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I stocked up on incandescent bulbs last year, and run most of mine on dimmers anymore, because that radically helps longevity. My overhead bulbs in the living room (BR30 form factor) are a good bit over a year old, but they're almost always dimmed down, if not deeply, then "a notch or two below full bright," and that increases their lifespan massively.

I went down a massive rabbit hole last year based on someone's throwaway comment about LEDs and blue, and ended up with my own spectrometer, and quite a few words written on light bulbs, blue light, etc: https://www.sevarg.net/tag/spectrometer/ It includes a lot of spectrums of LEDs vs incandescent, and explains more about the blue spike in all our modern white LEDs (because that's the way that particular bulb type works - a blue emitter with phosphor coatings around it). Unfortunately, incandescents are harder to find these days (stock up on eBay, but buy a few before you bulk - the new "standard bulb" incandescents from a lot of places sing loudly on a dimmer, and are annoyingly audible).

As for candles, skip those and go straight to kerosene lanterns. I've also gone down that rabbit hole: https://www.sevarg.net/tag/kerosene/ My advice is to get a few of the large cold blast style lanterns (the Dietz Blizzard is easily my favorite - it's a good looking lantern, and it puts out a good amount of light, while not being purely massive like the Jupiter I have), and then get some of the low sulfur kerosene substitutes (Klean Heat is one brand, Pure Heat is another, go raid your local tractor supply/farm store sort of place, though Home Depot and Lowes also carry them in my area). These are "no sulfur" fuels compared to the "low sulfur 1K kerosene," and have less of a room note when running. You basically shouldn't smell the lantern except on startup and shutdown if everything is correct, and if you put a particulate meter in the room, it should be far lower than with the candles (especially if you have any airflow at all - candles soot easily, lanterns far less so until it gets really windy).

If you look at the papers that talk about indoor kerosene particulate pollution, you'll find that the high readings come from "bare wick burners" - not a well designed cold blast lantern, which are down at the bottom of the readings, if at all.

Sorry, it's about a year late to be doing this. The new old stock bulbs I really like are no longer floating around eBay, and it's harder to find the older stock stuff anywhere. I just have what should be a lifetime supply of incandescents socked away for the rooms I use in the evenings.



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