Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don’t Work?

Ten years ago, when I first started with CFLs, they didn't last very long. I did have some exceptions: we have one over our kitchen table that has been going for over a decade, and it gets used daily.

The new ones seem much better, but some brands are better than others.

Tom

 

Of the 20 or so CFLs in our house 2 have failed in 2 years. Both that failed were in fixtures that were turned on and off frequently and were in enclosed fixtures. Both of these are not recommended for CFLs.
Many of our lights are now LEDs. Zero mercury, more durable and even lower power requirements. It is still early for them though and I expect LEDs to improve quite a bit in the next few years.

 

I switched the reading lights in our boat to LEDs. Power consumption is a big issue on a sailboat, and the LEDs are misers, plus they are very durable and are not a fire risk, unlike halogen bulbs.

Tom

 

Why did the genius in the story hang onto burned out bulbs? TAKE THEM BACK FOR A REFUND! :doh: If they have serious flaws, take them back! I've tested quite a few that I returned for one reason or another (poor fit due to size, lack of instant on, failure to fully illuminate within seconds, and one package that burned out within weeks 4 years ago.) If you return defective bulbs then the manufacturer actually has feedback that the consumer won't pay for a defective product. It helps the better products win, and that's what we all want. :usa: :canada:

American consumers need to pull their heads out and start demanding that what they purchase actually works. Accepting crap for initial quality is how the domestic auto market foundered in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. :brick:

There are some very good CFL's out there right now, but GE and Feit are not among them from what I've seen. Unfortunately, GE is the main CFL type available in Wal Mart, Sams, and many other stores. The Home Depot n:vision CFL's are pretty much a straight replacement for about 80% of the standard incandescents: instant on, near full intensity and none of the ones I've bought in the last several years has failed so far (just that early package 4 years back.) Lowe's carries the Sylvania micro-mini CFL's that work well in most of the fixtures that the other CFL's don't fit well into--seem to be instant on, near full intensity.

The one indoor area where CFL's are still falling quite short is the enclosed type spirals: spots and globe type replacements. I've yet to find one that comes on near full intensity. For this reason I've still got some GE spots for tracklights/cans. I've replaced the three bathroom fixtures that took globes because of the very poor performance (very low luminosity for the first minute or so) of the globe CFL's.

Ironically, what the story is most worried about: longevity is not high on my list. GE's seem to be relatively long lived, but that is a curse in a way since they are not instant on, the dimmables don't dim worth a darn, and none of their enclosure types comes up at a reasonable luminosity.

Mercury content doesn't matter to me if the bulbs are instant on (1st) at near full intensity (2nd) and last a few years in normal use.(3rd) Mercury is a distant 4th...probably because I've only had a single CFL bulb reach end of life in the past two years as best I can tell. I would be major PO'ed if mercury reduction caused the other categories to suffer.

 

Some of the "globe" brand sold through Canadian Tire had an alarming defect: flip the switch on, POP and it would literally explode.

I had that happen to one of the 9 watt spiral ones I had on the bathroom fixture set (Four light fixture). Turned the light on to shave, heard POP, and noticed only three lights were on.

The one end of the glass spiral blew off the base. Alas, no sparks, flames, or deadly toxic gas emissions

 

I've been very pleased with the Panasonic globes in our upstairs head. We have a 3 light fixture. They aren't instant on, there's about a .5 second delay, but they come on at near full intensity. We've had them for about 2 years now with no dramas.

 

I absolutely refuse to use them till they force me too. Watch this and you'll know why,
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-LOtKIIKcg"]YouTube - IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENERGY SAVER LIGHT BULBS![/ame]

 

As usual, congressment are being idiots.

1. True, the constitution does not explicitly give the government the right to ban a type of bulb. It also doesn't explicitly give the government the right to ban lead paint, or many other things that are banned.
2. More mercury is pumped into our environment just from the added energy required by an incandescant bulb from a coal plant than exists in a CFL.
3. You can recycle bulbs at many stores as well as your recycling center. It is not that inconvenient.
4. The rules from the EPA for doing ANYTHING is overly complicated. Taking care of a broken cfl is not that big of a deal.
5. Mentioning the warning of interference with appliances and such and then saying you can't watch monday night football is disingenous. This is such a minor issue (I actually have NEVER heard of this being an issue). I suspect it is a required warning for anything with a similar frequency.
6 Only made in China? This would hold a lot more weight if he mentioned all the plants in the US that produce incandescants (I suspect it is zero).

