This is the last of the “boring” topics before I delve into the housekeeping fun. And unfortunately, I just don’t have much to say about it.
Your house will have some light fixtures installed, in the kitchen and bathrooms if nowhere else (and overhead lights are becoming rarer and rarer in new houses because it’s an extra cost to the builder). If you want more light you need to wire new fixtures yourself or buy lamps.
The lightbulb landscape is changing rapidly. For a while it looked like incandescent bulbs were on their way out, but now the watt ratings on them have been changed to keep them legal; bulbs are now slightly-less-than-60 watts, slightly-less-than-100 watts, etc. Incandescent bulbs give a warm light that we are all used to but fluorescent bulbs have improved enormously in the last few years and I expect they will continue to improve in the future. CFL (compact fluorescent lights) bulbs take longer to reach full brightness than incandescents, but are getting faster. They are also getting a warmer, more flattering spectrum as time goes on. There are also LED bulbs available, mostly at IKEA it seems. I know nothing else about them except that LED lights are ultra-low energy usage.
Phew. I’m ready for some fun.
I love LED lights. The electrical wiring here isn’t great, and we regularly blow fuses. It’s helped so much to replace all the halogen light bulbs we had with LED. It’s quite harsh light though, but for spaces like the hallway and the kitchen it’s very useful.
Do you still have fuses? I guess an old building that hasn’t been re-wired would.
… what do you have instead of fuses? All building here have them, even new builds.
Breakers. You “trip a breaker” instead of “blow a fuse”. To re-set, you just flip the switch back to the other side. When I hear “fuse” I think of something that has to be replaced when it has been blown, right?
Some buildings here do have breakers, but I live in a building that was build in 1982 and it only has fuses, like the ones you describe. I think our new house has fuses too.