From what my contractor told me, nidnay (laughed BTW at your comment about MY screen name!), there is no such thing as a dimmer that's compatible with more than one bulb type -- it's either an LED, incandescent or fluorescent dimmer. So while you're "seeing things others don't see," I'll see you at the poorhouse when you have to replace all those dimmers. (Sorry but I couldn't resist.) Congrats on standing your ground. Please update us here when the proverbial stuff hits the fan in a couple of years. Meanwhile, me and my cool white LEDs will be still kicking with not only extremely low power consumption but every time you change one of those bulbs, think of me sitting here eating bonbons while you're up on a ladder changing the bulbs in those can lights!! To all a goodnight. Thanks for the smiles.,,

And thanks to Beth H for asking about the rude comment, as I was curious about that, too.

Crybaby (I love typing that out)....Leviton has universal dimmers that work with incandescent, dimmable LED, dimmable CFL. I would assume there are other manufacturers that have them as well.

While I understand that rotary dimmers don't fail over the years, they may not work initially sometimes forcing a call back. Additionally, since they may be used with different bulbs, they may create undesired effects which to the average person may be blamed on the dimmer - creating a callback. Also perhaps they get broken during the build - creating a call back. I mean who hasn't had a rotary knob fall off?

And then maybe, they are used so infrequently that the electrician has to be the one to install because his 20 something assistants have never done it before so he is charging an aggravation fee. Yes - grasping at straws.

This seems like such a simple thing to do later. And to negotiate.

And just so we are clear, every time you dim a light, you waste energy. In fact many dimmers waste energy when turned up all the way. When you take a 100 watt bulb and dim it down to what a 50 watt bulb would put out, you use more than 50 watts. Just look at the heat sinks on a dimmer.

Wasting energy is just wasteful and writing so cavalier about it is going to alienate people.

@nidnay - totally agree with you regarding LEDs. Hate them. And as others have pointed out, in the USA at least, there is no shortage or unavailability of incandescent bulbs, 1000bulbs.com being one obvious source I've also dealt with.

I have an entire closet full of stockpiled incandescent bulbs! Love them.

I think everyone pretty much sees the reason for the upgrade fees being attached to the project.

Brace yourself, because they are going to be around every corner for everything. Better take out your contract and read it again. Did you vet it with a lawyer? If things are not spelled out 100% and on the written specs and plans, it is a change order. Doesn’t matter what you “told” them. If the contract says switches, that’s not dimmers. That’s a change order. Any deviation from what is in writing is a change order.

What does your contract say about change orders and how they are handled?

David Cary

"And just so we are clear, every time you dim a light, you waste energy. In fact many dimmers waste energy when turned up all the way. When you take a 100 watt bulb and dim it down to what a 50 watt bulb would put out, you use more than 50 watts. Just look at the heat sinks on a dimmer."

What?? Is this true?

Nidnay...great thread..I have learned a lot. Trying to get my electrician on the phone this morning to talk about lighting :-)

@ILoveRed Yes it's true. A dimmer just puts a variable resistor into the circuit, so the same amount of power flows, but the amount is divided between the bulb (and light) and overcoming the resistance (=wasted). You may burn your bulbs out more slowly (maybe), but you use as much or more electricity.

Also, to those saying there are still "plenty of incandescents out there," you're not paying attention. 100W bulbs are no longer made/sold, and the next set (75s? 60s? can't recall) have a schedule to be phased out. They're giving the manufacturers a bit of time to get the equivalents up to snuff. Anybody who is writing off all LED bulbs also doesn't realize how many different companies make them -- there's a range of colors and brightnesses available, and you have to try a real variety for each application. I use one brand for my dining room (where I need a lot of lumens), another for regular reading lamps, another for spots, and each has involved variables I hadn't taken into consideration. (Last was the "vanity globe" style for one of my bathrooms, which are a wonder because we don't get overheated in the morning -- but I have to keep one incandescent one in the circuit or the dimmer drops their output all by 75%! heh)

I'm sure glad that I can do my own work.

