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Freeaking lying CFL light bulb manufacturers

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I congratulate you all on living such carefree lives that the lifespan of light bulbs has become something to worry about.
 
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Paladin3 said:
I congratulate you all on living such carefree lives that the lifespan of light bulbs has become something to worry about.
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I congratulate you on living such a carefree life that you can come comment on a thread about the lifespan of lighbulbs 😛

I go all LED now. Except for a few CFL's here and there I mostly skipped them. The lifespan was garbage talk, the prices sucked for a long time, the horrible warm up time, way to many different colors, some have flickering or noise, the toxic gasses in them, and whatever else. Just look at all the people on here saying 'you gotta do this, you gotta do that with cfl', 'mine burned out fast but this one didn't'.

I feel like CFL was a huge scam. Especially when the government got in on some regulations, and bannings of incandescents, and got very expensive contracts when they first started rolling out CFLs.

LED are a million times better and the future. CFL can't die fast enough.
 
Yes, I feel CFL was a massive misfire. Even when they were the "thing" I didn't buy them, knowing they were a stop-gap before LED.

Now, I'm replacing lights in my house with LED's as they die. The color temperature matches up really well with the incandescent bulbs and there's none of this "instant-on but not really at full brightness" thing the CFL's I've seen do.
 
Race to the bottom and CFL's have hit it. Across the board you get cost downed Chinese garbage.

Looking forward to the same thing with LED's /Sarcasm
 
T9D said:
I congratulate you on living such a carefree life that you can come comment on a thread about the lifespan of lighbulbs 😛
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We should all consider ourselves lucky to be here kibitzing about light bulbs. Life is pretty good.

Avista Utilities is my local electric and natural gas supplier. I'm still working through the box of CFLs they sent all of their customers for free 2 1/2 years ago.
 
Vdubchaos said:
"Better for environment" = just another marketing gimmick. If companies cared about environment they wouldn't produce "stuff to make money" and using EARTH resources to do so.

I won't even get into packaging (which a lot of times is simply worthless/garbage) yet it requires paint/boxes etc.

ANY company that's in business BY DEFAULT doesn't care about environment.
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People will continue to require lighting at night. If a company can produce a light source that objectively produces less pollutants (not going to argue for/against CFL on that) than whatever else is available then it is "better for the environment" compared to the alternatives. Selling it for profit doesn't preclude it from also being better for the environment. The key is "better" not "best" the best thing would be to not use any lighting at night, that isn't going to happen.

Outside of dismantling modern society completely producing stuff that is better for the environment is perfectly valid. It is entirely possible for a business to be based solely on producing items that are comparatively better for the environment while still profiting.

That being said "green" is a powerful marketing term and any item claiming to be green likely needs to be looked at closely to see what benefits it truly has.
 
yeah ive replaced about a little less than half of all my cfls ive installed in the past 2 years
 
I have one CFL that's been on continuously (except power outages) for roughly 9 years now. It's mounted horizontally, no enclosure, and goes through temperatures from -20 degrees F to 110 (or more?) degrees F. Though I do feel like I replace a lot of CFLs, I buy them in 8-packs, and cannot remember the last time I bought some. So, apparently, I go through them a lot less frequently than I did incandescent bulbs.
 
I recently had a CLF go out on me, but it was used outside in a lantern fixure for the front door. The other one, installed at the same time was still going--but I repalced them both. Environment probably killed the CFL outside.

Conversely, I've had an LED lamp running non-stop for 2-1/3 years now (~20,000 hours) in the basement and it is still running strong. I'd use them outside if I didn't fear some jerk stealing them.
 
I've been living in my house for exactly 5 years this summer and I have lot of CFLs. I've only replaced a few of them so far. There's a fixture in the hallway with two of them in it, and I tend to leave that light on all the time so it probably is on like 6+ hours a day in average.

CFLs don't like to be turned on and off. If you are going to turn one on and will need it later, you are better off just leaving it on. I leave all my basement lights on when I do laundry as well since I'm up and down all the time so it's better than to turn them on and off.