Give me a break [rant over]

 

Then you are as ignorant on the subject as the Congressmen.

What he doesn't say, is that the amount of mercury contained in a cfl bulb has dropped significantly in the past few years. What he doesn't say is that the amount of mercury spewed forth by you average coal fired plant is orders of magnitude more than the cumulative total of cfls used each year. What he doesn't say, is that the amount of mercury NOT put into the atmosphere each year by the use on one cfl is greater than the amount of mercury in that cfl.

Like so many people who want to keep the status quo the congressman is a shill for big oil, big gas and big coal. If you believe that there is such a thing as "clean coal" then we have nothing to discuss.

Do a bit of reading and get your head out of the sand!

Icarus

PS. On another note,,, we have had this very discussion on another thread,,, that is the merits of/good/bad/cfls.

PPS. The previous post was posted while I was writing. I have been using cfl's for years and the ONLY,,,let me repeat that, ONLY, RF interference was with a AM radio, placed right next to the light on a very weak station. Only then was I able to get a 60 hz buzz induced into the radio. It is a BS argument. Almost every electronic gadget has a FCC warning about inducing interference,, everything from your PC to your IPOD to your garage door opener.

As the previous poster suggests,,, the congressman was being disingenuous at best,, deceitful at worse. A prime example of what is wrong with politics.

It is also true that while the constitution doesn't out law cfl,,, it doesn't outlaw dwi, or pot, or bank robbery either,,,, another fallacious argument,,, probably from a mind that never had an original thought in it's life!

PPPS This is the same crowd who is growing in influence regarding teaching "creation science" in the public schools. The Texas board of Education just caved on an issue of evolution vs "creation science" Narrow minded morons!

Rant not really over!

 

This is about the same level as the study 'proving' that Priuses are worse for the environment than Hummers.

 

Adding to the above:

1. It's good to know that you are so concerned about the mercury. My suggestion is that you shut off the main breaker to your home IMMEDIATELY! You see, much of our electricity comes from coal and burning coal emits a lot of mercury every day.

2. Because of the mercury emissions of coal burning power plants, your incandescents result in more mercury emissions (because of wasted electricity) than the corresponding CFL...even if you break the CFL and intentionally scatter its contents into the environment. There is a decent summary of this here: http://www.greenlightneworleans.org/pdf/slatearticlemercury.pdf

3. The Constitution does indeed grant various powers to the Federal govt. despite what the apparently illiterate Representative from Texas claims. Southern politicians have a well known difficulty in both reading and interpreting the Constitution--see Dubya for an example of how severe the level of retardation can be. Many seem not to have noticed little things like the "general welfare clause" in the document...which is also in the preamble and in the Articles of Confederation (under which the U.S. operated until the U.S. Constitution was ratified.) Note, however, that the Confederate States Constitution omitted that troublesome clause. So apparently, unlike the dimwit Rep. from Texas, they did indeed understand the U.S. Constitution and sought to rewrite it more to their/his liking. Considering the clown has a law degree from Univ. of Houston he has no excuse for his such fabrications and distortions...other than lying is his profession.

4. Now that you know about mercury, I encourage you not to use any sort of rechargeable batteries at all. Recycling them is such a pain, and sometimes they leak or are damaged!

5. You also will want to avoid most office environments because of the long term presence of the old fluorescent lighting. It contains mercury you know, actually an order of magnitude more than a CFL. Apparently Representative Dimwit never noticed this, perhaps because he has no technical savvy or is just too stupid to pay attention to such things. And you will want to avoid any of the older blue tinged mercury vapor street lamps.

6. Then there is the problem with ground level ozone generated by various electrical motors... (I vaguely recall some fatalities at Lone Star Steel in Texas from them failing to shut off ozone generators while doing maintenance on some flues.) It's good that you've already shut off your electricity.

