Too much light

[napoleon1769]

My bathroom lights has 14 100w bulbs. It's a little too bright so I was just thinking of letting them burn out and instead of replacing them. I was wondering which is better in general.

1. Let 7 burn out and unscrew them. (Would having sockets without bulbs be bad for the fixture?)

2. Let 7 burnt out and just leave them in the fixture. (Would leaving burnt out bulbs in the sockets be bad for the fixture?)

3. Replace all 14 with 50w bulbs. (Would it save twice the amount of energy? Do I lose half the amount of light?)

[voodoo401]

How about putting in a dimmer switch?

As for the question
1 no
2 no
3 your power use would be 1/2 and the light output would be 1/2

[napoleon1769]

Are you saying "no" as something that I shouldn't do or just an answer to my question?

I heard that undervolting a lightbulb is not good for it. Is there any truth to that or is it just a myth?

[fakishan]

You don't have to fill every socket and you can leave burned out bulbs in the socket.

[pshch]

Are you sure they all 100w? It's 1.4kwt in total honestly I cannot imagine light fixture like this any were in regular house.

[vitaminJ]

1.4 kilowatts whoa! I would say remove bulbs until the brightness seems about what you want - you are paying to overbrighten your bathroom after all. I wouldn't wait for the extras to burn out, just put them away in the hall closet or whatever and keep them as spares. If you think 14 50w bulbs would look nicer you can do that too. Voodoo's suggestion for a dimmer on incandescent bulbs is always a good one, then you can pick a level, you'd probably save 20-50%. (couple dollars a year)

Napoleon - Not sure why they'd be undervolted, i would expect any wattage bulbs to work, you think its a special fixture that says to only use 100w bulbs?

My upstairs bathroom (fairly small, 50ish sq feet) uses 3x 9-watt vanity CFL bulbs. 27 watts vs your 1400! and its fine. However they were not worth the investment, Noma bulbs that only lasted about half the time needed to pay for themselves. Gonna give it one more try with GE cfl vanity bulbs, which i think will be more reliable, my other GE cfls (non-vanity) generally outperform other brands.

[mrsmagoo2001]

Have you considered replacing the light fixture?

[teoconca]

How about these:

1. Just use half of them, the other half not use by turn them until they don't light up. Do this in a patern, 1 on 1 off. I did this with my fixture with 8 bulbs.

2. Just buy the 25 watts bulbs. and use all 14 sockets. This will cut 3/4 of usage. I did this with my other vanity fixtures. I replace them with 25 watts bulbs. I found the level of brightness is great.

3. Get new fixtures with 4 sockets.

4. Use dimmers.