Nidnay (me, too, re typing THAT out), I misspoke that there aren't dimmers that are compatible with more than one type bulb. You are correct, and I was aware of them. What I SHOULD have said is that I was told by my electrician that they don't work well with all the bulbs they supposedly service. I really love having dimmers available but over the years, I've never really been pleased with the ones I've encountered in my own home and in homes we rented prior to purchasing our own home. They either flicker, hum, or only dim partially instead of a wide selection of dimmed lighting -- and usually we've encountered a couple of the problems I've mentioned with each dimmer. So before I put in the really high wattage equivalent cool white bulbs in the fixtures I'd narrowed down for my kitchen and dining room, I asked a couple of people, mostly those with experience with several types of them and several electricians and very experienced handymen, about their experiences. And if they had experience with lots of them, they all told me to go with the ones specific to the type of bulb I planned to use, as those were the ones they and their clients were most satisfied with. So since I am one of those people who love LED bulbs, especially the cool white ones, for all the reasons they're touted, I went with LED-specific dimmers with my LED bulbs, which I, too, purchased at 1000Bulbs.com, which I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone purchasing ANY type of bulb or need really good and qualified info on ANY type of bulb; their customer service people possess a wealth of knowledge and are extremely helpful with the most ridiculous questions one could ask! That said, I understand totally your desire to place your bulbs of choice in your home. I'm just personally tickled pink with what LED bulbs have brought to our lives -- personal experience with long-lasting bulbs with the type of quality light we happen to prefer; the decreased use of power, especially due to our replacing halogen track fixtures with expensive, hard-to-find halogen bulbs that seemed to burn out so quickly (my electrician told me that ALL of my LED bulbs combined in my kitchen and dining room do not draw the power of ONE of the halogen bulbs in the FIVE halogen tracks I replaced!); and finally, just knowing my husband or I (or someone I have to hire due to our terribly bad-and-getting-worse-as-we-age back problems) no longer have to pull out a tall ladder and climb up on our very high ceilings to change those damn bulbs so often that it made me want to scream! I've already had LED bulbs in lamps, three-way lamps no less, that have lasted more than a year and they're "guaranteed" (and I saved my receipts and all required paperwork to make good on the guarantees) for five years. To tout my own horn, these bulbs are in use in 3-way lamps that I personally replaced the lamp sockets in myself after reading instructions and viewing helpful videos on YouTube, something I cannot be prouder of as I'm not a handy person. Just figured I'd throw that in there.

Wish you all the luck in the world with the dimmers you choose and am glad I brought up the cost of replacing those dimmers with costs you're already stressing over. I hope your custom built home (I know what kind of work is involved in just doing what I am currently doing in repair and renovation work) is EVERYTHING you planned on and more, nidnay. Really!

Old dimmers use resistors but not the newer ones. Check out TRIAC ( triod alternating current) switch. It actually rapidly cuts supply on and off which does reduce overall amount of power being used. Works better with LED (almost linear reduction of used power) than with incandescent (you still use more power than lower wattage bulb would).

If I was allocating my resources for energy savings, I would put it in attic or all house insulation. That is where the big savings are.

suzyq53, my blu-ray player was in use quite a bit over the Thanksgiving weekend, by my college age son. I would NOT be without one. You take a lot of leaps in your assumptions of how others live.

100watt bulbs are no longer made/sold

I won't comment on the 'made' part but in the USA they most definitely are sold and not at an extravagant price. A 4-pack of A19 100 watt bulbs costs $3.59.
100 watt bulbs readily available here

Getting far afield, but resistive dimmers do not fit into a regular switch box because there has to be a way to dissipate the generated heat. The founder of Lutron came up with a better way back in 1959 with his Capri dimmer - which is the original fit-in-the-switchbox, rotary dial dimmer. Dimmer History

1959 Lutron Capri dimmer

Have to admit this was a very informative discussion. Who knew a question about dimmer costs could be so "enlightening" lol. Seriously though.

Flo....what do you mean by “all house insulation”?

I’m off to the house to have some “discussions”. Wish me luck!

Good luck!