7. The Rep. probably also supported various bans on lead (although he apparently considers them unconstitutional) since he is so concerned about environmental matters. Lead based paint, lead shot for hunting, tetra ethyl lead that was used in gasoline. Next up for him: stop using cars with those nasty lead-acid batteries.

8. If you are really concerned about the mercury in your light bulbs you don't even want to know what is in gasoline... Oh, and your PC and other electronic devices have a whole host of heavy metals inside them. "Run, Forest, RUN!"

 

I'm glad they seem to be making some progress on them. I had some globes that started out with little apparent initial dimness, but they quickly developed it--either that or the fact that they were initially only 25% of the lighting on that fixture masked it from me at first. I'll be garage selling these globes soon since I've replaced the fixtures with something attractive and up to date.

 

Y'know, we had a whole 'nother LONG thread on these only about
six months ago...
.
He's likely right about the China thing, although we've seen
the build quality slowly improve over the years. HOWEVER, it
wasn't always like that -- I think the original Osram units, some
of the very first that came out, were made domestically. I still
have one of these in a ceiling light in my bedroom, and other
than going into an odd random flicker mode once in a while is
still working fine. It's over EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD.
.
There's a lot more mercury in standard straight fluorescent
tubes, too, and that seems to never be mentioned. Yes, those
ones that the custodians huck into the dumpster just to hear them
go pop,tinkle -- which they probably can't get away with as
easily these days, but it still happens.
.
_H*

 

Something isn't right with that. A 13/14W CFL should be in the neighborhood of 800 lumens. If they claim 2,000+ you need to do a comparison...and if it is truly much brighter then you might want to hook it up to a Kill-a-watt and see what it is really drawing.

Feit's documentation on its LED bulbs was abysmal so I suspect that something is amiss with the package label. Or maybe they have the most efficient CFL yet...but I'm betting not.

 

about 10 years ago, i knew a guy who worked for the local power company and he gave me a whole box of the those like 18 watt spiral bulbs. i had about 10 of them burn out, but these were used bulbs and they said to burn base down and i was using them in ceiling fixtures where they were burning either up or sideways. as far as how long they lasted, i still have the two that were in my bedroom lamps. of course those were in base down and didnt get used a lot so who knows?

as far as any new ones. we have a few that were bought around two years ago, but only one of the 4 gets used a lot

 

I've changed out/added 78 CFL's to this house (best current count), which also has 6 traditional long tube-style fluorescents, and had 3 CFL's already. I've also added 7 LED's in various forms. There are a few incandescents left...one garage door opener that no CFL base will fit so far, refrigerator bulbs, oven bulbs, some outside lights, and two spots in cans on a dimmer. I've also cut down on the number of total bulbs considerably...about 19 eliminated so far. Of the 78 CFL's I added, about 30 of them required replacement of the fixture (globes and candelabras originally) and a few required minor modifications.

Even though many of my CFL's were well traveled, I only have lost a single old one during the past year. But before I could replace the existing incandescents here those were dropping like flies. My best estimate is that 10 of them were lost in just a few months (primarily the more expensive globe and candelabra style which had a longer mean run time before I could replace the fixtures--also a few C7's.)

In the various homes that I've done CFL conversions the reduction in heat from lighting is most noticeable, particularly when I lived in the South. The second most noticeable thing is that I rarely have to change out a failed bulb. Instead of changing a bulb every week or two, it drops to one every quarter or longer.

My estimate of electrical savings is north of 2,000 kwh/year. This seems to be borne out by comparing my electric in low HVAC months to the previous owners in the same periods (although the differential there is even greater, more like 500 kwh per month at present.)

 

As far as CFL's they make sense for large area lighting, eg living room, kitchen, bathroom, etc, areas that aren't exposed to very low temps. CFL's don't handle low temps well, such as unheated garages up here, especially outdoor security lighting

Asides from the mentioned low temp conditions, the only place I don't use CFL's is for reading. For some reason, my middle ages eyes become very tired if I try to read using a CFL. If I use a 60 watt "color corrected" bulb - the kind with a purplish globe - then I can read just fine.