Gallery of Lights
The Site => General discussion => Topic started by: rjluna2 on December 25, 2009, 12:22:15 PM
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Friday, December 25, 2009
Nation, A19
A Christmas tradition flickers out
Energy-effcient LEDs push out old-fashioned bulbs.
By Sean Murphy
Associated Press
Norman, Okla. - To Steven Walls, it's beginning to look nothing like Christmas, anywhere he goes.
While more people make the switch to energy-efficient lights for their holiday decorations, Walls this year insisted on decorating with the old-style, torpedo-shaped Christmas lights his family has put up for years. But it was no easy feat: To replace the half-dozen or so bulbs that burned out last year, Walls had to visit eight different stores before he found any.
"They're not the same. They're sized different and have these unusual ripples. If you have those interspersed with your traditional lights, they're going to look dumb," he said.
The old 2-inch, 9-watt incandescent bulbs may the gas guzzlers of holiday lights, but they remain a holiday staple in homes across the country. Many people aren't willing to trade the chubby, colorful halo effect for the softer glow of a light-emitting diode, or LED. And as retailers increasingly stock the more energy-efficient lights, lovers of the classic lights scramble to find them, fearing they will soon be gone for shelves for good.
While acknowledging LEDs are more durable and use up to one-hundredth the amount of electricity as incandescents, Gary Barksdale grows nostalgic sorting through broken bulbs and overloaded fuses every year.
"It's part of the holiday tradition," said Barksdale, 46, of Norman. Failing to find replacement fuses, he strung a few lights together and ran a tether to his 9-year-old son, Gus. Together they climbed atop the roof of his one-story home. For him, the old lights are part of a holiday tradition.
"We're doing the same thing my pops, my brothers and I did when we were kids," he said.
Despite their passionate fan club, incandescent lovers are a dying bunch. Strands of LEDs are more expensive than incandescents, but the LEDs are much cheaper to run. Retailers say the long-term savings may be driving people to stores to make the switch.
John Banta, a project leader for New York-based Comsumer Reports, said LEDs provide more benefits than just energy savings.
"They run cooler, so there's less of a chance of a fire hazard," Banata said. "They're much more durable and they did last longer."
David Shields of Purcell, Okla., said the old bulbs just look like Christmas.
"My neighbor has the LED lights, and it just looks more like a modern discotheque over there," he said. "I like the vintage look, the old-school look. That's the way everybody's lights used to be growing up."
[Picture of a C9 light attached to string]
Traditional incandescent Christmas lights are becoming more difficult to find more counsumers switch to thir modern LED counterparts.
Parker C. Smith Special
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I think this article is describing C9 incandescent bulbs as traditional bulbs.
I have not seen or heard a 9-watt C9 bulb, assuming incorrectly as C9 bulb as same as 9-watters.
I have seen and heard 7 and 5 watt version of C9 bulbs both smooth and ridges torpedo shaped bulbs.