CFL is one Crispy Critter

Sounds like a "Lights of America" product. All their stuff is NOT "made in America" (guess where). I won't accept their stuff anymore, at any price, even for free.

Chinese F***ing Lamps (CFL)are not my thing. The paper ones work great.

If you are going to return the bulbs to the store roof where purchased, PLEASE be environmentally responsible and wrap it in several of their plastic bags to avoid it's breakage during transport.

Here is how to get rid of the bulbs without the environmental problems: toss the failed bulbs onto the roof of the store that won't take them back! Of course, you will need to do that when there is nobody watching, and you should probably wear a gorilla mask for the security cameras. But then when they need to be disposed of, eventually, it will be the store owners problem, they will need to fund the hazmat operation, perhaps they may decide that accepting returns was smarter and cheaper

Here is how to get rid of the bulbs without the environmental problems: toss the failed bulbs onto the roof of the store that won't take them back! Of course, you will need to do that when there is nobody watching, and you should probably wear a gorilla mask for the security cameras. But then when they need to be disposed of, eventually, it will be the store owners problem, they will need to fund the hazmat operation, perhaps they may decide that accepting returns was smarter and cheaper

So far I have installed 2 CFL bulbs in my house, and they had a 50% infant mortality rate. DOA.

Help is available in a non mercury EMF filtered bulb - the long life 10,000 hr X bulb available at www.xediadirect/support. Rather pricy but never overheats and uses less energy than a CFL.

Some years ago, I had a name-brand CFL burn up and almost catch on fire. It was side-mounted in an open fixture. I just by chance happened to be in the room when it happened, laying on the floor underneath the fixture (talking on the phone). So, I have been a little leary of them ever since. That said, I have quite a number of them in service in my new home. Many have been in service more than five years. And just one failure. I stocked up on these inexpensive lamps when they were on sale, so I don't anticipate problems with them for many years.
As far as mercury goes, we have been throwing out linear fluorescents for decades, with little concern for the much larger quantity of mercury in them. I suspect there is far less mercury going into landfills today, despite the proliferation of CFL's.

Has anybody looked into whether CFLs will interfere with Med-Alert buttons sometimes worn by elderly and infirm people?

I've also trouble with CFL affecting my X-10.
I've had NO PROBLEM for years, and then I installed a CFL and the trouble started. Toke months to realize the cause. I replaced the culprit with a non-Chinese Crap CFL and all is good.

I've also trouble with CFL affecting my X-10.
I've had NO PROBLEM for years, and then I installed a CFL and the trouble started. Toke months to realize the cause. I replaced the culprit with a non-Chinese Crap CFL and all is good.

Yes The Home Depot will take back old CFL's I work there PT and it is no problem at all.
I have had a chance to talk to many customers about their experience with CFL's and from what I have heard it seems the cheaper ones do go out very early (I am happy to say the HD brand seems to work fairly well). My guess is the cheap electronics in the ballast, like the picture shown that started this whole thread. Fluorescense lights have always had an issue with starting in cold weather, it's the nature of the beast really. I have not seen one burn up but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. I am so waiting for LED technology to get good enough for public use.

I've only had one CFL burn out prematurely; otherwise, I've had pretty good luck with them so far -- except using them on lamps controlled by X-10. The CFLs are just too noisy with the X-10 communications to operate properly.
Looking forward to affordable LED Bulbs in the hopefully near future.

I have problems usiong CFLs in my porches (front and back). It get so cold, that if I turn them on and off (just one cycle per day), they will burn out within two months. Turns out that turning them on when it's really cold really shortens their life. So, I just leave them on 24hrs/day. Beats having to spend all that money replacing them all the time. Cheaper to just leave them on - costs me about $1.25 a month to have them both on all the time.

The New Yorker Magazine cover once showed the Statue of Liberty's torch now a CFL. Europe has found that incandescent lamps cannot be outlawed because often they can do some jobs better than other technology. If only the millions of dollars spent on apparent misleading advertising for "not ready for prime time" LEDs were lavished on incandescent research, we would have two practical lighting tools.

We tried a CFL in an exterior enclosed light fixture and within two days we had the fire department here to help locate the strong burnt odor. They found no heat sources in our walls but on the way out the front door noticed the odor was coming from the CFL. I also have a house full of down-facing ceiling floodlight fixtures and dread CFL only day.

While I think that the self ballasted (screw in) CFLs are just a stopgap measure -- the real answer is the plug-in ones with a separate ballast (like I have in my post light), I have to say that I have had good success with GE and Philips branded ones.
I think that the amalgam ones (which are marked RoHS compliant) addresses the Mercury issues.
However, there are places that the screwins aren't suitable such as fully enclosed fixtures and ceiling cans. For those applications, permanent conversion (replacing the socket and adding a ballast -- as I did with my postlight) is the only solution.

