I'm really getting fed up with the false lifetime claims of Compact Fluorescent Lighting manufacturers. On average, I've been seeing these bulbs fail at half their published life spans. Maybe we need a class action suit to force companies to publish the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) hours for these bulbs in the real world.
The issue isn't with fluorescent technology. In my last home, an industrial loft that was previously a paper bag factory, I took possession of two dozen large fluorescent ceiling fixtures. I could tell from the dust on those bulbs that they were already years old. Nevertheless, every single one of them was still doing its job three years later when I replaced them with ceiling floods. They KNOW how to build a long-life CFL.
The issue is with the crap ballasts and starters in these things. Among the worst brands are big box no-names and Phillips. I only buy Westinghouse and Sylvania now, but the jury's still out on them too.
However, yesterday I saw the future and it's coming a lot quicker than I'd thought: the LED. If there's any justice in the universe, the 8000 hour CFL you buy today will be a dinosaur when it's supposed to expire.
Or maybe it will.
Yesterday, I went to Lowes to replace an LED lighting strip that had blown out a year after I bought it... about 49,000 hours shy of its 50,000 hour lifetime claim. The problem was an exploded 10 uF 50V capacitor in the circuitry, not the LED. Sound familiar? Once again, the bulb was willing but the electronics were weak.
I bought these LED strips for accent lighting on a tall shelf in the bathroom. I didn't mind the characteristically dim and bluish light because it was what I wanted for that shelf. It's supposed to be night lighting.
Nevertheless, I was angry at lighting manufacturers for leveraging the "green" argument only to suck the green out of our wallets with false reliability claims. As I was sorting through Lowes' disheveled rack of lighting strips I was ranting to another shopper about it and not paying much attention to what I was actually buying.
As Karen and I were heading back in the car she asked to see my receipt. The bill seemed a bit high but I'd bought a lot of stuff, including a Black and Decker leaf vacuum, which started making noise and smoking ten minutes into its first use this morning... sheesh, I can't catch a break. The LED strip cost $59, or about double the one I was replacing. And it only had five LEDs versus the twenty or so in the other strip.
I decided to return it but was curious what made this twice as good as the one I had. When I turned it on I was unprepared for how bright and white the light was. If I had another one of these strips I could almost get rid of the ceiling lighting in the bathroom altogether. It was like 60 watts of incandescent lighting drawing all of 5 watts.
What a difference a year's made in consumer LED technology.
But it seems like we're paying drastically more for lighting in order to save a little on the power bill but which is costing us far more in the long run because many of these lighting alternatives don't practically outlive a standard incandescent light bulb by a heckuva lot.
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Several years ago when they
Several years ago when they first started coming out I bought a pack for exterior lighting. I paid $6 for 2 bulbs and both failed in a matter of months. I didn't buy another one until this year when the price dropped to about $1 a bulb. Still, they only last as long as incandescent most of the time. I have a 3-foot long florescent fixture in my utility room that has the same bulbs in it when I bought the house 6 years ago.
The CFLs are crap compared to the traditional florescent bulbs.
Yeah, I'm left with the
Yeah, I'm left with the almost unavoidable conclusion that manufacturers are deliberately dumbing down CFLs so they'll expire a lot sooner than they should. From a marketing perspective, why would a company want to produce a bulb that will have an impact on its sales next year? Granted, price competition almost requires them to cut some corners but I think the FTC has got to step in and force manufacturers to back their longevity claims with a warranty and/or to publish the practical MTBF of their products.
My experience with CFL's
We've slowly been replacing all our lights with CFL's and so far I've been pleased with the longevity. I don't recall needing to replace any yet and some are years old. But I still haven't found the perfect exchange. They are either too blinding white or dim yellow. Try out "Bright Effects". That is my CFL brand of choice right now, (and they seem to last). Any experience with dim-able CFL's?
I have several dimmable CFLs
They're holding up okay but it's only been a year. They're Westinghouse. They work pretty well although the dimming "ramp" isn't as progressive as an incandescent bulb.
The brand seems to make a large difference in longevity. Four years ago I replaced all the can lights in my basement shop (all 13 of them) with Phillips CFLs. All but two have had to be replaced at least once since. I've seen the same quality problem with Phillips bulbs in general, even the 12v brake light bulbs in my car. The generic Costco CFLs have also shown themselves to have short lives.
I think CFLs are just a bridging technology to LED. As I said, I'm very impressed with the brightness and color level of that LED strip light. Granted, it's pricey but I expect that LEDs bulbs will probably drop 50-75% in price within the next couple of years. I also expect that within the next twenty years new houses will be built with dedicated low voltage lighting circuits along side 120VAC so there will be no need for the cost of stepdown transformers in the LED bulbs.