RE: GBlist: Compact Fluorescent Residential Fixtures?

[David Bergman <bergman@cyberg.com>]

Kevin Gilleran wrote:

>I actually thought of buying some ballasts and retrofitting incandescent
>fixtures with compact lamp mounts and ballasts. We will see.

I've been looking for someone to come out with ballast and socket 
combination units. Without that, unless the fixture is completely enclosed, 
you get into ugly (in terms of both code and esthetic) issues of exposed 
wires and splices and the need to put the ballast in its own enclosure.

Answering to others' posts here about the CFL fixtures from Lightolier and 
other manufacturers, my problem with most of those is they tend to be very 
utilitarian looking and often very large. They don't yet offer the design 
choices that you'll find in incandescent or halogen fixtures. Making 
fluorescent fixtures plain looking, arguably, furthers the image of 
fluorescent bulbs as an ugly light source.

What I'd love to be doing is designing CFL residentially scaled fixtures 
that were competitive  in terms of price and esthetic with "standard" 
fixtures. Anyone know a backer....


David Bergman
David Bergman Architect/Fire & Water Lighting + Furniture
bergman@cyberg.com    http://www.cyberg.com
t 212 475 3106    f 212 677 7291

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