Spiral fluorescent lighting - not getting anywhere near the 5 to 7 year life - anyone else?

[Bonnie Peebles]

I swapped out my incandescent lights for the spiral fluorescent lights. They are rated for 5 years (some maybe 7years) at 4 hours usage per day. In both my old house and in my new home, I am not getting anywhere near that. My longest one, the one least used lasted

2 years.

With the initial higher cost of the bulb, I'm GUESSING I would need the bulb to last close to at least 4 years to pay for itself. The bulbs run about $7 for 3ea 100 watt equivalent (they use 26 watts) Maybe someone could help me on this math or show me how to figure out how long they'd need to last to be a better buy then incandescents.

Is anyone else using these fluorescent lights? I get them at Wal-Mart so it is whatever brand they carry. My current bad bulb is made by Commercial Electric. It had a 7 year guarantee. It was installed

2005-01-06. At the rated 4 hours a day, I should have gotten 10,192 hours of use. I had the bulb for about 19,000 hours. If I ran it non stop, day and night, I could have burned it out. But why the heck would I buy an energy saving bulb if I wasn't trying to save energy.

What kind of hours are YOU getting? Have you folks in CA switched yet before it becomes law?

Also, does anyone know of any light sources that use LEDs for the home? I saw one at Lowe's ( like a Home Depo/Builders Square ) but it seemed to be more for ambient light then to light a room or task lighting. But some kind of device with a few dozen LEDs in it that screwed into a standard socket would be pretty cool. I hear that LEDs are as more efficient then fluorescent. Don't know if it is true but I THINK I saw something that claimed the difference in efficiency between LEDs and fluorescent's was about the same as the difference between fluorescent's and incandescents. But that doesn't seem right to me because fluorescent's are in the 90-95% efficiency range, right? Again, I don't know, but I have started my search for better fluorescent and LED lights.

But I would like your feed back - mainly on the life of your fluorescent lights, but all the other stuff too.

( Got to remember to take the ambien after I write the emails. Wait, did I take it yet? Well, better to be sure and take one more.)

Thanks

Bonnie lass

[businessman]

I got some of those GE brand ones at Walmart and all I have is trouble with them. I just installed one about 5 weeks ago and last week it began to go on and off all the time.

I have some of the original straight U shaped CF's that have been in my home for 5 years and they still work fine. One of them is left on all night every night. These new spiral ones are garbage, at least the GE brans sold at Walmart. I just complained to the company, and they said they want me to send the bulb and a receipt. I can send the bulb (as long as they payt the shipping), but I dont save receipts for small items. I got more important things to do with my time than collect paper. I think I am going back to common lightbulbs.

[jJim McLaughlin]

Well, it all depends upon what you are willing to do to enforce the representations the manufacturers make. If you are willing to do enough, you will make out fine; if not, you'll get screwed ( thats a pun with respect to light bulbs which I did not intend, but its still funny.) Me, I really don't like to let a manufacturer or a marketer get away with misrepresentations. YMMV.

I buy the compact flourescents in bulk at Costco. I staple the Costco recept to the blister pack. When I install a CFL I use a black sharpie to mark the installation date on the bulb base. If the bulb fails in less than 5 or 7 or whatever years as marked on the package, I have a canned letter in my word processor system which I send to Costco in Kirkland, WA and the bulb manufacturer. In every instance I have received a replacement buld at o cost.

I started this with a bunch of Phillips CFL bulbs which failed miserably in less s than 6 months. I had fortitously ( naw, honestly its a real junk pile out in the garage and I was just lucky) kept the bulb package and the receipt. After that experience I won't let the mfgrs. or the vendors screw me on the bulb life representations they choose o make. If a mfgr makes a representation / promise on bulb life, they need to live up to it.

Side note, other than a canderlabra / chandelier fixture for which I have found no replacement CFL fluted bulbs, and the outdoor security lights where ambient temperature works against CFLs, I have replaced every incandescent bulb in the house with CFLs. I have literally cut my KWH monthly by 33 %. Sadly, because of the rate increases ( Portland, OR - Portland General Electric), I haven't cut my bill by that much, but without the massive CFL replacement, and consequent KWH decline, my bill would be a whole lot higher. IU wuldn't co back to incandescents. .

Again, its a function of what you are willing to do, both for aggressive CFL replacement of incandescents and record keeping to keep the CFL manufacturers and vendors honest.

I am looking forward to reasonably priced LEDs.

[Chris Friesen]

Fluorescent light lifetime is affected by how often it gets switched on and off. They're most effective when used for lights that stay on for a long time once they're turned on.

It only takes the equivalent of about 20-30 seconds worth of electrical power to turn on a fluorescent, but the more frequently you cycle them the faster they die.

Chris

[nicksanspam]

Each start uses up about 6 minutes of their 10K-20K hour lifetime.

No. Less than a second's worth of electrical energy.

Nick

[Joseph Meehan]

The first ones I bought a few years ago did not last that long (at least some did not), they were not as bright as expected, they did not come up to full brightness very fast and overall were not all that good.

