Just a little venting about something that has been annoying me. CLF’s.
Let’s first talk about the positive: They DO save energy. We changed out our incandescent bulbs with CFL’s, and we noticed an immediate drop of over $40 in the electric bill. The negative is that they do use mercury. However, the price savings have been minimized since the power company uses a floating rate so they change things frequently. It’s not a winning situation. When I see my kilowatt hour price change monthly and the number for different billing tiers change as well, I get suspicious.
Thank goodness that power companies and other stores are somehow being offered some sort of incentive so that way they can sell the bulbs for cheap. Also, the bulbs get better each year, especially about the instant on/off. I have some older generation bulbs that take over 15 seconds to come on with that stupid flickering and flashing. Some take a bit to “warm up”. Also, some styles of bulbs are hard to find. Lastly, you DO need to read the bulb package to see what type of bulb it was designed to replace.
Now the rant portion. I’m going to be gentle.
Getting certain styles can be a pain in the butt, especially these round-types for around the bathroom mirror(vanity style bulbs). It’s basically a plastic ball over the CFL. I had to get a bunch of them and it wasn’t cheap. The first part I dislike is they take 3+ minutes to get to full output, so it’s like they have to warm up, which really annoys me. The next part that really drives me nuts is that I haven’t even had them in a year and over half of them are already dead. They said these are supposed to last 9 years. What gives? Plus I can’t find replacements… I don’t like the look or the distribution of light by just using a plain CFL.
And that’s really my point is they don’t last. I’m having incandescent bulbs outlasting these CFL’s that are supposed to last 9 years. Several of the bulbs in the ceiling have died out in less than a year. I’ve ha some blow after being just put in fresh from the box. There is this one suspended light over in my starway that I have to use a 10-foot ladder to change the bulbs: an ideal place for bulbs that should last for 9 years, right? WRONG!! Put one in of the 3 it needs and 2 days later one is dead. I replaced it in November.
Regarding warranty, NO company has honored its warranty. It’s not worth my time to bug the crap out of them to get them to replace the bulbs.
Disposal:
Since I’m not allowed to simply throw them away around where I live, I have to take them to City Hall for disposal. Fortunately my wife works there. It’s because of the mercury. I’m all for saving the environment. What needs to happen are that hardware stores should have collection bins for the bulbs for proper disposal.
Costs are becoming a lesser issue as prices are dropping, but now they want to push LED on us, which offers MORE light for LESS power draw. I know that I’m switching many of my show lights to LED versions because I need MORE light and LESS power draw.
At this point I’ve probably saved more money with the CFL’s than lost on buying them, even with the replacements. However, for the numbers blown, I’ve gone through fewer incandescent bulbs in the same amount of time.
Now, there are two things you need to watch out for: CFL’s do NOT work on dimmers, and if you have an older lamp with more than 1 power setting, it’s best to go to max, match the bulb to that, and if you can, operate it off a switch. But, LED’s are mostly not dimmer compatible for consumer-grade light bulb replacements.
I do recommend CFL’s. Do be warned that the 9 year life is a gross over-statement. Hang on to receipts for warranty replacements.