Most of the time it's also not the light itself that dies but the internal electronic components. Would be nice if they made these serviceable. Probably just the thing of changing a capacitor or something.
 
I've got older CFL bulbs that are 8+ years old. The new ones seem to die quickly and have a much shorter lifespan.
 
CFLs eat shit. Ugly light, and unreliable specs. I'll never buy another one. I have a few LEDs I'm pleased with, and will use those for appropriate places. Otherwise, I'll keep using the incandescents I've squirreled away.
 
Who's the best player in the LED branding? Been a while since I've looked into them, hoping time would pass by for them to mature and they may be at that point :thumbsup: CFL's do in fact suck a fat one.
 
PliotronX said:
Who's the best player in the LED branding?
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I've been using some from HomeDepot, especially the ones for recessed fixtures. I don't remember the brand, but I think they were packaged for HomeDepot; Green and black box; $40 for three if I remember right. Work is my test bed, because lights get heavy use there, so defects will show up quicker. Going on 5 months, 12 hours per day, 5 days per week, and they're holding up well. Nice color, and they run cool.
 
LEDs are not quite ready for big time use, but in a year maybe they will own the lighting market.

CFL I put the short life dead ones in a bag and take them back to Home Depot usually no hassle exchange for new ones. Issue with CFL is the low price, it makes for junk electronics or any other cost cutting scheme.
 
JEDI said:
package says 5yrs/6000 hrs, made by GE.

BS! mine burned out after 1 1/2 yrs.
I wrote the date on the cfl when I installed it.

it only costs $4 for a pack of 4 at walmart.
so not worth the time/effort to get a free one from the manufacturer.
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This is why I'm anti-CFL but everyone just says I'm retarded. Vibration lowers their lifespan. Being mounted certain directions lowers lifespan. Messy power lowers their lifespan. The vibrations from my laundry room, especially my ole Kenmore top loader when its unbalanced causes CFLS to burn out in like 6 months and again everyone just calls me retarded and talks about how much money their $9 bulbs or whatever are going to save them 5 years from now.

Every time you turn it on/off it lowers the bulb life span by 4 hours. So a CFL in the bathroom will last like 1-2 years. etc. etc. etc. etc. CFLs are shit.
 
I don't know how accurate it is but my UPS says that line voltage likes to sit at 123 volts and it will occasionally drop to 113 volts or pop up to 128 volts. That may have an effect on bulb life.
 
who? said:
I don't know how accurate it is but my UPS says that line voltage likes to sit at 123 volts and it will occasionally drop to 113 volts or pop up to 128 volts. That may have an effect on bulb life.
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You'd think they would have known that before trying to phase out incandescent bulbs.
 
who? said:
I don't know how accurate it is but my UPS says that line voltage likes to sit at 123 volts and it will occasionally drop to 113 volts or pop up to 128 volts. That may have an effect on bulb life.
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Yikes that's a pretty big fluctuation in power. You'd probably be replacing incadescents a lot too unless you get the "long life" ones which are actually rated for 130 volts.
 
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They are hit and miss. I'd say on average, 7 years is accurate.

I remodeled my house 6 years ago. Put in a total of 38 that I can count in my head. And in my head, I remember which ones were replaced. 11 total have been replaced in 7 years. 9 of those were in locations that were getting used 6+ hours a day. Only 2 wer occasionally used.

I've found that they typically die quick (like one day) or last years.

Also, I did some recent research. CFLs are impacted by on/off cycles. That 5 year span will shorten if cycled a lot. In those cases, LED bulbs are better.

I bought 3 LED bulbs recently for my kitchen. They are supposed to last me 40 years. We'll see. This first purchase is for one fixture as an experiment. Which reminds me, I want to get a few more for my lamp post.
 
I use the same LED light as my grandaddy says some kid in 2150. So now light bulbs will go from being disposable to being written into our wills? 😛
 
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