good grief. canadian smugglers will add light bulbs to the list, after prescrip. drugs and toilets.
Maybe you guys are buying the wrong brand. Some do give off a very unpleasant white light, but you can buy flourescent bulbs that give off the same warm, yellow light as incandescent. I use them all around my house; you can’t tell the difference.
The ones I use are “Marathon” brand bulbs from Home Depot.
You probably could. But since there was no legislation outlawing candles, then the comparison isn’t appropriate then, right?
Not only that, but I think it’s pretty much undisputable that candles offer a certain something that light bulbs lack. Personally, I hardly ever use candles. But for some occasions (birthdays, romantic dinners, Jewish sabbath, etc.) they really add something.
My experience has been, they work fine for general household lighting, but are absolutely HORRIBLE when used in reading lamps.
I purchased some of those “pigtail” bulbs and installed them in various places throughout the homestead. One of those places was in the bathroom.
What a surprise it was when, upon checking appearance before heading out the door, my first thought was “When the hell did I contract hepatitis?”
Looking like a jaundiced calamity, I ran to the next hermetically sealed package of environmentally friendly light sources in search of an explanation for bizarre coloring. Unfortunately, the light they provided was insufficient to read the finer print on the package. Maybe it’s time for that lasix procedure (i wonder how environmentally friendly this laser procedure is).
To be colorblind would have been a blessing at this point. Now what? So all I have to do to be environmentally conscientious is to give up reading and look like I just graduated from clown college? Perfect.
Lowered standards/expectations. Time for a candle making class. Luddites rule! 
I don’t have any problem with their quality of light and I really like not having to change lights all the time. We’ve been replacing all our lights with the new ones as they burn out, and there are only a couple of (rarely used) lights in our house left that are still the incandescent kind.
The point was that some of the objections to CFL may be pure taste, some may be a natural resistance to change, hence the comparison to candles and admirers of same.
I love everything about CFLs but their cold weather performance, their time-delay, and their flicker. This still doesn’t prevent their use in many applications in my house (and in fact, in my kitchen, garage, and basement it’s all tube-fluorescent lighting), but one factor does: I have not yet found a CFL whose light quality is acceptable to me. And my job relies on my ability to work under light without eyestrain and discomfort.
The day there is a bulb whose light is acceptable to me, I will replace almost every light in this house. Until that day, no.
I haven’t personally seen an LED light. I have high hopes they may work for me.
They have those.
Some CFC do noticably flicker, some buzz, some take a while to warm up, and they give off several ranges of light spectrums. Shop around, get one you like. I prefer the natural spectrum ones myself.
If you had used nothing but 25watt clear glass incandesents, then you’d complain that the light is too dim, it’s too stark, etc. :rolleyes:
You can buy LED’s now. I got some on eBay. They give off about the light of a 25w bulb, and cost $15+. They will burn so long you’ll have moved or died before you need to replace them. The color is fine, they don’t buzz or flicker, and they use very little power. The cost and dimness means that you use them in specific locations, of course. Like on a hallway where you need some low light on all the time?
I must say that I haven’t noticed the flicker. I put one outside a couple of months ago and, although it’s not exactly a source of good light more than a few yards away, it has endured sub-zero temps and is still working. But I leave it on almost all the time.
I don’t spend a lot of time outside when it’s that cold, so can’t really make any good observations regarding regarding warm/cold comparisons; April will be the test, when time is spent outside doing the cleanup thing beyond sunset.
I’ll try an LED when I see one (not big on shopping trips), but the CFLs are not great for reading with older eyes, even less than a meter away from the source. And, of course, that orange tint to the skin is a little weird.
Actually, there was.
Not so much legislation by government as prohibitions by insurance companies and the fire departments they sponsored.
Hi - Electrical Engineer who sometimes does a bit of lighting design checking in here just to clear up a couple of little things:
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Dangerous chemicals in CFLs: They contain mercury, but coal fired power plants emit mercury as well. The energy savings associated with using CFLs mean that less mercury is emitted overall. See here.
