just looking through websites at light fittings and floor lamps and noticed there are energy saving ones available.
apart from the extraordinary price premium i dont understand how they differ -i thought the energy saving came from the type of bulb not the fitting itself.so knowing where to go for savvy intelligent people thought i would ask on here -how does a light fitting save energy.

Could you post a link to these fittings?

Not a stupid question at all.

Many 'energy saving' lights have a standard BC (bayonet cap) or ES (Edisson Screw) fitting and are a 'drop in' replacement for regular lamps.

On the other hand, some fluorescent lamps have a completely different fitting (bi-pin, 4 pin, etc.) and so need a specific fitting to take the lamp.



Also, many light fittings, especially with lampshades are rated to a maximum wattage of lamp. A typical table lamp with a 9" paper shade may be rated at 60W max. If you use a 100W tungsten lamp, you are in danger of scorching or setting fire to the shade. Many newer designs of lamp or fitting will specify 'energy saving' lamps as they rely on a much lower heat output from the lamp.

There are also standard 'pearl' lamps that look to all intents and purposes like a regular bulb, but may have an odd-ball fitting to prevent insertion of a regular bulb. Especially where lighting circuits these days use far lower currents than traditional lights.

A normal household lighting ring is rated at 6A and will use 1mm cable. That is 1.44kW of lighting using traditional bulbs. Some newer establishments have specific energy efficient fittings and much smaller cable, which would be overloaded by standard tungsten lamps, so have a specific fitting to prevent incorrect lamps being used.

Example





One place that springs immediately to mind is in Farnborough, Hants, where a work colleague has just bought a flat in the new 'Concept' development. All the light fittings look like regular ones, until you look closely and see that the fittings and bulbs are different. What looks like a standard light fitting in fact takes the bulb base shown above. The down side is that these bulbs aren't often 'off the shelf' at B&Q!!



And contrary to popular belief, they are not 'fit and forget' for eight or ten years....40% of energy saving bulbs suffer from electronic failure in early life that means they need to be replaced much earlier than the manufacturers would have us think.

A bulb may say 80% less energy and a 8 year life....I have never seen one 'guaranteed' for 8 years!!!

So yes, you CAN get 'low energy fittings', but low energy in the sense that they only fit low energy bulbs!!

RT that is an excellent write up. Not having had to replace any of my fittings at home (just swapped for low energy bayonet fitting bulbs) I'd have never known about these other types of fittings.

These days, most DIY shops have special deals on bulbs....I found a 3 pack of 11W CF Philips lights for 99p at Homebase, so the cost has plummeted to about par with the old style bulbs. I remember buying my first CF lamps for about £6 each

Even allowing for a fairly high electronic failure rate (I have lost two in a year just in my kitchen....lovely acrid smell of burning electronics!), they are cheap enough now not to worry too much!

And as in your case, most of the time, the usual offerings are simply 'plug and go' with no need to worry about the fittings, apart from the usual mix-up between ES and BC!

Megaman does a whole range of energy saving bulbs including LED types:

http://www.megamanuk.com/

They have been doing more unusual fittings and designs for years.
They also have dimmer-able CFLs.

Added: Also noticed they apparently use a Mercury amalgam:
http://www.megamanuk.com/megaman-techno ... cury-free/

no idea but please take the word dumb out o you title.
Its not dumb if you don't know and ask

A low energy light fitting is one which will only take a bulb having a luminous efficiency greater than 40 lumens per circuit watt. Under current building regulations new houses must have 25% dedicated LEL fittings or one per 25 sq m, whichever is the greater. When the new building regs come into force in October this will increase to a minimum of 75%.

And electricians will continue to be called back straight after the inspection to swap them back to regular fittings taking easily obtainable standard design bulbs. it's a regular occurance apparantly for the same handfull of energy effiecient fittings to be re-used for the inspection of several houses

link as requested http://www.efficientlight.co.uk/light/L ... tings.aspx
apologies for use of the word dumb -didnt mean to cause offence.
Turns out our problem isnt the fittings but the wiring behind the switch - interesting system in our house modern switches dont seem to have any relation too our wiring -anyway it seems the solution for now is not to put the lights on so i'm settling for a lamp i already own and a high efiiciency bulb.

No cause for offence, express or implied. I think what Bronze was referring to is that the only dumb/stupid/silly questions on this forum are the ones you should have asked but didn't... We work on the YOGA principle - You Only Gotta Ask...