light bulb differences, PAR30, BR30, R30, etc?

Question

What are the differences between those (PAR30, PAR38, BR30, R30, and possibly others that I don't know about) light standards. I currently have recessed lighting and (I think) BR30 light bulbs in hallways and common areas. I have PAR30L's in kitchens and bathrooms. They use the standard E26 socket? How viable is putting CFL's in there? I've read that CFL's shouldn't be put in enclosed areas such as recessed lighting. Is it still a problem with modern CFL's? I don't want to spend $15/bulb and have it die in 6 months. Can I put R30 CFL's in the same sockets as the BR30 and PAR30L's and have the same (or similar) lighting conditions? Thanks for the reples.

Answer 1

you need to pull the trim off of the recessed lights and see what type of lamp the trim can handle. some lamps are just too hot for the trim to handle. Yeah....you are limited. Never actually heard of BR30 lamp, but the difference between a PAR30 and an R30 is that PAR is rated for outdoors and R isn't. PAR's are usually used for spot lighting

Answer 2

Without getting too technical, all the lamp type mentioned are reflectors, I assume you are reading lamp types off the reflector label: R is a basic reflector lamp PAR lamps the P represents parabolic lens BR is Bulbous Reflector, which looks kind of an overinflated "R" lamp, was designed try to cheaply produce the light pattern of a PAR lamp. The number after the lamp style letters in par38, par30 or par20 is eighths of an inch (like the 8 in FO32T8 tube lamps or the 3 in a 5W3 wedge dashboard lamp) As far as lighting conditions, none are going to reproduce the exact pattern, each of the lamp type has a specific design intent, the can fixtures probably don't really exploit the specific design but are allowed by the manufacturer, so they could still meet your need, be careful about color temperature, pars tend to be toward the higher temperature (4100K) than most CFL's (2700K). Cheap CFL's can't handle the heat buildup in non vented fixtures, reflector style CFL's don't seem to normally fit the "cheap" category. It also seems that although the total heat produced by a CFL is less than an incandescent (1 watt produces 3.4 BTU's of heat), the dissipation pattern seems to damage some plastic sockets and also cause some thermal sensors to overreact. I think most manufacturers have recognized that standard incandescent lamps are being outlawed, and have redesigned the fixtures and lamps, this shouldn't be a problem much longer.

Answer 3

The answer is in the wattages of the lamps.
Par 30 Par 38 etc. are reflector lamp sizes.
The wattages can be as high as 150.
CFL wattages go up to about 27.
Your fixtures are designed to dissipate the waste
heat from the higher wattage incandescent lamps.
They should keep the lower wattage, more efficient
CFLs quite happy.