# Low energy lightbulbs. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249 "2011-12-14T23:37:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EKDS5k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c5a1d2/32.png) [@EKDS5k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EKDS5k)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/21 "2011-12-16T01:05:41Z")
> [@ctnguy](#): > > Are these: (link hidden because the pictures are so gruesome that they might be NSFW) > > [http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=71917](http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=71917) > > the pictures in your flier? The consensus on that thread at the snopes MB seems to be that they couldn’t be from stepping on a broken CFL. Ew. Stepping on a broken CFL? Definitely not. Stepping on a broken CFL and then dumping a box of knives on your feet, followed by a nasty infection that didn’t get treated properly? More likely. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/22 "2011-12-16T01:30:16Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Yes but the smoke stacks of the power plant doesn’t spew it’s mercury directly into my living room. That is the issue with CF mercury, the location of the contamination. What kind of lights are in your kitchen ceiling? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/23 "2011-12-16T11:45:42Z")
> [@Ignatz](#): > > What kind of lights are in your kitchen ceiling? In this home, 4 florescent tubes recessed into the ceiling + 2 IC bulbs in a covered fixture, in all others it was all IC lighting. Why? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/24 "2011-12-16T13:28:09Z")
> [@Mewl\_Dear](#): > > We got a flyer at work today that had pictures of a guys foot after he had broken one and stepped on a shard. To say it was gruesome is putting it mild. > The flyer said if you break one do not vacuum as you would spread the mercury. > My question, if you broke one on carpet would you just have to trash it or would a hepa filter work? 1. How often are you in the habit of breaking light bulbs on your carpet? 2. If you are changing light bulbs (the only reason I can think of to hold them in your hand and maybe accidentally drop and thereby break them), why in the world would you be running around barefoot instead of wearing shoes per OSHA / common sense safety rules? 3. If you have dropped a bulb on the carpet and managed to break it and you are barefoot, why would you step onto it instead of stepping carefully around and getting it cleaned up first? In other words, was alcohol involved or is the person injured too dumb to tie his own shoes? If you have broken a bulb on your carpet, you pick up the mercury and the shards, put everything into a plastic bag and seal it, and drop it off at your local hazardous waste yard. The unbroken, burnt-out bulbs you either give back to the shop that sold them - if they are required to treat them correctly - or to the hazard waste yard/ waste resources yard for proper disposal. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/25 "2011-12-16T18:02:54Z")
I never wear shoes in my house. Why would I think of putting shoes on to relamp. RE LED bulbs: they look promising and I’m tempted to try one since they’re dimmable (every socket in my house is on a dimmer) , but the color is still a little bit “off” compared to standard incandescents. I do have hope they’ll continue to improve and drop in price. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/26 "2011-12-16T18:10:17Z")
LED bulbs are going to get better and cheaper, as are CFL bulbs. And there are other technologies as well. [This company](http://www.vu1corporation.com/), for instance is developing bulbs that fires electrons at a phosphor-coated glass, which then glows. (If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the way that a CRT works.) ---
**Author:** ![Silophant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Silophant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silophant)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/27 "2011-12-16T18:17:00Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > In this home, 4 florescent tubes recessed into the ceiling + 2 IC bulbs in a covered fixture, in all others it was all IC lighting. Why? The CF stands for “Compact Fluorescent”. They’re just smaller versions of the fluorescent tubes in your kitchen. We’re saying that it’s silly to freak out about the mercury in CFLs when you’ve been using normal (mercury-containing) fluorescents in your kitchen or shop or wherever for decades. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/28 "2011-12-16T18:34:09Z")
Do LED bulbs come as bright as the old 100W incandescent bulbs? Because I have a hard time finding the new kind of bulbs that are really bright. Even the brightest CFLs don’t seem quite as bright as the old 100W ones. ---
**Author:** ![EKDS5k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c5a1d2/32.png) [@EKDS5k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EKDS5k)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/29 "2011-12-16T18:42:26Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Do LED bulbs come as bright as the old 100W incandescent bulbs? Because I have a hard time finding the new kind of bulbs that are really bright. Even the brightest CFLs don’t seem quite as bright as the old 100W ones. I found some made by Philips that are supposedly as bright as 120W incandescent bulbs (but only use 23, so I can put them in the bathroom which is only rated for 60!). I think they’re closer to proper white, though, so after I put them in everything seemed blue for a few days. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/30 "2011-12-16T18:50:49Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > The amount of Mercury in a CFL is minuscule (around 5mg). > There is a lot of FUD being spread about CFLs, and the Mercury issue is mostly blown out of proportion. > I’m all for making them mandatory - the amount of Mercury that power plants put into the environment due to the higher energy usage of incandescent lamps is far greater than the amount of Mercury in CFLs. If the whole 5 mg got into your bloodstream, that would be 5 mg in about 5 L of blood or 1 mg/L, which is over ten times the [concentration](http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/pdf/Mercury_FactSheet.pdf) at which birth defects are caused. Does the mercury put out by power plants stay vaporized, or does it accumulate in the body like it does in fish? ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/31 "2011-12-16T20:14:59Z")
> [@Mdcastleman](#): > > I never wear shoes in my house. Why would I think of putting shoes on to relamp. I didn’t know that Minnesota is that tropical. Yes, I don’t wear street shoes inside the house, but house shoes - I don’t run around barefoot. And common sense would indicate that if there is the possibility of glass breaking, wearing shoes might be a good idea. As is putting a piece of newspaper underneath, so you can pick up everything if you happen to drop the bulb. I change my bulbs once in a blue moon and never worried about breaking them. I do take the usual precaution of using a piece of cloth to screw out the old bulb and screw in the new one, because - the old one is often hot - the new one lasts longer if I don’t put fat from my fingers on the outside ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/32 "2011-12-16T20:17:32Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Do LED bulbs come as bright as the old 100W incandescent bulbs? Because I have a hard time finding the new kind of bulbs that are really bright. Even the brightest CFLs don’t seem quite as bright as the old 100W ones. Yes, some test done by consumer groups found that the lumen given on the package wasn’t the lumen output by the bulb - those were mostly the cheap imports, not the expensive Osram or Philips bulbs. But also true: it’s not only about the brightness in lumen, but also the colour temp. of the light, which should be given in thousands of Kelvin on the package (but wasn’t done until recently). Full spectrum or warmer (red-shifted) CFL bulbs cost more than the standard, blue-shifted bulbs, but give a better feeling to many people. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/33 "2011-12-16T22:45:40Z")