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Clothes look different under different light sources: This occurs because the spectral power distribution (the amount of power at each wavelength) differs between types of lamps. If a source doesn’t emit a particular wavelength, it can’t be reflected back off the object you’re looking at. This can sometimes result in a pair of pants being dark green in a store, but actually brown when you get outside. A more “technical” measure (which has its drawbacks) of a light source’s ability to render colours is called the “Colour Rendering Index”. See here for the least convoluted page on CRI I could find quickly.
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LEDs: While they have improved a great deal in recent years, many claims made by manufacturers of “100,000 hours lifetime” etc are unsubstantiated, and without a definition of “lifetime”, meaningless. LEDs diminish in brightness over time, sometimes very quickly, depending on the ambient temperature they are installed in, the amount of current running through them and the ability of the fitting to cool the LED junction. They can be really good for various applications (i.e. colour changing feature walls, etc) but I wouldn’t use them for general lighting just yet. The expensive european made LEDs and fittings are generally the best ones around.
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Colour temperature: “Warmer” lights have lower colour temperatures. If you’re looking for something which resembles the “colour” of an incandescent bulb, look for a colour temperature on the packaging of ~2800K. Low colour temperatures are better for relaxing at home, and for cold climates. Higher colour temperatures (~4000-6000K) are better for working environments and hot climates.
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Buying CFLs: In general, buy the most expensive ones you can find, and pay attention to the colour temperature. I prefer lower colour temperatures at home. Sylvania, Philips & Osram all make OK CFLs. If you buy cheap ones, you won’t like them.
Most of the lights in my home are either on dimmer switches or use 3 way bulbs. Like adam yax, I like to control the amount of light I’m using, and I need less light when I’m reading myself to sleep than when I’m getting dressed or sewing.
As for you folks who keep telling me to try a few until I see which ones I like, I’m frugal. I replace light bulbs when they burn out which, for the ones which are most suitable for being replaced by CFLs, is once every 2 or 3 years. I have been considering using them, actually. The problem is, CFLs are a lot more expensive than incandescent, and I’m too blasted cheap to spend waste money trying bulbs until I find one which works well when I have bulbs which already work perfectly well.
AshJW, as the daughter and sister of electrical engineers, welcome to the board. When it comes to mercury, here’s one of the differences between me and a coal company. Coal companies have ways and means of disposing of mercury safely. I don’t. If a CFL bulb breaks or burns out, I can’t just drop it in the garbage can like I would an incandescent. Granted, if I believe what I read, it will be several years before one burns out, but right now if my city has places where you can take such bulbs to be safely disposed of, I haven’t heard of them. I think people are underestimating the difficulty of getting people to dispose of CFLs safely. Yes, recycling points can be set up, just as they are for Christmas trees, phone books, and plastic grocery bags. How many people will actually use them? You can increase the number by building in a financial incentive for people to dispose of them safely, but I’m not sure how effective that will be. If you put instructions for disposing of them safely on the package, you’re relying on people keeping the package for several years until the bulb burns out and for the mechanism for disposing of them still being in place.
I’m not against CFLs; right now, I’m very much on the fence about them. If a light burned out today which wasn’t on a dimmer or three way switch, I would seriously consider buying a CFL bulb instead of using one of the incandescents I’ve got on hand for when such things happen. Before I did, in addition to checking out the difference in price, I’d also want to find out how to dispose of them safely.
AshJW, I just want to pop in here and say welcome. I hope you’ll stick around. Posts like yours are what makes this board special.
Again, they have CFC’s which work with dimmers. I know, I use them.
Next CFC’s (at least around here) are more or less the same price as an Incandesent
bulb. Bought a box of 4 for $1 just a week ago.
What is the basis for that image? The link for the source underneath it on Wikipedia goes to a “page not found” (of course, it’s Wikipedia…). It does not say if it’s just comparing coal power plant emissions alone, if it adjusts for the fact that coal power is about 50-55% of net generation, it does not say if it adjusts for the very soon upcoming mandatory 70% reductions in mercury emissions that will be applied to power plants, etc.
