Calculate how much you'll save by switching to CFL bulbs

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: George P Burdell

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
The light they produce is annoying. It flickers like a monitor with a bad refresh rate.

You've got your hands on either a defective piece or a low-quality bulb. Try out a GE or Philips bulb. One bulb by itself might be pricey, but in bulk, even the good ones are cheap.

I can still easily tell the difference. To me, they don't even look close.

I'm also bothered by LED taillights in cars. Some morons try to tell me that it's not possible to see the difference, but it looks like a strobe light.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: TXHokie
I have pretty much had to replaced all the CFL bulbs I swapped out 3 yrs ago. Some didn't even last a year. For the high price I paid for them compared to regular bulbs, I am disappointed at their life span considering that they are advertised as longer lasting that regular bulb. Seems what I saved in electricity got eaten up by replacement cost. I am only continuing using them because it's good to save electricity but don't feel it saved me much money.

I've had this experience too, and I find it's due to overheating in enclosed or dual-bulb configurations. The bulbs are sensitive to overheating, while they're cooler than incandescents for the light output, they still heat up, and handle the heat worse. (They're usually marked accordingly.) If that heat isn't released elsewhere, the life will be significant reduced.

Dimmer circuits are an even worse killer (for non-dimmable CFL's, the norm), even when they seem to work fine -- what happens is that the bulb spends all the "off" time trying to turn on with the miniscule leakage current, and burns itself out soon in the process.

My solutions are simple -- take out the dimmer circuits, open up the enclosures, and avoid mounting them back-to-back where possible. They last much longer with this approach.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
I don't mind the warmup time, but my mom hates it. I just point her in the direction of the bill and she changes her mind, sometimes.

Some bulbs are worse than others. I got some Panasonics to try out, and find their warm-up time is terrible (and colour is a bit magenta). Phillips and others -- while I'm sure they get a bit brighter after initial start-up, and dimmer over their lifetime -- I find these effects to be small enough that I don't notice them unless I'm really looking for them.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: dullard
You have to keep them on 20-30 minutes each time. There goes your energy savings for areas when you'd normally keep a 60W bulb on for a minute or less.

Why is that? I've read elsewhere that they take a lot of power to startup, and thus the power savings depends on more longer-term usage than short-term on/off cycles, but this is not what I measure with my bulbs. My Phillips for example are rated 27W, take around 24W peak at startup / shutdown, and run at around 18W. Any way you run them, unless my measuring device is just defective / insensitive (which I doubt, but might look into further if given some real incentive), this would be much less consumption than even the weakest acceptable incandescent bulbs.

 

[chuckywang]

Originally posted by: edro
CFLs are more expensive, are not as bright, have a warm up time, and they never last the 8 years they say on the package.

I'll happily pay $50 extra per year to have good quality light.

Those issues have been addressed.