There have been a number of documented fires, and bulbs burning up. Even GE branded.
Here is a picture of one of them, that was turned off before the flames caught anything else on fire:
www.molalla.net/~leeper/ccflbul2.jpg

Yes, the CFLs I\’ve installed mounted facing down (even CFL reflectors made to be mounted facing down) fail rapidly in enclosed ceiling light fixtures.

See www.gelighting.com/na/business_lighting/faqs/fixtures.htm#3

Wish I\’d know this before I got rid of all my incandescent flood lights.

Hope you guys that are breaking your CFL\’s have read the EPA guidelines for cleaning them up! I also really hope that no small children are in your homes is you\’ve broken so many.

Over the years I\’ve replaced some of our standard incandescent bulbs with CFL\’s and have been very disappointed with them. In some cases they haven\’t lasted a month, and these weren\’t the cheap no-name brands. I live in a newer manufactured home in a mobile home park and I believe the old wiring in the park causes power surges that causes the CFL\’s to burn up. I\’ve had similar issues with electronics, like VCR\’s, that have died prematurely but those I have the option to put a surge protector in place. I\’ve had better luck with CFL\’s in some fixtures over others but overall it\’s not worth the extra cost. Guess I\’ll need to get a geek to install a whole house surge arrestor if I want to use CFL\’s.

I have three conventional single light outdoor fixtures that light the front of my house. I used to have to replace an incandescent at least one a month. With CFL\’s it is more like one every two or three years. I\’ve put them in other ceiling locations and have had better life than incandescents. Maybe I\’m just lucky, maybe I used to buy lousy incandescents, but the CFL\’s seem to work fine for me.

We have been using CFLs for close to 10 years. We have 47 CFL between the house and greenhouse and almost all are bulb down–the largest is a 2 year old 45W (250W equivalent) in my closet. I\’ve managed to break every one I\’ve had to replace but I\’ve never had one fail yet.

CFL\’s are another example of our Wal-Mart-ized world. The first CFL\’s were expensive and they lasted almost forever. Now, they\’re much cheaper, in every way. I\’ve been replacing incandescents with CFLs as they burn out, and one I installed less than a year ago in a (downward) bathroom fixture glows a dim purple. And like everyone else, I don\’t want to throw the Hg into the landfill - but Lowe\’s and Wal-Mart won\’t take the dead ones back. *SIGH*

We\’ve been using CFL\’s for as long as they\’ve been offered. The only incandescent bulbs left in our home are in the oven and refrigerator. Our older model CFL\’s gradually were replaced with the newer brighter models and we\’ve experienced occasional thermal failure. In our area you can recycle them in many hardware stores, so that isn\’t a problem. I prefer LED\’s and have installed them as close task lights, but they aren\’t yet a good fit as area lights. For area lights CFL\’s are still the best for energy consumption and they\’ve helped our solar generator to satisfy 90% of our electrical consumption during the past 6 years. I\’ll be happy though when newer generation LED\’s can provide that performance at a better price point.

I understand that Home Depot will take dead CFL\’s no matter where they came from. I too have seen the high failure rate with the older CFL\’s which was very frustrating. They keep improving them, but the heat issue depending on mounting orientation is a negative. I think that LED\’s are the long term solution, but they need to get cheaper.

I have replaced most of the lights in my house w/CFL\’s. If sized properly (i.e. a ceiling fan w/4 7w candelabra bulbs) for the application they tend to work well, I have them in outside & inside locations, and the only 2 places I have had real problems are in bathroom light fixtures.

Another thing to consider is whole fixture replacement in difficult locations, using \”U-tube\” bulbs w/ separate ballasts, they tend to work well & almost instant on w/ near full brightness.

But in \”Tales From the Cube\” I thought there was always a happy ending…

old post I know, but to add to the discussion: I have about 25 CFL's used only outdoors that I bought in 2001. All are still working fine, maybe a little dimmer now then before and take longer to reach operating brightness, but I've only had to replace one of these in the last 8 years. My indoor bulbs are standard incandescents, floods and spots and I'm always replacing 12-15 of these bulbs every few years.
So in my opinion, the CFLs work, and I like them for outdoors on the house and hard to reach places that I just don't want to change too often.

I have replaced all the bulbs in my house (26 of them) with 24 watt CFL\’s, and have had no problems with them in over two years. I have 3 ceiling fans with them in also with no problems. There is a chance that the bulb that Margery Connor has was one made in china, and or just defective, and that can happen with anything. I would of liked to have seen the exact application she used the bulb in, because there are different CFL bulbs designed for each application.

A few years back when, CFLs were new, I installed a number of them in my house. A close lightening strike caused a power spike that destroyed all of them. All the incandescent bulbs survived.

The technology to remove Hg from the flue gas of coal fired plants does exist but as our new administration will be shutting down, coal, oil, gas and nuclear plants and the coal industry in general and converting everything over to wind and solar within the next few years we shouldn’t have any problems. I recommend buying warm clothes for winter and light clothes for summer.

Of course Congress has decided to make the incandescent bulbs illegal shortly.

Besides all the CFLs are made in China so their manufacturing won’t strain our industrial capacity.

