CFL's

[Richard in Smithville]

Found an interesting clip about CFL bulbs. Once you get past the commercial, it is worth watching.

CFL's

[MilDoc]

My only problem with these is the mercury they contain. Break one - be very careful cleaning it up!

And I hope they don't start getting tossed into landfills when burned out, for the same reason.

[cwithboat]

The Canadian Football League has light bulbs?

[williamr]

The Canadian Football League has light bulbs?

They do however, actually, the intensity of most of the offerings is generally not that great, indeed many would say that most provide sub-standard illumination, or conversely, there are very few high intensity units in the pack.

Perhaps he was referring to the compact fluorescent lights.

---
Will

[Ed62]

I'm sure that when you consider how many bulbs of this type are being used, disposing of the mercury should be cause for concern.

I could very well be way off base here, but I really don't think I'd be concerned at all about my own safety when cleaning up a broken bulb (or even several bulbs). When I was a kid, we used to break thermometers, and pour the mercury in our hands, to rub on a dime. It really made them shine. I've done that many times, and I have no reason to believe I suffered any ill effects from it. Of course I wouldn't recommend that others do it, now that I know there could be a problem.

We just replaced two sixty watt incandescent bulbs with CFLs which emit more than 2000 lumens each. We probably have 4 times as much light, for half the cost in electrical use.

Ed

[Hellrazor]

Not good. But a lot of electronics contain heavy metals...

[rnelson0]

It's not like normal fluorescents don't already contain mercury. I bet you've already thrown some of those away without going to the proper lengths to get rid of them properly, so it's no different for a homeowner.

Also, CFL's last much longer. In the long term, the amount they add to a landfill, even considering the mercury, is a LOT less than incandescents.

I'm somewhat skeptical of the specifics of the following link's claim, but it does make sense that with less power usage, the by-products of the coal-burning power plant you use are lessened by switching to CFLs, and coal-burning plants produce mercury as a by-product. Therefore, CFLs produce less mercury over their lifetime, both in the bulb and from the power plant, than incandescents do.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005...about_merc.php

[Hellrazor]

BTW: Flourescent bulbs with green end caps are considered non-hazardous and landfill safe according to current laws. Those are the bulbs with the ALTO designation.


http://www.atlantalightbulbs.com/pages/alto3.html

[JeffG78]

About a year ago, I bought a pack of eight CFL's at HD and installed them. One of the eight didn't work right out of the box. One went in the overhead kitchen light, one over the kitchen sink, four in the hallway fixtures and the last one in a basement light near the washer/dryer. I tried to install them in lights that are regularly left on for long periods of time. Well, within five minutes LOML was yelling at me to take those GD bulbs out and put the old ones back in. They were dim, yet harsh and they changed the colors of the surrounding walls. The taupe hallway walls looked completely different, and the kitchen and basement lights were very dim. I wound up replacing one of the two bulbs at each end of the hallway with standard bulbs, as well as the overhead kitchen light and the basement light. I did keep the CFL over the kitchen sink and put one of the removed CFL's in a lamp that stays in an unheated sunroom that I pass through when I take the dogs out (every five minutes). What I learned from that CFL is that they don't like cold temps. Just like regular fluorescent bulbs, CFL's must warm up when the ambient temp is cold.

I don't know if it was the brand I bought (not sure what they were), but my experience with CFL's has not been a good one. Unless they get a lot better LOML will shoot me if I ever buy another CFL.

[Rslaugh]

BTW: Flourescent bulbs with green end caps are considered non-hazardous and landfill safe according to current laws. Those are the bulbs with the ALTO designation.


http://www.atlantalightbulbs.com/pages/alto3.html

Alto is a Philips brand specifically but the green end caps are universal to other manufacturers. While they still contain mercury it is a bit less than an older design. The Philips technology is such that the mercury is pulled into the endcaps when the lamp is turned off which is what makes them safer for landfills.

......I'm somewhat skeptical of the specifics of the following link's claim, but it does make sense that with less power usage, the by-products of the coal-burning power plant you use are lessened by switching to CFLs, and coal-burning plants produce mercury as a by-product. .....

