New energy-saving lights at Home Depot

[WDS]

Hey, are any of the new ones dimmable? I can now find dimmable CFL floodlights at stores but not "normal" bulbs.

Also, how quick are they to warm up? Some of the CFLs I have come on at about half light immediately and warm up over a few minutes to full brightness. Those are great! Some others are really dim when they first come on and are very slow to warm up. Still usable but annoying in some uses.

As for when to replace them I am replacing bulbs as they burn out and sometimes swapping bulbs (put in a CFL for the oft used kitchen light and use that old bulb from there to replace an infrequent use one that burnt out elsewhere). I really decided to dive into this when 3 of 5 standard bulbs in my kitchen and 3 of 6 halogen floodlights in my family room burned out in one week!

[Tony Miklos]

It seems universal that most people think going to 220V (240VAC) is going to save them a lot of money. The only way it will is if you are running a lot of equipment that draws 30 or more amps. And in that situation most high current devices are already on 240VAC (electric clothes dryer, electric range).

The losses from using 120VAC comes from the resistance in your wiring and all connections. If your wiring is half decent and you aren't running clothes dryers on 120VAC, 240VAC isn't going to help you more than a couple pennies a month, maybe a year.

Tony

[Tony Miklos]

Moving an incandescent lamp to different fixtures will cause it to fail a hell of a lot faster then if it stays in the same fixture. In its original location the hot filament stretches and hangs downward and it likes to stay that way. Moving it to a different location means that the filament will now sag and hang in a different position and this causes premature failure.

Tony

[KLS]

This was really interesting to read! Thanks for posting it.