In the kitchen and lounge we have the obligitory all-over 50W downlighters which do indeed give cracking light when you need to see, however 99% of the time the lighting is provided by 3 x table lamps each with a CFL energy saving type bulb so the whole of the upstairs dining room, kitchen and lounge(living area) is illuminated by about 30W in total providing very soft and relaxing yet usefull lighting.
Downstairs in all bedrooms and hall/stairs etc is illuminated by CFL bulbs.
We must save at least enough energy to run the Pond pump and filter 24/7
The rule of thumb with the light output claim seems to be Wattage times 5 and add 5 for good measure. The actual relation that should be consider as equaling the luminescence, is the colour of light given off by the source. They may be energy saving in the fact they use less electrical power to make light, but do they give the same colour of light that filament lamps do. That's what should really be considered. Now they are calling them Warm White Etc. just to get passed the fact that the warmth of light is not equivalent.
The supermarkets do not sell 33 watt CFL lamps that could be used as an actual equivalent to 60 watt GLS lamps. I daresay they are available from a specialist supplier but not for the price of a simple
60 watt GLS lamp in Tesco (16p).
If they were available the actual energy saving would be 27 watts against the touted 47 watts, and more energy and more mercury would have been used in their construction.
If you still think halogen is as efficent as flourescent I feel sorry for you, but maybe you are a troll. You go by the ratings and its called Lumens, or LPW Lumen per watt, CFLs here are 4x as efficent as halogens, if you cant realise this you are forever lost.
from what you told us it appears you didn't. The stated equivalents are not comparisons to GLS filmament lamps, but another lamp type. The stated equivalents are marketing bs which unfortunately holds the CFL market back a fair bit.
If you had selected equivalent output lamps your story would obviously be different
33w is not equivalent to 60w. 15w is closer.
15w CFLs come from any CFL supplier. And the TCO is less than for filament lamps.
see above
no. And the figures given in this thread dont take account of the heating effect of filament lamps. For a proper comparison see
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this is small compared to electrical energy saving. And less toxic thorium.
That's my experience too. I replace mine every year, before they get too dim to be of any use.
I was an enthusiastic 'early adopter' of CFL bulbs. A few years on, I have come to the conclusion that they are a waste of money; I doubt they save much energy, given the energy cost of making them and disposing of them properly, and their short working life.
Of course the vast majority won't be disposed of properly. They will just go into landfill and their mercury content will leach out over time.
CFLs are useful for politicians because they give the appearance of doing something meaningful about climate change.
In this dining/computer room (21 feet x 12) I have 8 x11 watt cfls +1
23 watt CFL "mushroom lamp". My wife is in the room next door (23 feet x 12) has 6 x 9watt cfl's + 3 x 13 watt cfl's on.
The whole lot need to be changed before Christmas. (+ the 3 outside and the one in the kitchen ! )
Our local council has a facility at the local tip for disposing of Fl. lamps. It's just a metal box about 3 x 3 x 8 feet open at one end. People just come and chuck lamps in which then smash, it's open to the weather so the contents such as mercury, and phosphors, and contaminated lamp parts get washed out and scattered around the environment. It would appear the Council are happy about this.
It's more to do with getting European GLS lamp factories closed and their workers on the dole so that small cheap cfl's can be imported for practically nothing from China. The big manufacturers (Philips in particular) lobbied the EU for it.
The EU said "Jump", Prescot said "How high". Derek
When a product is promoted as having a life of 6yrs, 8 yrs, or even
It should be capable of meeting the spec by which it was sold over that length of time.
I was being generous to a fault in picking the 12 month light output.
I just expect products to perform as the sales people say they will.
Indeed, the price and the size of the lamps would be different and the whole CFl proposition less justifyable.
At 12 months it is.
Like I said, they say they last 6, 8,15 years, but at 12 months they are already 48% down on the new lamp figure, which itself is 30% less than they claim.
But not generally in supermarkets
If they sold them, I suppose it might be. But the CFl's still don't meet what is claimed for them.
Yes! A CFl is for 8 years not just for Christmas. A whole country full of SWMBO's unlike Hansen will not tolerate sitting in a gloomy house lit by 6, 8, 15, year old CFls, saving the old played out ones for the utility room and putting good new ones in the sitting room when there are visitors coming.
It would have been helpful if the government had let us scrutinise that argument, in fact all the arguments. But EU you see !
You must be buying different ones to me. My CFL are three - four years old and still start quickly and don't appear to be dim. They are also a nicer colour being daylight rather than yellow. I am amazed that people say they prefer the bluer light from halogens and then say daylight CFL are too white.
It will be equivalent to 40-45W filament lamp, unless it's a reflector lamp in which case that drops considerably.
For plain lamps, use a 1:4 power ratio, and ignore the equivalence on the box. For reflector lamps, that will drop to 1:3 for physically large ones, and 1:2 for small ones.