If you’re a photographer, you should be aware there are ways to change light other than changing the bulb - I use a lighting gel in my bedroom on my reading lamp so it is a good color and brightness for nighttime reading, it was the easiest way to get the color temperature I wanted in the lamp I have.

So, am I reading this correctly: the new bulbs will NOT work with old dimmers and switches? And ALL incandescent bulbs have been banned in the US? So are those of us living in older houses (mine was built in 1948) will at some point have to every single switch in our houses replaced? Why do I think this is unlikely? At least I HOPE it is unlikely!

Anglophilia-

Incandescents are being phased out in the U.S., but they're not "banned" in the sense that the light bulb police will come after you, or that you will be forced to use LEDs. And your standard switches that turn power off and on will continue to work just fine.

switches are fine. it's only dimmers that need to be changed.

maybe the new bulbs will get better about working with different systems.

apparently you can get some types of incandescent bulbs online, but 100W bulbs aren't sold anywhere in my large metropolitan area, and the hardware guy said that there was a schedule for phasing out each type of bulb, until only the more efficient flavors are left. not sure about weirdo bulbs (G-19 and whatever), but your basic lamp bulbs.

Anglophilia - here's the story:
Phase-out of incandescent light bulbs

It is possible to mess up the install. I put a slide dimmer in one bedroom and the lights no longer worked for the other bedrooms. The electrician said I did it correctly but needed to use a dimmer with a continuous circuit. ($75/hr more than 15 years ago.) But he might have been BSing me. :-)

Nidnay I totally get the LED bulb issue. A couple weeks ago I ended up returning over $400 worth of bulbs because the brightness and color was off. Our family room and kitchen reflect blue at times because of our pool and the tile on the waterline reflecting. I swear my kitchen was purple with the LEDs, hubs thought I was crazy, I won the battle. I ended up with the Ecosmart bulbs. They do make a dimmable variety that Home Depot has online in several different wattage in soft white in the off chance you decide to take the leap and do LED. We are in Florida and the island lighting was too hot with the incandescent so I made the switch.

wishiwereintheup last Thursday "100watt bulbs are no longer made/sold - I won't comment on the 'made' part but in the USA they most definitely are sold and not at an extravagant price. A 4-pack of A19 100 watt bulbs costs $3.59. 100 watt bulbs readily available here";

https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/100-watt-standard-shape-light-bulbs/

The problem, and reason those bulbs are still available is that a normal 75 watt bulb (even some of the newer "75 watt equivalent" incandescents) will be brighter (more lumens) for less energy than those inferior 100 watt bulbs. The "130 volt" bulbs will only really put out about 950 Lumens and 90 watts on a real 120 volt system, and still use more energy than a 1100 lumen 75 watt pre-phaseout incandescent bulb.

If you want to understand the problem with dimmers and LEDs, read about Stryker's problem here;

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/poll-led-lightbulbs-yes-or-no-dsvw-vd~3105039

thatsmuchbetter, something tells me you haven't been on the homeowner side of a custom build in a while. Or if you recently were, you had a miracle-worker for a GC.

Nidnay, I am curious about the sensitivity thing. If you want a certain color light that just comes from incandescent bulbs, but then you want them all on dimmers, which changes the color temperature as you dim them, then there has to be more to the story? If you want a certain color temperature, or close to the same when dimmed, then LEDs would work better provided you found the right Kelvin to begin with. But, I find many people who NEED the warmer color change when dimmed. It helps to have a warmer color at night before bed to get in the sleep mode. I also believe that part of the problem people have with flourescents and LEDs is the imitation phosphorus coating they use on cheap bulbs to get them from blue, or the non-visible spectrum to white, and that the natural phosphorus on the more expensive bulbs is much better.

You might consider the color changing, programmable LEDs, and skip the dimmers.

@Fred S....I am sensitive to the colder temps. So, an incandescent on a dimmer will only get warmer when turned down, which is not a problem for me. The consistency in color temp when dimming is not an issue. It is the cold, harsh light of the LEDs that are a problem (even at 2700k). Also, there are times when I want a ton of light for tasks, and other times I need to lower the brightness for a more relaxed mood, so need a dimmer.