> [@Silophant](#): > > The CF stands for “Compact Fluorescent”. They’re just smaller versions of the fluorescent tubes in your kitchen. We’re saying that it’s silly to freak out about the mercury in CFLs when you’ve been using normal (mercury-containing) fluorescents in your kitchen or shop or wherever for decades. One critical difference is that CF is used in IC fixtures which may put them at higher risk for breakage depending on the fixture. Another is it’s quite different then to have a florescence light fixture in the kitchen as opposed to every light fixture, especially with children who need safe play areas in the house. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/34 "2011-12-17T06:14:15Z")
It’s a difference, but hardly critical. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/35 "2011-12-17T11:43:38Z")
It would be particularly amusing if the same people who bitched about getting rid of mercury thermometers were the ones who are so worried about CFLs. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/36 "2011-12-18T14:45:51Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > One critical difference is that CF is used in IC fixtures which may put them at higher risk for breakage depending on the fixture. I don’t know what those terms mean - here in Germany, light bulbs usually come in either E14 (the small ones) or E27 (the normal ones), which are [screwed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_screw) inside. How is the danger of breakage higher than with the long neon tubes? (If anything, I found those difficult to change, because they had to pressed and turned somehow). > [@](#): > > Another is it’s quite different then to have a florescence light fixture in the kitchen as opposed to every light fixture, especially with children who need safe play areas in the house. Are you telling me that in the area where your children play you let normal lamps stand around because they don’t contain mercury? Lamps are usually either hung from the ceiling, where children rarely play at, or stand on tables etc., where children could pull them down and break them. And the shards of broken glass from normal bulbs would be a danger, or getting hit in the head with the whole lamp would hurt, therefore you remove portable table lamps or standing lamps from children rooms. Are we getting to inventing reasons again? ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/37 "2011-12-18T15:53:17Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It would be particularly amusing if the same people who bitched about getting rid of mercury thermometers were the ones who are so worried about CFLs. … or if the people pushing CFLs were the ones pushing getting rid of mercury thermometers. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/38 "2011-12-18T18:58:47Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > I don’t know what those terms mean - here in Germany, light bulbs usually come in either E14 (the small ones) or E27 (the normal ones), which are [screwed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_screw) inside. How is the danger of breakage higher than with the long neon tubes? (If anything, I found those difficult to change, because they had to pressed and turned somehow). I agree, I always hate messing around with those tubes, they seem like they are so easy to break in installing or removing them. > [@](#): > > Are you telling me that in the area where your children play you let normal lamps stand around because they don’t contain mercury? Lamps are usually either hung from the ceiling, where children rarely play at, or stand on tables etc., where children could pull them down and break them. And the shards of broken glass from normal bulbs would be a danger, or getting hit in the head with the whole lamp would hurt, therefore you remove portable table lamps or standing lamps from children rooms. > > Are we getting to inventing reasons again? I would like to make the home as safe as practical, and knowing children do tend to break things. The kitchen, containing may child mangling gadgets and chemicals already is a obvious place to deter them from playing in the first place. But they are children and will play. Just because one room is hazardous by necessity is no reason to make the rest of the home that way. Unlike the kitchen, which the tubes are recessed and covered, some IC lights are not, with the bear bulbs sticking out, not everyone has the ability to swap out light fixtures either, for instance people who rent. That seems like a good reason to chose not to use CF lighting in those fixtures. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/39 "2011-12-18T19:03:56Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Unlike the kitchen, which the tubes are recessed and covered, some IC lights are not, with the bear bulbs sticking out, not everyone has the ability to swap out light fixtures either, for instance people who rent. That seems like a good reason to chose not to use CF lighting in those fixtures. If you have bears in your house, you have bigger problems to worry about than the mercury in fluorescent light bulbs. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249/40 "2011-12-18T19:05:46Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I agree, I always hate messing around with those tubes, they seem like they are so easy to break in installing or removing them. > > I would like to make the home as safe as practical, and knowing children do tend to break things. The kitchen, containing may child mangling gadgets and chemicals already is a obvious place to deter them from playing in the first place. But they are children and will play. Just because one room is hazardous by necessity is no reason to make the rest of the home that way. > > Unlike the kitchen, which the tubes are recessed and covered, some IC lights are not, with the bear bulbs sticking out, not everyone has the ability to swap out light fixtures either, for instance people who rent. That seems like a good reason to chose not to use CF lighting in those fixtures. Shatterproof CFLs are [available](http://www.goodmart.com/products/glasscoat-18w-4100k-shatterproof-twist-compact-fluorescent-lamp-gss45123.htm). Now what are you going to complain about? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-energy-lightbulbs/606249.md?page=3)