Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

.... I have finished fitting my house (well, 95% of it, some locations such as inside the oven are not suitable for LEDs with LED bulbs. I want to make one correction to my OP.

SOME LED lights should not be operated in an enclosed fixture. I have found that the particular 40W equivalent bulbs (6 watts) I used do not generate much heat and can be safely used in any fixture.

I have also found that SOME 60W bulbs also throw off little heat. It's kind of startling how much variation there is here. I have one 60W bulb that runs really hot, but the Cree bulbs I wound up using really don't generate much heat and throw off a lot of light.

Thanks to everyone that contributed to this thread. My intention was to share what I have learned and not to scare anyone away from trying out LED bulbs. It's really perhaps not as complicated as I made it sound in my initial thread.

Distilled :

1) you will probably want 2700K (much like incandescent, almost yellow) or 3000K ( somewhat whiter) bulbs. Most of the time that is what you are going to find at your big box or mail order store.

2) Do pay attention to the wattage and lumens rating of the bulb, it varies a lot between brand. Fewer watts per lumen = good

3) I was able to replace most of my bulbs with 40W equivalents. These will run in an enclosed fixture no problem. Read the box - if it says "not for use in enclosed fixtures" heed the warning. Also to be extra-safe run one a few minutes and touch it. If it is too hot to touch (anywhere on bulb) then you probably don't want to use it in an enclosed fixture.

Thanks again!!!