They have not yet manufactured an LED bulb that does not scream to me L. E. D. When they invent one that is indistinguishable from incandescent, I will buy it :)

Fred do you have a link to those bulbs?

There are many on Amazon.

light bulbs

Those were just pictures from alibaba to show that they can be controlled by remote or smart phone, depending on the model. Most brands make some version. Some only change color from white to amber as you dim. Others will do any color of the rainbow (RGB) AND change to preprogrammed colors to the beat of the music. I don't know if they are all affordable yet.

https://www.usa.philips.com/c-m-li/warm-glow-dimmable-led-lighting

https://www.thespruce.com/best-color-changing-led-bulbs-4153544

http://bgr.com/2017/09/28/multicolor-led-light-bulb-with-remote/

While we are on the subject of newer lighting tech, I believe there are newer under cabinet strip LEDs referred to as COB that are an improvement over the glaring dots on the countertop of some bare strips (no diffuser), but have not seen any in person yet. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/250mm-Bright-Light-15w-12v-Flexible_60317396911.html

I hired an electrician to install 2 light fixtures. He offered to install dimmer switches at $300.00 a piece. I declined as this seemed to be an extreme upcharge for something that to me should have been $50 a piece.

Debi-

A decent dimmer switch costs about $20, and is something almost anyone can safely install in 5 minutes as long as they turn off the breaker first.

Debi:

I have a $500.00 minimum charge, no matter how long I'm at your home. I'm as busy as I like, and unlike most contractors, I have weekends off. It's all relative.

Joseph-

I understand minimum charges and overhead, but it sound like this electrician was already there, was paid to install some light fixtures, and wanted $600 bucks more for a couple of dimmer switches...

Well....I’ve been installing my own dimmers little by little. Actually been using Lutron Caseta smart switches which I absolutely LOVE. I could have saved myself a lot of money with my electrical if I’d known about these switches.....I would not have needed to install any 3 way switches in the house because the Lutron’s completely cover that necessity.

kudzu9....exactly!

nidnay-

I learned DIY because I was a cheapskate. Later, when I got more skilled, I realized that I might be slower than a professional, but my result was just as good...sometimes better. I am always amazed that some people will pay large sums of money for some very basic things that they could easily do themselves if they spent ten minutes on YouTube. And I have helped friends with things as simple as fixing the refrigerator door handle that fell off because they didn't have a screwdriver to tighten the loose screws.

"Debi sprouse

I hired an electrician to install 2 light fixtures. He offered to install dimmer switches at $300.00 a piece. I declined as this seemed to be an extreme upcharge for something that to me should have been $50 a piece."

That's absurd, I don't care what Joseph charges - folks that pay his kind of money clearly have it to burn. Dimmer switches and outlets are stupid easy to install. Anyone that charges more than $50 (which is a lot for a 5 min job) per switch, is a thief.

Chessie, most people are taught to fear electricity. I think plumbing is a lot more scary!

I am glad my Dad taught me basic electrical and I can change my own light fixtures and dimmer/timer switches. I don't even turn the power off to do it, unless I don't know the house and the condition of the wiring.

chispa-

But plumbing usually can't kill you. Please flip the breaker. Electricity is very patient: it will wait years for you to make just one mistake.

I was zapped with 220v when I was a kid and we lived overseas ... metal appliance that obviously wasn't grounded! Flew across the room. Believe me, I'm careful!

Ok...I hope so. But careful to me is also not working with live wires ;-)

I've been a passenger on a motorcycle going 85 mph (that was crazy!) ... I'll take live wires any day! ;-)

chispa-

You obviously have a higher tolerance for risk than I do. But, who knows?... maybe you'll outlive me. I wish you a long and happy life :-)

After working for many years in the electric industry, I have an abundant respect for it. I hire licensed professionals and I observe how they work. If they pass my safety tests, I will use again. If not, bye bye.

Yes I can do it too. 4 connections. Just flip the breaker before you start. It's not rocket science.