In February 2008 I wanted to replace my normal Halogen downlight globes with energy efficient lighting, while still maintaining my existing downlight fittings. The website stated that the LED lights would work wth all transformers. I purchased 4 lights as a trial, firstly because I didn't know whether I wanted warm or cool white and also to make sure that they worked correctly. In one room there are 4 fittings and as it turned out there was one old style transformer, one medium age and two new transformers. The LED's only worked on the old style transformer, flickered on the medium age transformer and didn't work at all on the new transformers. I sent an email with a please explain, and the reply was "We have not had that problem". In the end they offered to replace the globes with GU10 globes and I would pay for the GU10 fitting. As of yet I have not done this because I have been a bit skeptical about outlaying more money so that I have globes that I am told will work, I had previously been told that the first lot of globes would work!!!!

Approximate cost: $100

Want to use 94% less electricity??

We wanted to make some progress towards making our WOMOW office a green environment so I tracked down this company that sells Long Life energy efficient lighting products. We currently have some downlights which use 50 watt globes and Long Life Lighting sells replacement globes that use LED technology and only use 3 watts of electricity.

I ordered a small number of globes via their website just to test them out but when I received them in the mail there was a warning page in the box saying "these globes will not work with new electronic transformers". Because I knew the transformers we had for our Downlights were quite new I called the company. They confirmed the globes wouldn't work but they had a new model coming in September that would. I must admit I was a bit annoyed because this warning was not on their website however when I spoke to them they were very apologetic and said to send the globes back COD and they will ship the new model as soon as they come in.

Approximate cost: $22 per LED globe