Question on CFL's

[Pappy]

I switched my bathrooms and one ceiling fan to CFL bulbs. When they are first turned on they are very dim and brighten gradually to full less than a minute. Is this normal?

If it matters, I used the type that is encased in a globe to look more like a 'normal' bulb.

[smorris]

I haven't found them to be "very dim" but they do brighten after they run and warm up for a minute or so, I notice it more when the room is cold (<60F). We have them all through the house and have been quite pleased.

[Russianwolf]

What He said.

The hotter the gas the brighter the light, so in cold environments they need a minute to get "excited". If it's REALLY cold, they won't even light up.

[Tom Slick]

did you get them from HD? I have the same ones in one of my ceiling fans and it is aparently normal for that model of bulb. I don't care for them but they are still in there. they are jsut about worthless when you need to walk into the room for 20 seconds during the day time. temperature seems to have no effect on their warm up time.

[crokett]

It is normal for them to need a minute to warm up. I have them through the house now. I recently tried some dimmable ones. They are dimmable, but to a point. I can move the slider about 20% of the way down before they start to dim and about 80% of the way down the bulbs just turn off.

[LCHIEN]

That's very normal for all of the CFLs. Also apparently, they put out about 5% more light when used base up rather than base down...

from Consumer Reports:
CFLs aren't right for every situation. Incandescent bulbs take less than a second to come close to full brightness. The fluorescent light bulbs we tested took between 25 seconds and 3.3 minutes. So they shouldn't be used in areas where you need full brightness immediately, like a staircase. Spirals were the quickest, flood lights and covered outdoor bulbs the slowest. And don't use CFLs in lights that are on for less than 15 minutes at a time, like closets. Frequent cycling shortens their life.

[Tom Slick]

These specific CFLs are veeeerrrrry slow starting, much slower then normal corkscrew or biax bulbs. maybe 10-20% of light output for 20 seconds then maybe 50-80% for the next 20. during the daytime, even in a dark room, you cannot tell that you turned them on for at least 20 seconds. almost like a metal hallide lamp.

[Pappy]

To me the effect is actually pleasant. No shock of bright light hittting you. Plan to replace everything except the decorative bulbs with CFL's as they burn out.

[gjat]

Being in the outdoor lighting and traffic signal business, I'm familiar with CFL's that have been used for more than a decade. Personally, I won't have them in my house. They're expensive, and troublesome, and don't deal with the cold. I have a huge problem with their mercury content. When flourescent fixtures are re-lamped, the old lamps are hazardous waste and expensive to dispose, costing almost 50cents per lamp in bulk. Imagine how many homeowners are going to bother recycling their CFLs and will rather put them in the local landfill.

I think the hype about CFL's is unwarrented, misguided, and is purely politically motivated and ignores good science. We're saving energy to save the addition of greenhouse gasses for questionable purposes by using a light source that puts mercury (a known serious poison) into our environment? Where's the logic in that?

Wouldn't it have been more logical to promote the development of halogen, fixtures with more efficient light distribution, task lighting, and LED's instead of switching to mercury poisoning florescents?

[rnelson0]

Imagine how many homeowners are going to bother recycling their CFLs and will rather put them in the local landfill.

I hope you use paper bags from your grocery store and recycle all the plastic shrinkwrap on all your products, too!

The amount of mercury is small and is the least of all the hazards found in a landfill. You're also ignoring the benefit of less use of coal-powered electricity, etc.

What annoys me the most is that they tend to be sold in huge 2-bulb blister packs at the stores. Why can't they be sold in the cardboard boxes that are biodegradable like other bulbs? For all the talk about green these days, sometimes I really wonder. It wasn't that long ago that people pushed for McD's to get rid of the styrofoam containers for burgers, but at this point I expect that to come back to prevalence. Sad.




Uh, back on topic. The CFLs should take a bit of time to come on, but 20 seconds is outrageously slow. Sounds like a real poorly made bulb. Who was the manufacturer?

[Tom Slick]

Uh, back on topic. The CFLs should take a bit of time to come on, but 20 seconds is outrageously slow. Sounds like a real poorly made bulb. Who was the manufacturer?

It is whatever the brand is that HD sells. I have only seen that brand at HD, it's not GE, Sylvania, Feit, etc. I have only had this problem with the type that have an enclosure that make them look like a incandescent bulb. the other bulbs that are that brand work great.

They have a smaller base area then a typical CFL so I wonder if they had to use a different ballast. It reminds me of a really old programmed start T-12 on a cold day.

[docrowan]

My wife and I love the CFL's, switching to them has saved us about $60 a month in utilities. We put them in almost all of our fixtures. I did run into an issue with using them in a bathroom that had no other source of light, however. Because we had to have the light on in the bathroom every time we walked in, and because the three of us were in there for a short period of time many times a day, we found seriously reduced service life with those particular bulbs. Also, as noted, they don't perform well in your outside lights in the winter. There are occasions where an incandescent is the better choice.

I do not believe it was in America's best interest for Congress to mandate the change. We would have been far better off if Congress had worked out some kind of tax incentive to make the switch for a limited time.

[dlminehart]

If you compare the amount of mercury in a CFL with the typical amount of mercury released into the atmosphere by coal fired power plants in producing the extra energy needed by incandescent bulbs, I believe the CFLs actually come out ahead. Whether environmental health comes out ahead depends, of course, on what's downwind of the coal-fired power plants (e.g., the eastern US from midwestern plants, the western US from Chinese plants), as well as what happens to the discarded CFLs.

And energy conservation, whether through CFLs or other means, is not simply intended to reduce production of "greenhouse gases for questionable purposes". With growing populations, unless per capita use of energy decreases we'll need to generate more electricity via new plants. The cheaper methods of doing so have already been used, so additional capacity costs more per unit of output. The electrons don't have a "made in expensive new plant" sticker on them, so the electric rates for everyone on the utility's grid go up to cover the higher costs. In other words, conservation saves both in number of units of electricity used, and in cost per unit. Good deal!

[JimD]

It is possible to generate electricity at reasonable cost without burning fossil fuels. In some areas there is a little hydro capability but mainly it requires nuclear energy. Solar and wind are extremely expensive without tax incentives and unreliable (we do need electricity when the sun doesn't shine and on calm days). Nuclear is not nearly as risky as it is portrayed on the evening news but it is not a "free lunch" either.

I agree with the conclusion that the tiny bit of mercury in my compact flourescent bulbs is not a big deal. I have broken one or two and did not do anything special in cleanup. Now that I know about the mercury I will be a bit more careful. If we are to "correctly dispose" of broken or burnt out CFLs, the process is going to have to be easier, however. I take my used motor oil to a local place for recycling, for instance. If we could do the same for CFLs I would. If you expect me to pay big dollars to a hazardous waste outfit, they are going out with the trash.

Jim

[Tom Slick]

As florescent technology proliferates, recycling bulbs will become easier. Just as oil did. Most of my local hardware stores take in old bulbs already. This is probably no surprise but it is already illegal to dump florescent or metal halide bulbs in the trash in California.

although the efficiency gains from fluorescents is tiny in the big picture, making anything more efficient it does give back a little capacity in the grid. That means firing up the standby plants less often and decreasing the need for more plants.