Posted on 08/25/2009 10:35:47 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Energy-saving lightbulbs are inferior in quality to the traditional models covered by the European Union ban.
If you have missed this story, it is probably because you have been reading your daily newspaper in such poor light that you have given up the struggle.
Since January 1 this year, when leading retailers announced a voluntary ban on stocking traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, those glorious domestic globes with their Rubens-esque curves, the lights have been going out all over Britain. And life is about to be a whole lot darker.
From September 1, shops will no longer be able to buy incandescent opaque light bulbs, which will be banned across the European Union, with the objective of slashing energy bills and carbon dioxide emissions.
It is a noble ambition, in tune with the environmentally-conscious Zeitgeist. Tony Blair probably felt a 100-watt glow of pride as he and his fellow heads of government waved through the proposal at a European Council meeting in March 2007. But the implementation of the new EU directive looks set to cause a worse headache than reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica by candlelight.
How many people even know about the ban? And will all shopkeepers apply it with equal rigour? We are in for one of those periods of retail chaos that seem to originate in Brussels.
In Germany, people are so sceptical about the new compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) that they have been stockpiling the old-style light bulbs. In a mass protest against the dying of the light, sales of incandescent bulbs rose by 34 per cent in Germany in the first six months of this year.
And I don't mind admitting that, in matters of light-bulb morality, I am on a par with the Germans. On Saturday, I nipped out to the shops to buy
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I can actually envision organized crime bringing in regular light bulbs from China.
The EU just wants to make sure we dump a lot of mercury into the enviroment with the enviroloonies’ goofy new light bulbs.
The compact flourescents are fine.....after about 10 minutes of warming up.
If you want light for the first 9 minutes, get incandescent.
OBTW - They never warm up in Fargo, ND winters.
The law of unintended consequences ... people just leave them on. They're efficient, right?
I always thought the leadership of the EU was a bunch of “Dim Bulbs”.
Personally I am excited about the prospects of LED lights. That effort is making some progress.
I could adapt to living off-the-grid but my wife could not. Had friends in NM back in the mid 1980’s who did just that. They seemed pretty comfortable with it. Solar panels, wind generators. They had a power plant to run the washing machine (clothes). No commercial power, no telephone (radio link) and lots of privacy.
As long as I had a web connection, I could live with that.
And the wind generator (alternator) thing has really come a long way. Some of the units with permanent magnets are very efficient.
Can you imagine the energy produced if you could harness all that “hot air” coming out of DC for a useful purpose?
You sound as if you think there may unintended consequences to a government action.
;-)
I was a dope and replaced all my lights with CFLs when energy prices were going up last year.
Not only did they not save any power, 50% of them failed after 8 months.
Seems that the manufacturing process is difficult on these and their stated 5 year life only applies to a perfectly manufactured cfl that only occurs 50% of the time. Now after a little more than a year 60% of them have gone dark.
These were all 75w or larger equivalent versions of the CFLs (Phillips Brand) The smaller wattage ones don’t seem to share the same fate. I have had 100% success with these.
Recycling them, it is a joke too. They have a hazmat collection 2 times a year where you have to bring them. If you miss the collection you have to keep them in your house because they are classified as hazmat.
I believe these are scams because the energy savings doesn’t include the energy required to make the bulb and the fact so many of them fail. Also, because they are florescent there is a period of time when you first turn them on where they use a lot more power than what it says on the box.
Like the second you plug them in, instead of 7 years.
You'll be tossing them out and replacing them long before their stated life. Brightness levels go down rapidly in the first year. I've been buying old-style incandescent bulbs whenever I see them on sale. I've gotten some at 90 percent off as stores switch to selling the new junk CFLs.
Or trying to read the Europeon "constitution" by candlelight.
What a bunch of putz's
To hell with that -- I just throw em in the trash when they burn out.
I switched over a couple of rooms to CFL. What a bunch of crap. I knew this when I installed one in the pantry and my 10 yr old told me that the light was out.
They produce a fraction of the brightness of an incandescent. I won’t use them again as long as I am not forced to use them.
It is definitely true that they need time to warm up, but in my experience it takes only 30-40 seconds, and I can live with that. I also have incandescent lights if I want instant light. Rooms that are used most have CFLs for years. It also helps that my home automation setup monitors occupancy and can turn unnecessary lights off before I get around to do that.
The advantage? My electric bill is $30/mo. But it is still wrong to force people to use this or that light bulb. As it was already mentioned, in cold climate CFLs never reach their optimal temperature; sometimes slow start is a problem (like in a closet;) some light fixtures are designed for specific bulbs and therefore must be replaced...
Don't you just love the logic in that statement? I wonder if anyone asked them, "Uh... do you mean 'dim' as in 'less bright'?"
If you insist on using them, be careful where you install them. I had one explode, causing me to very carefully clean up the debris. Would you want mercury contaminants over your dinner table, your bed, or your kitchen stove? Incandescents are what I'll be using until LED bulbs come down in cost.
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/products/lighting/cfls/downloads/CFL_Cleanup_and_Disposal.pdf
It actually takes them 5 mins to warm up, they have a circuit in them that acts as a warmer that draws more power to make them light up right away.
If you remove the warmer you can see this in action. Just open the casing and take out the starter, it looks like a capacitor.
also, what was your electric bill before?
Mine was 80 before and 65 after and I replaced everyone in the house and I have gas for heat.
I only got a fraction of the savings they claimed.
When I inquired for the reason, it was due to the fact I turn the lights off and on and therefore reduce the efficiency. I didn’t leave my lights on before either and this is the reason I didn’t get the savings.