10W CFL is about the highest power you can get at the moment which is physcially no bigger than its filament equivalent. This is slowly improving over time as CFLs can be made smaller, but the smaller ones are less efficient, so don't chose the physically smaller ones unless small size is important.
I will agree with you that output is not what's claimed when compared with a filament lamp, but your measurement method is flawed. To measure the light output, you need what's referred to as an integrating sphere to sum the light output in all directions. This is particularly important when light distribution is not uniform, and it's a long way from uniform from a CFL. It's not perfect from a filament lamp, but that's nearer to being uniform (particaularly pearl ones).
Which is why I've stockpiled boxes full of incandescent lamps ahead of the upcoming 'ban' These energy saving ones need another decade of development before they reach my acceptance threshold. LED's will take at least another two decades but neither will come close to the high quality light from Joseph Swan's invention of 1878.
Ditto, as my eyesight fails with old age I find I need much better lighting than any CFL can provide - strip lights are good but you can't really use them all over the house can you!
I'm rather fed up with CFLs - I've got one in this room and it's not bad, but most of the ones I got a couple of years back are half dead and the ones from 3-4 years ago are almost all burnt out.
To keep the BCO happy with my rewire (part L), I'm just going to bung a few of these (or similar) in the hall, utility room and lab and anywhere else that doesn't need to look too pretty,
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skool but they work (I'll make sure I get ones with a decent electronic high frequency ballast).
To be fair, today's noncing around with LEDs and CFLs will lead eventually to a really decent product (CFLs are better than 20 years ago so there is progress). But I;m still going to stash a load of GLS bulbs away prior to the ban.
I also was an early adopter back in about 1979/80. In view of the comparative cost at the time, ( about £12 compared to 15p for filament), I made a point of marking the date.I was also concerned about their weight in those days, pondering as to whether the electric wires from ceiling roses would sustain the load. I found that the early ones were very slow to start and did fade significantly over time. Having said that, most lasted 5 to7 years. We still have one from our former house (we moved into our current house in mid 85 and no, I did not leave the former home without lights for the new owner!) which I put into our bedroom in order to kill it by use and replace with a more modern unit. It is still there taking hours to warm up but will not die! We still have one filament bulb in the house in an infrequently used bedroom that will be eventually replaced with a CFL.
We have a modern CFL in our downstairs loo/ cloakroom that performs well, immediately bright enough to ensure that neither I or the other two males in the house misdirect ourselves.
Overall, I am satisfied with the performance of modern CFLs, but do have the feeling that they do not quite perform to "what it says on the tin".
The discharge of mercury into the environment is an issue that we need to consider. However, we do need a sense of proportion. Our use of mercury has been subject to increasing control ever since the issue at Minimata (and could be argued earlier than that). The use of methyl mercury, pesticides containing mercury and indeed the amounts of mercury in CFLs has reduced or been banned in certain activities/ locations. I, as many others, used to play with blobs of mercury as a kid.Apart from seeing it in older barometers, kids now have no direct exposure, (OK yes as a contaminant in food) .I suspect that the major concern that we should have is with regard to dental amalgams both to the individual and society. Here in the UK, we have a generation of which I am part that will be cremated with quantities able to be emitted into the atmosphere.
I do agree.
I'm also concerned about the asbestos control industry that has developed and now sadly seems to be supported by regulators needing to maintain their employment as well as that of the contractors.
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"This dreadful material is so hazardous to humans that it requires removal and highly controlled disposal" Sheer nuts. It needs to be particular types that are ingested from the atmosphere to have the sadly fatal impact . Has there been any evidence to date that we have been affected by asbestos cement pipes conveying our drinking water to our homes?
For the last 21 years I have been developing, selling, and servicing specialist precision X-ray illuminators which use specially made daylight fluorescent tubes of a non-standard shape.
Whenever I see any kind of new fluorescent tubes, or any new lighting systems coming onto the market I buy samples and test them.
All (thermionic) fluorescent tubes IME exhibit warm-up for the first few mins, are stable for a couple of hours then a fatigue effect sets in and light output tails off. They exhibit a short term memory effect and remember if they have been recently used. From day 1 maximum light output begins to fall measurably as they permanently wear out. These are all serious concerns in the application I am involved with.
For this reason even such mundane things as illuminated signs (Eg.petrol stations) now have ballasts which can be computer controlled, in order to achieve an even illumination between/across different sections if, for instance, a section has to be replaced.
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[www_sylvania_com]
So I find it mildly amusing when I see people like Hansen claim his 20 year old Philips "Jamjar" bulb strikes immediately, is up to full brightness within seconds, is just as bright as ever it was, and for that matter the CFl manufacturers claim "on the box" of lifetimes of
6, 8, or even 15 years is realistic. CFl's BTW deteriorate faster than linear tubes because the plasma scours the phosphor away on the bends.
It would also be quite a challenge to design an electronic ballast that can be made in China, shipped to Europe, and sold retail for 49p (including it's lamp) and reliably last 6, 8, or 15 years. In any event it is not my experience, which is closer to 1 year or less.
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