This page gives comparative mercury emissions adjusting for coal power generation of 70%, and also has a table which shows comparative mercury content of common items. However, I have to say that aside from watch batteries, the other items are less and less common to ever end up in landfills, so the chart could be a bit misleading.
http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hm/mercury/cflfactsheet.pdf
And here’s a little bit better analysis than the Wikipedia graphic: http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/home_journal_news/4217864.html
Note as well that the mercury content of CFLs is expected to drop as well, due to advances in technology. IIRC, OSRAM Sylvania is expected to reduce mercury content of CFLs to about half what it currently is within a year or two.
I can’t get too worked up about it. Conserving the environment means making sacrifices, at least in the short term (until technology catches up with legislation). When the Clean Air Act was passed, what followed was 10 years of cars that were shitty and underpowered. The auto industry adapted, because consumers demanded that it adapt and start selling non-shitty cars. Today’s cars outperform the cars of 40 years ago, and release a tiny fraction of the pollutants. I, for one, wouldn’t want to live in an America without the Clean Air Act.
If CFCs are mandated, in short order they will become pretty damn good, because of the same consumer pressures that lead to better-performing post-1970 cars.
I’m sorry. I honestly wasn’t aware that there are CFCs which work with dimmers until I read this thread this morning.
Since I had to run some errands and Home Depot anyway, I did a bit of research. Home Depot did indeed have not only regular CFCs, but CFCs suited for dimmers and even for the track lights on dimmers in my living room. Unfortunately, I didn’t do as well on prices. A box of 4 GE CFCs which are the equivalent of 60 watt bulbs was selling for $6.88 (all prices are US dollars); a box of 6 incandescent 60 watt bulbs sold for between $1.04 amd $3.77, depeding on quality. A 3 way CFC bulb sold for $9.97; incandescent 3 way bulbs sold for $1.29 each or 2 for $2.29. CFCs for flood lights were $7.97; I didn’t write down the prices for incandescent flood lights
Target didn’t have CFCs for dimmers or 3 way CFCs, which is probably one reason why I wasn’t aware they existed yet. When I need light bulbs, I usually go to Target or KMart, rather than Home Depot. At Target, the price differential was higher. You could buy 4 CFCs for $15.99 or 2 for $8.44; the equivalent incandescent bulbs were 4 for $1.87 or $2.14, depending on quality.
One other problem is the light fixture in my dining room takes candelabra bulbs which have narrower bases. According to the gentleman who helped me at Home Depot (he was very helpful, by the way), CFCs aren’t made with candelabra bases yet.
I might be able to do better on prices if I shopped around, but I’m fighting a stomach bug today and have done as much as I feel up to. Here in southwestern PA, though, at two places where it’s relatively convenient to buy light bulbs, there’s still a very significant difference in price between CFCs and incandescent bulbs. Forcing people to buy a product which costs more than four times what its predecessor costs concerns me, of course, but that’s not my biggest concern.
Even if prices were more equal, I’d still be concerned about people disposing of the mercury in CFCs properly. I don’t usually buy into the latest scare stories, and I’m nowhere near being in the league of a friend who used to be a dentist who can rant for several minutes about mercury in fillings, but I am aware that mercury is a toxic chemical, and people can’t be relied on to dispose of cigarette butts correctly, let alone burnt out light bulbs. Since I’ve already raised the issue, I’ll leave it at that.
I may yet buy a CFC bulb when I need to replace a bulb, but right now, I still have some concerns.
We’ve switched most of the house over to fluorescent with no problem. I don’t mind the little delay or the color of the light.
At work, we got burnt by the fall of incandescents because we used to buy the scrap glass from Philips’s incandescent bulb manufacture for use in our process. Philips decided to ditch incandescents, so we’ve had to switch to getting glass from Sylvania after 25 years of buying it from Philips. It was funny, though, that most of my coworkers use fluorescent bulbs in their homes.