There was also the inconvenience of starting them with the original 4-pin thermal starters, which took quite a bit longer than the current glow-bottle starters (the thermal inertia of the old starters slowed the whole process down dramatically).
Find a 25W compact fluorescent to replace a 100W bulb. They are available up to about 30W (Homebase). In the case of a 100W R80 reflector lamp, the 23W GE Genura (which uses a different internal technology) has a higher light output. It's expensive, but still gives a large cost saving over its life.
With everything else in the house switched off, watch your electricity meter as you switch on a fluorescent lamp. You won't find the disc spins any faster when it comes on than once it's been on for a while.
I have just been to Morrisons and they are selling 18w and 20w bulbs (different makes) which are claimed to be 100w equivalent. They do not sell anything brighter.
The fact is that many people are saying that CFL are not as good as traditional bulbs because of this. Even my 12 year old son commented the other day that it was dark in our breakfast room and this is because it has a so called 100W equivalent cfl bulb in it, which from what I can gather is probably 75W equivalent at best.
This is a real problem as there is a real lack of availability of these higher wattage bulbs.
I have just looked on Tesco website and they don't have any cfl of greater than 20W. Mind you they do have GE 11W bulbs for only 77p! Morrisons are the same as are Wilkinsons. TLC do one 24W bulb, but only in one style.
Has anyone got any practical advice on how to get decently bright bulbs at a reasonable price.
NT
I dont think converting to euros would halve the cost of mortgages. Or have any positive effect on them. Many things cost more here, the reasons lie elsewhere.
NT
Not a problem with 50p CFLs from the supermarket, but TFT monitors OTOH... I set the power timeout so they're on for 30 mins minimum.
cheers, Pete.
Get someone to do a home enregy survey, might not be possible unless you qualify by getting Working Tax Credit or some other benefit. Box of 6 CFLs arrived for free last week as a result of a recent enregy survey (that was about all they could suggest or provide help with), 4 x 14W and
2 x 11W Philips branded. Pity you don't get a choice of fitting, the lounge has 6 x 9W MES, other fittings are ES all these free lamps are BC still I expect they will be used somewhere.
The 9W CFLs we have in the lounge are pretty much the same colour as the tungsten 40W candles they replaced, I did a test with both fitted. Certainly not the very strange colours that original CFL lamps where
*many* moons ago.Thats the trouble with the marketing CFLs, over optimistic equivalence rating and nothing to indicate the "colour temperature". The equivalence should be an easy comparison for anyone with half a brain cell as both tungsten and CFL have the lumen rating on the packaging, at least decent makes do. B-)
The low level start I find very pleasant when my eyes are dark adapted and doesn't bother me at other times. The lower level provides more than ample light to move about without crashing into the dining table or WHY.
They are backlit by cold cathode tubes AIUI.
So no damage to cathodes by being driven before they are up to temperature.
DG.
I find the 11W which is supposed t be 0W equivalent is at best 40W equiv. I use the 22W which are supposed to be 100W, but are dimmer than a 50W halogen ..they are about the same as a 60W normal. Nothing like what they are cracked up to be, but better..
yes, they likely would have had shorter lifetimes too. But it still would only add up to minutes at most.
It might have been true right at the start in '38/39, when getting hold of fl equipment was almost impossible, it dramatically reduced high filament lighting running costs, transformed factory lighting, motivated staff, and was thus a serious boost to any factory in war time.
I used to have IIRC a couple of old thermal starter units, 4 pin things, and dont remember them being slow starting. They were much better than glowstarts in that there was no flicker and flash, they just preheated and came on. Where they fell down was on inability to restart after a moment's off time, so a bad connection would switch the lights off.
NT
that BRIGHT cfls are a rarity and are also expensive, compared to the sub =A31 prices that all the supermarkets, sheds etc. seem to be doing, for the more common wattages.
Not really sure what the solution is, but I suspect that as thse bulbs get used more then demand for brighter ones will increase and hopefully the prices will start to match those of the more commonly available sizes.
On 30 Oct 2006 20:19:21 GMT someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote this:-
And they give a very good light, though they do take perhaps 15 seconds to warm up to full brightness.
It is often repeated, so often in fact that I suspect it was quoted on some popular TV or radio show back in the '70s, maybe something like Nationwide or The Jimmy Young show, and who would have doubted such authority back then? ;-)
HI bought some low energy light bulbs from on special offer from Morrisons recently equivalent to 100w, I have to say that they are almost the same as 100w normal light bulb, however the amazing thing was the price they were only 50p each !!! I was so impressed I went back and bought lots more.
Have changed all the bulbs over, pay back should be > Andrew Gabriel wrote:
I would guess these are the subsidised ones, I recently bought quite a few on line at 80p each and these most definitely were subsidised.
. Does not seem to 'add up'/ Our kitchen has 40 watt fluorescent tube lighting which starts almost instantly; maybe 2 seconds, if that, at longest. A 40 watt incandescent bulb also comes on instantly, well within one fiftieth/2 (half a cycle) of a second at the longest anyway! So even if the 40 watt fluor. tube used ten times as much power for those 2 seconds of 'start up', which is highly doubtful, it would be the equivalent of the tube being 'on' after its start up, for 20 seconds; right? Even if it used 100 times as much power (4000 watts!) for those two seconds during start up, which could possibly blow the fuse/circuit breaker, it still equates to only 200 seconds of normal 'on' time. So where that electrician got his 45 minutes from is a mystery! Maybe it was a a mis-reference to the fact that some claim that frequently turning a fluorescent on and off reduces the life of the lamps by some factor? Maybe each 'extra' switch on/off reduces fluor. lamp life by
45 minutes. Hence large installations are left on constantly.
And in many climates that lighting energy (and any wastage/inefficiency) contributes to heating the building. Many buildings are electrcially heated anyway! So even if lights are turned off after the cleaning staff have finished at say around 11.00PM it may still be a cost trade off as whether trhey should be turned back on again at say 5.00 AM in order to help heat the building?
What makes you say that? Price has plumeted, because manufacture has moved from eastern Europe to China. It took a while for Chinese manufacturers to meet the requirements of the large well-known lamp manufacturers, but now they can, they get most of the manufacturing work.
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