I've found the life of compact fluorescent lamps very short, when compared to their claimed life (which is sometimes up to a claimed 6 years). I reckon we see 1 year max, regardless of the perceived quality of the lamp (branded vs unbranded). In fact, their life comes badly with what I'd expect from an old fashioned bulb.
Comments, please.
Brian
Of the last two long life CFL bulbs I bough one failed after 3 hours, but to be fair there was a storm and all the lights were flicking on and off a bit. Its replacement (plugged in after the storm) has started flickering of its own accord after two weeks and looks likely to fail completely soon. Both were from Ikea, the more expensive ones that are supposedly 100 watt equivalent. Personally I've never had a CFL last 6 years. One to two years seems more typical, with the exception of a few that fail almost immediately.
Personally I don't rate CFL bulbs at all and have a stockpile of 100 watt tungsten bulbs. Since we now use electricity for heating, the fact that they chuck out lots of "waste" heat isn't a problem - in Winter anyway, it gets bloody cold here in Normandy.
I've still got some running that are over 19 years old (I moved them from my previous house) admittedly those ones have been relegated to the loft now (they are quite bulky, and are now slow starting).
All of ours have been going for at least four years - most of them were free from our electricity supplier and the rest have been quite cheap ones, although not the cheapest.
SteveW
But that's meaningless unless we know your average use per day and the daily use that the manufacturer basis the 6 years lifetime on. For example a Tesco badge spiral I have here claims 8 years based on 2.7 hours per day.
It also claims 8,000 hours which is 11 months continuous use, that's a fairer way to express the lifetime IMHO and in keeping with the way lamp lifetime has traditionally been measured.
Depends which way up they have been hung and whether there is enough ventillation at the cap end *AND* (for me) they have been made by Philips (5 for 50p in Morrisons, free from the energy supplier etc)
I get a life of almost exactly one year in those bulbs that were in used daily.
On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 17:15:09 +0100 someone who may be "Brian Reay" wrote this:-
And I've found that the life of compact fluorescent lamps very long when compared to their claimed life.
The oldest one I have dates from the early 1980s and is still working, though is not used much.
You may have found that, but I have found the reverse. Replacing a compact fluorescent lamp is a rare thing indeed in my experience.
'Cos it's not much cop.
(A Philips "jamjar" lamp i'll be bound)
They must be good then, the latest I saw in Sainsbury's, (Osram IIRC) was claimed to have a life of 8 years by the salesman's puff printed on the box. "Very long" compared with a claimed 8 years must put the anticipated time of failure sometime about 2021.
If you feel you are missing out there's 2 out of 6 currently dead (Ca
19 months useage) in my kitchen.Feel Free ...
Derek
To my mind, unlike ordinary bulbs or linear flourescents, they seem to have a squew in their MTBF graph towards failing after the initial child mortality phase just where they should be enterting the "will now last almost forever" phase.
I've got one that's 12 years old that must have been used every single day in the evening going strong (20W (?) job - one of the biggies.) Interestingly though it's in a standard lamp and therefore the right way up for heat disapation. Compare this with the ones in 'normal' light fittings and they seem to go with stoopid regularity and wouldn't have saved their own purchase price in electricity if they'd been bought at the old £3 a pop level (always had freebies from the REC or "Two Free bulbs with the Sun[1]" offers)
I've also had several recently purchased quality ones (Philips IIRC) that develop an irritating buzz in use - this is presumably trying to get the price of manufacture down.
Just to stray a bit: I've never had a problem with brightness or colour cast of CFLs as oft reported here (and I have full colour vision and can 'understand' light levels I am experiencing) and couldn't understand the complaints. Until I visited a friend and, after about an hour in her lounge, realised that the CFL was a) very dim and b) made everyone look very ill. FWIW, this was the one where the fold of the tube was outside the body, dunno what make. I guess over the years I've been lucky not to have crap ones.
[1] Don't buy the paper, but bought about 5 copies once as it worked out at 30p a bulb or similar
Most of mine have well exceeded their rated life. Actually that presents a problem in that you have to remember to change them even though they're still working, as they do become less efficient and dimmer when you exceed rated life, and one's expectation that a lamp will actually stop working when it reaches end of life no longer applies.
I've had a few early failures, but they would count for a very low single digit percentage level.
On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:42:17 +0100 someone who may be Scott M wrote this:-
I have several which are the "wrong way up" which have lasted for over a decade in regular use.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember David Hansen saying something like:
They definitely don't like being horizontal, same as filament lamps.
Such a sweeping generalisation is incorrect in both cases.
I can confirm the awfully expensive GE Genura type doesn't like being pointed down. Strange given it's a 'reflector' design. It was mounted in a unit designed for a 150 watt tungsten so pretty well ventilated.
Well, the GE Genura is completely different from ordinary CFL's, and its life depends pretty much entirely on the amount of ventilation/cooling it has. That the fitting was designed for 150W filament lamp tells you nothing, as that could happily run at 250C, which would be about 75C with a genura in it, which is too hot. Because the life to failure is just the time for the electronics to fail, it will have a large standard deviation. I think I had one early genura fail out of probably some 20 - 30 I fitted. Nearly all outlasted their rated lives without failing (actually, most never failed at all, but become inefficient when you've gone way past the rated life). These were in open-backed recessed R63/R80 fittings with the R63 adaptor removed.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Grimly Curmudgeon saying something like:
I speak directly from experience. It's the case in my house and any desklamp or other fitting I've used them in, well ventilated too.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.