Lighting accounts for almost 25% of the electricity consumed in the US so if every lamp could be switched to a flourescent we would save roughly 75% of that so we're not only talking big money but also the ability to delay construction of a bunch of new power plants. (Remember - 68.324% of statistics are made up on the spot but those numbers are close - trust me).

It would be impossible to convert all lighting to flourescent. As mentioned before they don't work well in cold so outdoor lighting is out like parking lots and secruity lighting. Most CFL's are also not designed for base up operation so while they will work in overhead and ceiling applications you theoretically won't get as long a life out of them.

I've had one burning in our mudroom continuously for over 6 months which is a base up application. I would have replaced an incandescent at least twice by now - probably 4x because I used to buy the cheap incandescents (850 hours) and wonder why they were always burning out.

When replacing an incandescent the CFL should have about 1/4 the wattage to give comparable light output. if you're buying off brand units then I would go with 1/3. Also as mentioned before the off brand and older units have horrible quality of light. You want a lamp with a high CRI (color rendering index). 100 = sunlight. A good CFL will be in the mid 80's. The crappy ones are between low 50's to mid 70's. Unfortunately you won't see this spec printed on the off-brand packaging.

[cwithboat]

We have installed compact fluorescents throughout most of our house. The main exception is on the power line to my FM stereo, they generate too much noise when the radio is tuned to weak stations (which means all in our case).
The other problem is the disposal. It is 40 miles to the hazardous waste dump. So much for energy conservation. I not sure recycling was considered when congress mandated their use in a few years.

[leehljp]

About a year ago, I bought a pack of eight CFL's at HD and installed them. One of the eight didn't work right out of the box. One went in the overhead kitchen light, one over the kitchen sink, four in the hallway fixtures and the last one in a basement light near the washer/dryer. I tried to install them in lights that are regularly left on for long periods of time. Well, within five minutes LOML was yelling at me to take those GD bulbs out and put the old ones back in. They were dim, yet harsh and they changed the colors of the surrounding walls. <snip> What I learned from that CFL is that they don't like cold temps. Just like regular fluorescent bulbs, CFL's must warm up when the ambient temp is cold.

I don't know if it was the brand I bought (not sure what they were), but my experience with CFL's has not been a good one. Unless they get a lot better LOML will shoot me if I ever buy another CFL.

There is a huge difference in different brands and colors also. It took a long time for me to find decent colors in the US of A. We had different light colors here for a long time. I usually get cool white (I think) and they give off great light. The less expensive ones don't come to full brightness in cold weather for about 30 to 60 seconds. The more expensive ones seem to hit full brightness in about 15 seconds.

I bought about 24 - 3 years ago and have replaced one. About half were the cheaper ones and the rest were the more expensive ones. Here (Japan) cheap ones go for about $8.00. The more expensive ones go for about $11 to $12.

Changing out the bulbs here and also 24 in my USA home was done to cut down on heat as much as for bulb electricity savings. Our Electric bill in the summer was considerably less due to less heat generated from the bulbs as well as from what electricity the bulbs themselves used. When I say considerably less, I save roughly $150 over the summer months here versus what we paid 3, 4 and 5 years ago before the change over. I know that some people will say that you don't really save that much by going to CFL bulbs - but I will say from my experience in two different homes on two continents that that that is just ignorance speaking.

My daughter who lives in my USA house said that summer electric bill was down by 20&#37; last summer after I changed over those bulbs. Again, it is my opinion that the greater savings were due to the less heat generated for the AC to have to cool down.

I am a believer in them, if I can find the right color and right bulbs to begin with. Here in Japan, most home centers have displays that compare the different bulbs and colors of light that they emit.

[LCHIEN]

I will say that the new ones I bought a few weeks ago are much better than the ones I bought 2-3 years ago... brighter and better coloring.

An odd fact - you lose about 5% of the light output if the bulb is operated base up instead of base down...

[JeffG78]

So, is there a brand that anybody recommends? I would love to have them in key areas of the house, but they must be similar in color and light output before LOML will let me use them. Trial and error seems like a really bad idea due to the high initial cost and disposal issues.

I just looked at one of the crappy ones I bought and they are Phillips "Marathon".

[JeffG78]

An odd fact - you lose about 5% of the light output if the bulb is operated base up instead of base down...

Unfortunately, most of the applications that I have are base up. A few are sideways, but the lights that are on most often and for long periods of time are base up.