That’s incredible, what brand?
I purchased Phillips and they started dimming in weeks.
Commercial CFL fixtures have a separate ballast in an enclosure designed to remove heat and those bulbs last forever, just like the normal fluorescent fixtures that can been found in homes.
Put a CFL in a naked fixture or an open lamp and they last pretty long. Put them in an enclosed fixture and you're setting up failure and at worst fire because CFL bulb bases are not designed to take that much heat.
In the next year it’s going to get very dark on planet earth, methinks. But not because of the type of lights the government is forcing on us.
The anti-life left is enjoying wonderful success—this is never good for the human race.
I believe a big event/tragedy/’good crisis’ is coming.
I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it in my bones.
These "save the planet" Gorebulbs give you crappy lighting, don’t live up to their longevity promises, and are a royal pain in the neck to dispose of.
Thank God Washington is here to save us money on our electric bills all while saving the planet!/sarc
Idiots all. They can shove their mercury/hazmat s*** CFL's and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.
"Good crisis"? Good for who?
Glad you qualified that with "Here is a thought...". Don't directly advocate something that could end up with someone being jailed. Better to preface a statement with "I heard someone say..."; that kind of gets you off the hook when someone carries out your thoughts.
Whoever came up with the government's cleanup and disposal guide is an idiot.
"Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup."
But a CFL can't be thrown in the trash pickup container?
Can you put those “goofy new light bulbs” on dimmers yet?
It was $7, but I was living in a small apartment then, so it's not comparable. I had several CFL floor lamps back then (PG&E had a sale and I took advantage.) I still use them at the house. I replace old light bulbs with CFLs slowly because there are too many, and in most places they don't matter and in other places I can't replace - wall sconces use 50W halogen bulbs, for example. I won't save enough on those to justify replacement; but a dimmer (X10, Insteon, Zwave) might be a good idea - cuts down on power consumption, regulates light and remotely operates switches. Rephrasing a programmer's expression, 10% of lights are responsible for 90% of costs, so I try to optimize wisely.
I have an electric water heater, and a well pump. In winter I need more hot water, the bill grows by $5. But it's still tiny; people here can pay a couple hundred dollars per month for electric energy (esp. if they run a/c which I rarely do.) With such a low consumption of power I am also getting the cheapest kWh's - prices here are tiered.
In terms of mercury, indeed one should be aware of it. But I work with heavy metals for decades, and mercury fears are out of proportion today. There is very little of it in each bulb. If you have a factory, or run a recycling operation, that is important. But if one CFL is broken it's not on my radar; fast food, for example, is far more deadly. If I happen to break a CFL over the kitchen table I will just wipe the table, and whatever trace amounts of mercury remain they will evaporate and escape outside within a few hours (not that you can detect them without a $100,000 mass spectrograph.)
Fluorescent lights are not dimmable. Some lamps have two bulbs with different power, so they give you 4 light levels; if you had 3 light bulbs in a lamp then it would be 8 light levels, and so on.
LED lights are infinitely dimmable by two different methods. The catch, outside of price, is that production of them is ecologically unclean. But they ought to last a lifetime. I have LED-based night lights, and solar+LED lights outside, they work great.
Incandescent bulbs are dimmable, as we know, but there is a very big "but" - when you dim them their spectrum shifts toward infrared. This means that they only look dimmer, but power-wise they still draw current and produce heat. LEDs OTOH are linearly dimmable, and their spectrum won't change as you dim them (at least if you use PWM.)
I won’t use CFLs on principal. It may be foolish, but I’m hoarding incandescent
bulbs.
A home improvement warehouse in my locality (Menards) is now carrying a "dimmable" version of CFL in a limited range of wattages and styles. A couple years before that, a few were available by special order on the internet. These are made to follow the curve of a "normal" triac based incandescent lamp dimmer. And they do, somewhat. The minimum brightness possible is about a third of the maximum brightness; turn the control down further and the lamp simply shuts off. Also they need to warm up a while before the minimum brightness can be used without flickering. Try an ordinary CFL on an incandescent lamp dimmer and they simply make a loud buzzing noise without dimming. This is pointless and probably not good for the lamp.
Agree. I won't buy one CFL on principal either.
The only foolishness would be to use an inferior, toxic product that the Government is shoving down our throats under the abhorrent and ridiculous lie of of "Saving the Planet." Meanwhile, the costs to replace, retool lighting fixtures, and dispose of the CFL's by far exceed any so-called "energy savings."
Excuse me while I go place another bulk order for incandescent bulbs by the beautiful, safe light of my 100 and 150 watt bulbs burning brightly throughout the house....Now, if only I could get rid of those low-flush toilets.....
Rahm
o' rilly? I've never seen a garbage man go through by garbage for bulb fragments. It's all a scam. If they start inspecting my garbage, I'll just collect dog sh#t from my German Shepherd and put the bulbs in the bag with that.
I hate the enviros... they need to go pet a grizzly or take a nice natural walk up near Denali.
I have floor lamps that work good too.
If the CFLs are <75w equivalent CFLs, they work good for me too. Problem is they are way too dim for many places so I need the bigger ones.
The bigger ones are the ones that fail all the time.
None of my failures were where the bulb was enclosed.
I don’t mind CFL for a lot of uses, but man.. I can’t handle them in a ceiling fan. If this looks like it’ll be likely to pass sometime here, I’ll have to load up on a ton of standards for fans. Maybe LED lighting down the road will work better on them, but who knows.
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