Those I have bought this year (three different types two brands) have done everything well. I will be using more in the future.

[hallerb]

well they dont last as promoted, and I have had 2 burn out when waxing living room tables, the aerosol spray mist appears to fry them.

needless to say I dont do hat again, one went poof with a little flame and I wasnt spraying in the bulb, overspray did it in

[TKM]

CFLs are not yet commodity items. Brands count from my experience and if you just buy on price, performance is likely to be poor. I put in CFLs about 4 years ago and haven't had a burnout as yet with several of the lamps on 4-6 hours/day. Got the lamps at Target, but all were Energy Star listed. That means the lamps are tested for life, light output, color, etc. and you can complain to Energy Star if they don't perform. I always return lamps that fail prematurely to the manufacturer (address is on the carton typically). Not only do they replace the lamp, they usually include a coupon or extra lamps -- at least the name brand companies.

LEDs are improving rapidly and make sense for certain applications (see

) for some examples. But they are heat sensitive and packing them into something that looks like a standard light bulb isn't a good application for them. And, it will be an expensive device for some time to come. White light LEDs deliver about 30-40 lumens/watt right now compared to 70-80 lumens/watt for CFLs. If you want to see an incandescent to LED replacement that work, go to: and notice the heat sink. We'll see shortly if the company can get beyond press releases.

TKM

[deke]

I've also noticed that the life of my 7 yr bulbs is closer to 90 days for many in the pack. I now keep the receipts and bulb packs.

Recenltly I bought a pack of 3 and 2 of them were defective (very dim).

You should recover the cost in less than a year with normal use.

[Chris Friesen]

I'd love to see your sources on that. The lowest I've seen is about 5 seconds worth of running energy to turn it on, with most places giving the numbers I presented.

Chris

[nicksanspam]

That's $2.33 each. It would pay for itself in H hours at C cents/kWh compared to a 50 cent incandescent if HC(100-26)/1000 = 233-50, ie H = 2493/C hours, eg 249 hours at 10 cents/kWh, eg 618 days (1.7 years) if used for 4 hours per day.

Sure.

When I called Commercial Electric with the 800 number printed on the CFs I bought at Home Depot and gave them the date code on the dead bulb, they sent me a new one, free.

Nick

[nicksanspam]

Where did you find those numbers? :-)

Nick

[Chris Friesen]

Just did some more digging.

Mythbusters did an episode where they actually measured it.

They found that for a standard fluorescent lamp (they didn't specify ballast type) it took about 23 seconds to make up for the startup surge. With a CFL, however, it took 0.015 seconds.

Some other sources specified a 5-second time for fluorescent lamps. However, these also looked at the deterioriation due to the actual switching and concluded that once you factor in lamp replacement you're better off leaving it running if you're going to need it in 15-20 minutes.

Chris

[TKM]

Where did this "starting surge" thing come from? I've worked with fluorescent ballasts for 30+ years and never saw anything in the specifications or on a 'scope to indicate there was more than a minor current pulse (a few milliseconds) at turn-on. For most CFLs you can't even see that.

Incandescent lamps are much, much worse. They can draw 20 times normal current at start-up from cold for the first cycle or two; but even that doesn't translate into anyting that shows up on the electric bill.

There's a reference called the Illuminating Engineering Society Handbook (8th. Ed.) which has all the curves. Unfortunately, it's not on line; but it is usually in technical libraries.

TKM

[nicksanspam]

Sounds bogus. For one thing, they wrote about "watts per hour" (meaningless in this context), until corrected. For another, it looks like they tested a 10 watt (very small) fluorescent, and they only measured the startup current, vs the energy, including the power factor.

If a lamp really used a lot more starting than running power, it would likely blow breakers on startup.

Nick

[deke]

I have in front of me 6 power companies and their kwh cost. Not one of them approaches10 cents.

[Paul M. Eldridge]

According to the EIA, the average retail price paid by residential consumers last year was 10.4 cents per kWh.

Source:

Cheers, Paul

[Dave Martindale]

There are companies selling LED-based light sources. TIR Systems

is one that's located a few miles from me. They were recently purchased by Philips.

But so far they're more expensive than other light sources. It's worth it if you need the ability to change light colour, but they are *less* efficient than CFL. They're more efficient than incandescent, even halogen incandescent, and still getting better so they may pass CFL one day.

Dave

[mm]

LED flashlights, with say 14 leds, are pretty good in total darkness, just as one AAA cell in a little penlight can do a lot, in total darkness. Probably even a lot better than the penlight.

But for real light, when there is light in the rest of the room, we have to wait.

[Bob]

The benefit of fluorescent lights is reduced greatly in places where they are only used for short periods of time, such as in bathrooms.

For several years, California has had a building code requirement that requires general lighting in bathrooms to be fluorescent. Creative builders meet this rule by providing a CFL integrated with the exhaust fan while having an incandescent light bar over the mirror.