But then what can you expect from a bunch of lawyers with no engineering, science or common sense.

I believe our only hope is LEDs.

I use quite a few of the open type CFLs and I have had a few failures, down-pointing, up pointing, and sideways. Up-pointing in a large outside lamp in the cold months as well. I suppose that heat is a problemsometimes, BUT there is an issue in that a product really should be designed for the application that it will be used for. If they must only be used in open fixtures, lamp-upward, then say so on the labeling that we canread before we purchase. The cheap-trash units being marketed in many stores are likely to give all CFL lighting a bad reputation, that is true.

But the problem is that many of them are NOT designed for the application. That is unfortunate.

I just chuckle when I see stuff like this. We are browbeaten over the head to do the \”right thing\” and change from incandescents to CFLs … at the risk of losing our homes? And polluting the environment with Hg due to the high failure rate of these things? I can\’t wait for the 1st lawsuit from all this !! This is exactly what happens when politicians get try to get involved with technology.

I had used CFLs since before the hype, but I had a number of failures, I believe all of which were downward facing, and some in ceiling fans. Two of the failures not only smelled hot, but were smoking and extremey hot. I have since gotten rid of almost all of them, especially in the ceiling fans. A few dollars saved in electricity is not worth starting a fire in my house

The reflector-type CFLs do seem to last longer than the regular type in down-pointing apps. Further evidence of heat being the culprit: Outdoor CFLs, used mainly at night–all night, have always had a longer service life than the equivalent bulbs (from the same box) used indoors.

As for using an infrared thermometer to check temperatures of circuit components, I have found wild discrepencies between physical thermocouple measurements and IR readings; often, IR thermometers are calibrated for a different emissivity.

My basement lights start out bright and slowly turn to yellow and the almost orange. Then they die. Some fixtures of similar design do better than others. Places where the light is left on last longer then places where the light is turned on and off. The bulbs last the longest in the garage where they are almost constantly on, but exposed for more of the element of cold. I hope LEDs will be coming out with lower cost bulbs soon……

160 degrees at the base … this temperature probably exceeds the maximum temperature limit of the insulation on wire in the CFL base. If so, these things seem like a fire hazzard.

Initially, I was an early adopter and proponent of CFL\’s. I replaced most of my house lights with them (at considerable expense). However, over the last couple of years I have become very dissapointed with the pathetic service life of the CFL\’s in my house, so much so that I have switched back to reliable old incandescent bulbs in many applications.

LED\’s may be an option in time. Prices have to drop significantly, and lumen output has to rise, before LED\’s will ever become widely used.

A different Technical publication showed that the cheaper CFL have cheaper rated parts that do not withstand the temperature, or are rated *at* the BVR. TurtleWax commented that he added holes to the base of his(an extreme?). I had problem with no-name CFLs, or close-outs, but the name brand seem to work. I guess that you get what you pay.

After having 2 downward mounted CFL\’s fail within 2 hrs use, I decided to prove that it was a thermal problem. I simply drilled a neat pattern of small holes along the base and presto the lamps are still working 2 weeks later. These were a reputable brand too which go to show you are \’lucky\’ if you get what you pay for.

I have about 30 down light CFLs in my house (BR30 floods, if you\’re wondering). In one year, I have replaced ONE. Nearly all of the bulbs in my house are CFL, and there have been several other premature failures. Still, all in all the CFLs are holding up quite well.

EnviroRealist,

The mercury in all bulbs meeting ROHS regulations

is less than 5mg. In countries where a substantial fraction of electrical generation

is from coal, the extra electricity used to power conventional bulbs will cause more mercury to be spattered around from that

in the coal than would be released from

throwing the CFL away and unlike CFL\’s there

is no easy way to catch this pollution.

The mercury levels around some coal fired

generators is already creeping up to danger levels.

Each of these short lived CFLs contain 5mg to 10g of mercury. Almost every non-engineer I have talked to just throws these into the garbage. How long before all of our water sources are contaminated with mercury because people are afraid of carbon dioxide?

Speaking of ceiling fan applications, I have seen a case where the darn thing overheated to the point of allowing the tube to sag. A disaster was averted by the homeowner smelling \”an electrical hot smell\” drawing their attention to the smoking unit. I wonder how resilent these bulbs are to surges since no one has surge suppressors on the ceiling lights and only a handful of geeks like me have a whole house surge arrestor.

Have seen similar, some CFLs do not last long in ceiling fan applications where they are at about a 45 degree angle. Still, their low power consumption is worthwhile even with the high failure rate.

One problem is with disposal. My community authorities have no guidelines or recycling facilities for disposal, and I hate to throw mercury into the landfills. So the defunct bulbs are sitting in a box.

There is a 2 year manufacturers warranty. A joke. Sure, as if I\’m going to hang on to every receipt and add serial numbers to each lamp so I can determine when it was placed in service. Maybe will just accumulate the duds, then when get a couple dozen will apply to have them all replaced under warranty.