Do you believe compact fluorescent lamps (cfl) light bulbs last as long as the manufacturer claims they should?
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12 comments:
I do. That's all I use in my home.
From personal experience no!
And you definately don't want to use with a dimmer switch.
Yes. Have two that I used to replace every 6 months still going after 4 years. At another place have 8 bulbs outside that I was constantly replacing; haven't changed one since we switched a couple years ago.
The answer is....NO! I have lots of experience as I have a facility with slightly more than 1,600 CFLs. They were expensive as hell but I assumed I would recover the cost by lower electricity use. That was fine for a while until they started failing MUCH sooner than advertised. Two months ago I ripped them out and went back to incandescent. Yes, you cans still buy them if you know whereto look.
no
Nothing last as long as any manufacture claims.
Some manufactures give a life time warranty. Most of these only stay in business for a short period. Some change their corp. name and keep on trucking with your money.
Good old deregulated non-enforced laws.
My experience with these has been mixed. The cheaper ones are junk, and don't last diddly-squat.
Some of the more expensive ones have lasted longer than normal incandescent bulbs, but the jury's still out on whether they are living up to manufacturer's claims.
one thing I have noticed recently is many of them are now advertising much shorter rated average lifetimes than they used to! (5000 hours VS 10,000 or more)
I prefer to skip them altogether for LEDs. But I'm skeptical as to whether THOSE will last as long as advertised as well.
My side table and small lamps do last longer, but kitchen pot lights and one in the bathroom never do.
I switched my entire house over about 6-7 years ago. There was a sale at Giant, where they were like .99 a piece. I have yet to have to replace any light.
They don't last as long as they should. Sometimes I get a good one, but it's certainly not even a majority of them.
CFLs also contain mercury. It's a PITA to recycle them. I bet 90%+ of them end up in the landfill which is horrible. The best I can do is save them in a sealed plastic bucket until it's full, then I will try to find a place to recycle them. A special trip for 1 bulb at a time would be wasteful.
And have you ever looked into getting a warranty replacement on a CFL? First you have to save the receipt. Then you have to pay shipping both ways on the old and new bulb. It's cheaper to just buy a new CFL, which you would have to do anyway if you expect to have spares available at any time.
Personally, I don't think the lower energy use outweighs the poor quality of light and environmental hazards that these lights present.
No, but unlike 1pm says they do emit better light.
At my place of employment, CFL's were not even considered. We went to LED Tubes. More light at a far cheaper rate of power used. So far, I have only seen 3 tube sets fail in 3 years. That is out of over 400 tubes.
The CFL also give me a headache. I can see the flicker rate on them if they fall below 60 cycles per second.
Absolutely NOT!
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