Own brand CFLs

Another approach is to find some good ones and stock up for years. Osrams and Tesco microspiral are good, Philips I also avoid.

NT

I've got about 40 spiral 20W ones from tesco, when they were 20p or

There are lots of Chinese CFL manufacturers, so I would assume the supermarkets buy these in and own-brand them. I don't think you can assume that they're made by the same manufacturers as branded CFLs. If you did find out that a particular batch of supermarket CFLs was made by the Happy Sunshine Electric Light Company of Sichuan Province, would that help you?

Theo

Oh for a return to the days when you bought a lightbulb, it did exactly what it said on the packet, without fuss, for about 1000 hours, and when it went out, you chucked it away, without having to worry about toxic waste and recycling of electronic components, and stuck another identical one in the holder ... :-\

Arfa

In message , Caecilius wrote

We are all paying 5% extra on our utility bills so that the utility companies can "subsidise" CFLs in supermarkets and loft insulation in the DIY sheds.

In message , Arfa Daily writes

Indeed. Since the introduction of energy-saving lightbulbs, the amount of energy that has been wasted in propaganda, publicity, tests, justifications, discussions, arguments and pure bollocks will probably far greater than that if we had simply stuck to the traditional type of bulb.

Yes, that's a good point. For some reason I'd assumed it would be one of the well-known brands. But now you mention it, the use of a cheap "no-name" brand which is never sold under its own name is much more likely.

Can we look forward to a 5% reduction now as all the 10p bulbs in Tescos are now about £2?

No, because the 5% is going to pay the 43p+/unit that small PV arrays get paid or all the other things that come under the FITs. Has the RHI started yet?

Yes, that's a good point. For some reason I'd assumed it would be one of the well-known brands. But now you mention it, the use of a cheap "no-name" brand which is never sold under its own name is much more likely.

Many items that are sold are not made by the "brand owner" - they are procured from the cheapest source and badged.

The Chinese CFL manufacturers also make many of the named brands.

Best ones I'm using at the moment are Feit, stocked by Costco. They are the only ones I've found with genuine filament equivalency on the packaging (i.e. 23W = 100W). Also, I've had long life in enclosed (hot) fittings (actually, so far only one failure during a few years of operation).

IKEA has historically been good. Still quite a few IKEA CFLs working fine here for over 10 years, and they do have quite a range. Actually, they've got quite a few LED retrofit lamps in the range now too.

I also found some Status 14W SES CFLs (from Poundland, 3 for £1) to be good in a couple of lamps that require 3 x SES lamps. Unlike many other SES ones I've tried, they haven't quickly gone dim. Poundland stopped doing them now though.