Letters to the Editor
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Minnesota and Baby its COLD outsidde
Greetings
Here on the Tundra, I use CFL indoors anywhere I don't want to climb a ladder and relamp, the long life being an issue BUT
Outside they just don't work here, its too damn cold even with those built in heaters..
Indoors, with I/3 of our electric generated by Atomics, and with the heat from the incandesents inside the building envelope defering NatGas usage - Seems that the incandesents have some advantage here in the frozen north
Now about those CFL heaters?
How much do THEY skew the CFL/Incandesent arguments?
Because without the heaters, outdoor CFL usage is strictly a summer fling!
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
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One problem with flourescents
My niece has skin lupus. The lights in her school make make the skin on her face crack and rupture. The school has had to bring incandescent lights into her room to alleviate the problem. They are going to have to buy filters to cut out the UV. Fluorescents emit more UV then the Sun. That can't be a good thing.
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The lighting nazis
I'm 67 and I've tried using 200 watt CFL's to read by, and found them not as bright or as easy to read by, as a 200 watt tungsten bulb. I also switched one on one time and had it catch fire at the base, shooting out flames, and I had to unplug it and grab the base of the lamp, and rush it outside before it caught the shade and the house on fire.
I lucked out being there when it happened. I'll be stocking up on tungstens to use until I become a criminal.
"When Tungsten is outlawed, only outlaws will have Tungsten", to borrow a phrase from the NRA.
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Rev Z thats the "Heater"
Greetings
Rev Z I had the identical issue with a 200 watt CFL overheating, on mine the smell alerted me as the paint scorched on the fixture.
Turns out (per my electrician who installed the new fixtures) the CFL ballest in the "collar" below the light bulb is the 'hot spot' and this is opposite the incandescent bulb where the "globe" is the hottest portion. Thus fixtures designed for standard bulbs are just 'backward' when it comes to air flow to cool the hottest parts of the CFL
Two thoughts -- use an 'indoor only' CFL and that won't have the small heater needed to keep it operating outdoors and also check out the design of fixtures to maximize airflow around the BASE of the CFL
The overheating is not a small thing but among those safety issues we all discover with a large scale roll out...
Plus as I posted earlier, I'd be fascinated to know how those ballast heaters play in the energy usage life cycle since they are essential in cold weather usage of CFL
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
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Autism & fluorescents
In addition to the negative effects noticed by migraine sufferers, I have to add here that people with autism are severely affected by the wave pattern of fluorescent bulbs. I'm an autism therapist and one of the most successful modifications we make in classrooms for autistic children is to bring in incandescent lights. The kids open up and concentrate better, stim less, work longer.
Forcing people to use the fluorescents is discrimination against a disabled population with no political voice.
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CFLs don't work in my house
I have tried, repeatedly, to switch from the old light bulbs to the newer, greener, happier ones, but the blow anywhere from 2 hours after putting them in, to 48. I haven't had a CFL last more than two days here. Incandescent--no problem they have a perfectly normal lifespan. So what do I do when there's no more incandescents? Sit around in the dark? Or I could change my light bulbs every two days which doesn't sound terribly green to me.
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Tibbi_Sunshine
Sounds like you have an electrical problem that you should have checked. You may have surge problems or shorts in your system.
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pinksugar & migrane sufferers
I live with someone who gets migraines from fluorescents. The kind you see in offices and schools. She has NO problem with the CFLs in our home. The flicker is at a much higher rate and is undetectable by humans. If you could detect the flicker from these, you'd also be unable to watch movies or television because the frame rate is lower on both and the images wouldn't move smoothly.
The "wave pattern" is completely different for CFLs.
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Better CFL Bulbs
I would love to use CFL's. Unfortunately, what is readily available on the market is totally inadequate if you are past 35 and the rods and cones in your retina have started to require brighter light.
The industry needs to make two changes to what they place as primary offerings in the marketplace:
1.) Make DAYLIGHT spectrum CFL's
2.) Make 42-watt and above(daylight spectrum) widely available. [The 23-watt CFL's that claim to be equivalent to 100-watt incandescent are probably closer to 60-watt incandescent in actual usage situations. The 42-watt CFL (Claims to be 150-watt equiv.) in my bedside lamp is still not nearly as bright as the 100-watt incandescent in my husband's bedside lamp, even when the incandescent is near the end of its useful life and has dimmed appreciably itself.]
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I love CFL's but...
I think they are great, I think the light is more like daylight and they last longer and cost less. All the other issues people mention about them are unheard of to me. HOWEVER I just installed a ceiling fan and light in one room, a chandelier in another room and reading headboard lamps in the bedroom and I want all these lights to be dim-able and CFL's aren't. Any word on when that'll be fixed?
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There are more CFLs than folks realize
There are dimmable CFLs. There are CFLs that work in the cold. There are CFLs that have very white light and lots of it. There are CFLs that are very reliable. There are CFLs that don't emit radio noise.
The trouble is that you have to look for them, and often find them by experiment. A lot of the info you really want isn't always on the package.
What's really needed isn't a ban on incandescents; it's an education/information requirement for CFLs that answers those questions clearly.