Green Halloween: Ghoulish CFLs

What about the inefficiency of buying more crap we don't need (like an orange lightbulb)?

Hey Al! Nice to find a kindred spirit! :)

If a CFL lasts around 7 years in normal use, a once a year bulb should last a lifetime, and otherwise be stored? Nah, use a regular one with an orange shade.

CFL DIRTY SECRET :

CFL's == Shoddy construction, low lifespan in RL use.

Much as I hate to write it, I have a 20% death-within-a-month ratio with CFL's at home so far, under regular use.

After about a year, nearly a third of all the CFL's in my house, over 30 of them, "died".

They don't seem very good at withstanding power surges.
(when your street loses electricity, and it comes back a few minutes later)
So CFL's that were ON when the power went out, and came back, DIED.

Just two weeks ago I bought a pack of 3-6w (40w) to place in my daughter's bedroom, and last weekend one died.

There's so much material in these things compared to a regular bulb.

Many CFL's are packaged in large hard plastic transparent wrap that must be destroyed to get the bulbs out.

I predict that very soon, Wal-Mart, Home Depot and the likes will be flooded with people demanding free replacements under warranty.

I'll be looking into LED bulbs, especially the MR-10 replacements, that consume 3w and output about 25w worth of light. 45$ per bulb a few years ago, and you can't buy them in most retail stores.

In response to Mark Derail-

I find exactly the opposite, I have 4 CFLs that I have had for over 5 years, one of which has done 6 straight months as a plant light over an indoor Bonsai tree this last winter and is still going strong. I have had numerous power outages and have not lost one of them. also I recently purchased a 6 pack of CFLs at Wal-Mart in cardboard packaging, all of which went into the recycle bin, no plastic at all in the packaging, I just had to look around to find them next to the plastic packaged ones.

As for the Orange CFL, I agree with getting a lampshade instead.

Mark, mine have been fine. I switched my entire house over, it will be 3 years this January. Total bulbs is about 40. I have had 4 dead bulbs, everyone due to human error. 3 of them were shattered by a contractor as he did work on the exterior of my home. 1 of them I put inside a ceramic Xmas tree last year, forgetting that CFL's hate being inside ventless fixtures... it lasted one night.

All the rest are still in service, about 1/3 of them being on for up to 8 hours each day and some of them get turned on and off multiple times a day. Our house looses power several times a month since we are at "the end of the line" in a rural area with lots of trees (that love to take suicide dives over any surrounding power lines). So I get lots of surges & dips, too.

My take is you have purchased a really bad batch of CFL's.

CFL -
I haven't had any failures since I deployed mine about 8 months ago. 1 is a porch light that is on all night for security. It is a 60 watt equivalent in a white plastic shield so it looks like a regular bulb. The 75 watt equivalents have been doing OK as well.
I gave my mom a 3 or 4 watt LED reading spot light that she liked a lot. Very good part of the light spectrum for reading. It lasted about 3 or 4 months. Tried another one and it too failed after a few months. Open fixture base slightly up. Anyway I will keep following LED developments. The CFLs are easy on the eyeballs as they take a minute to get to full light.

And now what about my red light bulbs!?!?!

ROXXXXXANNE !!

vsk

30, 40 bulbs? Dang yall have big houses!
(kidding)

The problem I have with CFL's is the warm-up time. They all take a few minutes to come up to full brightness.

When I turn on a light, I want to be able to see what I'm doing NOW, not a few minutes from now.

So the temptation will be to leave these lights on all the time. Won't this offset the savings from lower power consumption?

Too much plastic packaging, and MERCURY in the bulbs! This is environmentally friendly?? You must dispose/recycle them properly or they will be far more harmful to the environment than traditional incandescent bulbs. Read the product warnings-- of course in fine print!

A special FYI for some people (i.e., my sister): The "black" light doesn't actually make things appear black...
(Yes, she truly believed it would.)

nice, and i´d like an orange glowing house at halloween =)

thanks!

I have had about 30% failures on CFLs also.
Flakey California power?
Poor prouct?

Either way, nasty once disposed of.

I am a HUGE fan of LED lighting for many reasons:
size, heat (lack of), longevity, color tempuratures, and groovy aplications!

check these out:
http://www.ledlight.com/detail.aspx?ID=205

http://www.wiedamark.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=2

http://www.lck-led.com/index.php

http://www.bulbamerica.com/LED-Bulbs-598-cat.htm

...and then there was COLOR!

For folks complaining about CFL bulbs not lasting as long as they had hoped - fyi do the math and you'll find that even if the CFL only lasted 1 year that it's already more than paid for itself. Besides I wish I had a nickel for everytime an incandescent blew out prematurely over my lifetime.

As far as my situation goes, it's been about a year since we converted 40 bulbs and not 1 bulb has had to be replaced yet.