp with a dimmer switch and GE bulb included
for less than $60 (plus tax). A company called Good Earth Lighting produces excellent high quality six foot high lamps that
are Energy Star rated, CUL approved, and easy to assemble. You can find them in local lighting stores, or just go to any
Toronto Lowes outlet where there are several models to choose from. You will save money on the hydro bill and you will be
helping the environment by switching to the new technology. Some things really do get better!
Gary Loftus
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