"Twisty" fluorescent bulbs

Then you have to keep records of every bulb in use. Figure out a way to label the bulbs so as to be able to associate them with the correct records. Complex record-keeping is one way that people get less value from warranties than they should. It's too easy to throw away the "trash" that came with that bulb you installed.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I guess my experience is different from many of the other posters here. I have had exceptionally good longevity with most of my CF bulbs. We have dozens of them, almost every light fixture in our house has a CF. And we have many of them for over a decade.

I have had two early mortality incidents where two brand new CF bulbs from the same batch died within a couple weeks of installation. Aside from that, most failures have been due to breakage. The latest one broke when my 9-year-old son was throwing a ball in the hallway. (we made him buy a new on with his own money.) The one before that broke when we were moving some lumber around in the basement and broke one. A few others have broken when I was unscrewing them to put them in another fixture. (We do a bit of shifting around to decide what wattages are better in different fixtures.) And as others have said, Lights of America brand is junk. We had a few of those and each one of those died. Aside from those breakage incidents, and the LOA, I think only a couple have ever burnt out. I still have the first CF we bought back when they first came out ~15 years ago. It's not a very good one, greenish color and not very bright so it has been relegated to the back of the basement storage area, but it still works as good as the day we bought it.

We didn't just go out and buy a whole house worth of bulbs all at once, we tended to buy a few at a time and gradually replaced incandescents, over a period of about 15 years. So this means that we have a lot of different generations of CF design. The average age of a CF in our house is probably about 7 years old, and all of them aside from LOA seem to be doing just fine.

It appears to significantly reduce our electric usage. We have a 2200 sq. ft. house with 2 adults and 2 kids, and summertime electric usage is about 200KwH/month. But is goes up in the winter partly due to more usage of lights, but more significantly due to use of the blower motor in our gas-fired forced-air furnace. And our stove and clothes dryer are gas, so that's a couple big electric uses we don't have. Other than that, we have typical electric loads, so it seems to me that our electric usage is rather low considering that we don't otherwise go to any special trouble to lower our usage. So I'm a big proponent of switching all your lights over to CF.=20

Ken

Reply to
Ken

Unless your source of heat is less expensive than electric heat. If that's the case, it still pays to use efficient bulbs.

Bob

Reply to
Bob F

Ewe sure about that? ;)

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Incandescent bulbs primarily fail due to the power surge at startup. Turning them off and on definitely shortens the life.

You edited out this part of what I wrote: "(please note all of my numbers are either right or wrong or somewhere in between, but the gist of it is correct)"

I was certain that would have stopped the bean counters from counting beans. My error.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

There are some reasons this happens - mostly from using them where they do not do well.

  1. Avoid the dollar store ones - I have found them to be stool specimens.
  2. Their life will be shortened by being turned on and off a lot. Do not use them in motion sensor lights. (One exception is the N:Vision 3-watt, if I am not mistaken about that one being a cold cathode version.)
  3. Compact fluorescents easily overheat in small enclosed fixtures, recessed ceiling fixtures, and other downlights such as ceiling fan fixtures. This occurs more with higher wattages, especially over 23 watts (slightly dimmer than a 100W incandescent). Philips SLS ones (not spiral) of 15, 20 and 23 watts (and not the dimmable one) are specifically rated to take the heat buildup of recessed ceiling fixtures.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

Compact fluorescents with outer bulbs over the tubing usually work well outdoors. They can take several minutes to warm up when it's cold, and even start off-color when it is cold, but I find them to get to close to full brightness in several minutes. My favorite here is the 18 watt Philips EL/O ("Outdoor"). Besides taking cold well, I have found it to have especially long life.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

If your hiome has gas or oil heat, chances are it will cost less to use that than electric heating.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

Fluorescents are normally rated for 3 hours per start. I wish compact fluorescents were normally rated for 1 hour per start.

Meanwhile, most incandescents do not suffer much damage from starting. Even though they usuallie die during a cold start - what mainly happens is that aging incandescents become unable to survive a cold start a little while before they become unable to survive continuous operation, due to temperature overshoot of a thin spot on the filament. More details in

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I once tested one of those "stick on buttons" claimed to double the life of an incandescent, for voltage drop. It dimmed a 100 watt incandescent enough to increase its life a good 50%.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

Not much. Don Klipstein might have something to say about this.

Your gist is WRONG! Try the numbers, for a 14 W CF.

Nick

Reply to
nicksanspam

I just buy them from Walmart. Lifetime warranty.

Reply to
Steve Barker LT

I have some nearing 20 years old. Most of those have died off though. You will find a distribution, I did my whole new addtion with them[ say

15 bulbs or more] and lost 2 or 3 pretty quick[months] and none since[2+ years]
Reply to
yourname

Yes, I was supposing the people know of the inefficiencies associated with electric heat.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Agree

But here in north Missouri its cheaper to heat with electric zone heating right now than it is a forced air furnace

May not last for long as electric rates go up tho

Reply to
me

Not sure I agree with that. Maybe

What abt the zone heating that one does with electric lights as heat source?

usually you will need light in the room you are in....so by using an incandescent bulb as both light and heat you zone heat this way

Reply to
me

Don't confuse economy with efficiency, they are two different things. Electric heat is very efficient, but it's usually not economical based of the current cost of electricity vs. gas or oil.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

Unfortunately, dimming incandescents results in even more power consumed per unit of light produced.

Bob

Reply to
Bob F

Try a different brand. I had trouble with Sylvanias. But other brands last forever so far.

---MIKE---

Reply to
Art

Yes, well enough known! Power consumption varies with applied RMS voltage to the 1.5 to 1.57 power or so, while light output varies with applied RMS voltage to roughly the 3.4 power (more with more severe dimming). That means light output goes down slightly worse than square of power input, or energy efficiency varying slightly more than proportionately with square root of light output (roughly light output to the .55 power, more for severe dimming). As in to dim to 50% of light output, power input is maybe about 73% of "full".

Since most of the cost of operating incandescents is normally electricity cost, I would put some work into increasing the energy efficiency. As in making some bulbs turn off when you want less light.

When dimming is done with a resistor (as opposed to a variable transformer or the usual waveform-chopping "phase control" circuit that usually has a triac), the energy efficiency story gets worse. To count power consumed by the infected lamp and the resistor, power consumption is typically proportional to the lamp's RMS voltage to the .5-.57 power. This means power conmsumption goes down about 1/6 as much as light output does (when the percentages are small). The "stick-on button" that dimmed a 100 watt incandescent lamp enough to increase its life 50% also reduced the light output by about 11% while power consumption by the lamp and the "button" was about 98.2 watts (decreased about 1.8%). Better to just use a longer life incandescent. Depending on application, often (probably usually) better still to use a compact fluorescent!

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

But don't longer life incandescents do the exact same thing as your "button", giving you less lumens per watt?

Reply to
Marilyn & Bob

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