Rising Energy Costs Illuminate Surging Fluorescent Bulb Market

[jpak]

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9921

AURORA, Ohio — Julie Grassley wanted to do something for the environment and save money, so she replaced many of her Edison-inspired incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps, which are enjoying robust growth in an high-cost energy era.

Grassley has heard all the gripes on fluorescent: slow to light up, not very bright and expensive. She doesn't buy those arguments any more.

"They are bright and they come right on," said Grassley, 37, of Stowe. "Initially they are more expensive, but they last seven to 10 years longer."

The lighting industry has created a brighter, cheaper compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, that seem to be catching on among homeowners determined to trim high energy expenses. CFL use has climbed from 2.3 percent of the bulb market in 1999 to 5.6 percent this year.

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[phantom power]

1. Maybe I'm just not buying the right brand...

but I've been somewhat disappointed with CFLs. Within a year, many of them start to flicker quite a bit, and they haven't been lasting me more than 3 years or so, some of them less than that.

I keep trying. My wife calls me "light bulb man." I'm a family joke.

[jpak]

3. I bought my first CF bulbs back in 1990

The were huge, weighed a ton and did this clinking-flicker thing when I turned them on (and they cost me $23 a piece).

But every one of them still work...

:)

I have a bunch of Panasonic Gen 4 bulbs and only one them has failed (after a move - I think I dropped it) and I've had them for many years.

Maine has $2 a rebate on CF bulbs.

But the same CF bulb I bought at a Home Despot in Florida costs exactly $2 more than the same bulbs I bought at a Home Despot in Augusta Maine.

Go figure...

[phantom power]

4. I'll keep an eye out for the panasonics.

Light-bulb-man rises again!

[Kolesar]

7. Lights of America products stink

I have had great results with TCF and Feit. Go with Philips for dimmable. The prices for "bulk" at Costco or Home Despot are great. You can get 4 or 6 15 to 20 Watt CFLs for about $12.

[skids]

5. It may be your power quality.

Something may be up with the power quality in your house. Though they aren't yet as efficient as CF bulbs, you may want to keep an eye on the LED bulb market and maybe buy a couple as toys. With breakthroughs in nanodots, there will probably be a LED solution rivaling CF bulbs for efficiency in a few years.

http://pda.physorg.com/lofi-news-light-quantum-dots_7421.html

[phantom power]

6. Well, I can assure you our power quality isn't superb.

I had multiple hardware failures with my computers before I protected them with AVR power supplies. I don't know if it's so bad that it would goof up a CFL's ballast, but maybe.

[happyslug]

12. I used LCD lights to replace Incandescents lights in my Exit Signs

Thus I drop from using 35 Watt per sign per hour to 1 watt per sign per hour. Given I had six signs that is 210 watts replaced by 6 watts (And being Exit signs on 24 hours a day). It was a HUGE savings and the LCDs gave better light to the Exit signs. It was cheaper to replace the lights inside the Exit signs than buy new LCD exit lights so that is how I went and they worked out nicely.

As to Fluorescents I replaced ALL of the lights in my place and ended up with a $80 Electric Bill (and that was running Two Air Conditioners and three Refrigerators and Adding three outside Florescent lights). It was a Huge saving for the almost $300 a mont I had been paying.

Basically were you need to project light Fluorescent lights are the best to use today, but if you want just light something up (a sign, an Christmas tree, a figurine etc) LCDs are even Cheaper but have much poorer ability to project light (And the Halogen and other incandescent lights are the best a spotlighting or projecting lights for a distance but at much higher electric usage compared to Fluorescents and LCDs).

[hatrack]

9. One point - how often do you turn them off and on in the course of a day?

That can seriously eat up CFL life expectancy - as in to a "mere" two or three years.

We haven't gone totally CFL, but we're about 70%. LEDs also look pretty cool - even more efficient.

[phantom power]

10. Some of them might have been cycled pretty frequently.

[megatherium]

11. I've had good luck with GE bulbs

except the most recent one I bought makes a slight buzzing sound. But I like their color, they're yellower than other brands, more like incancescents. (I think you're supposed to look for color temperature ratings on bulbs; higher-temperature means bluer in color.)

But I bought three bulbs of some off-brand at Home Depot, and two failed in two months. I only buy name brands now.

[InvisibleTouch]

2. I replaced all of my incandescents a few years ago.

It's really nice to have the smaller-sized fluorescent bulbs available that will fit in any ordinary light socket, and they're not that expensive anymore either, especially if you keep watch for sales. The only downside, if you can even call it that, is that they do take a fraction of a second to light up when you flip the switch. It took me months to stop thinking that the bulb had burned out if it didn't come on right away - especially if it was the middle of the night/dead of morning and I was still half asleep. But now it's fine, and I'm glad I did it.

[JohnWxy]

8. I replaced all the incandescant bulbs with CFLs. I'm not sure if they

last as long as they claim but they do last longer than incandescants. Yeah, they kind of light up like gas lights :), but I can live with that. I'm hoping I am helping reduce electricity demand a little bit.