Certainly don’t offer me any extended life. Seems like at best, they last as long as regular ones.
I’m gonna turn in several to Sylvania to test their warranty.
Any better ones out there I should consider?
Certainly don’t offer me any extended life. Seems like at best, they last as long as regular ones.
I’m gonna turn in several to Sylvania to test their warranty.
Any better ones out there I should consider?
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Replies
bump
Never tried them. The couple of times I've been tempted they were so big they didn't fit the lamp, so I took them back.
GE might be a bit better....
I used to sell all of them. The manufacturer is pretty much counting on people not saving their receipt to get a refund if they don't last.
Whatever you do, don't buy the store brands, they are really CHEAP Chinese carp as opposed to regular Chinese carp.
Lefty-This tagline removed due to the prevelance of the humor impaired.
Certainly don't offer me any extended life. Seems like at best, they last as long as regular ones.
My first (and probably last) Sylvania 3-way CFL died tonight, after about 3 months of light (no pun intended) duty. At $9.00+, it certainly did not come close to paying its own way. Worse yet, I had to buy a longer harp for the table lamp so that the bulb could fit.
Of course, I'm sure that I don't have the receipt or the package...
Bob
I have found no extended life in any CFL bulb except some off brand early 60watt ones that are 2 long U shaped loops (vs coils)
i buy them by the 100's and i see a huge failure rate in the 23watt (100watt) coil types.. many only lasting about 2 months... the 13watt (60watt) seem to be a bit better...
but those old U shaped 60watt ones I have many that have been in service for over 2 years... some 3 years... some have failed but many are still going strong...
I have good luck with 130v normal 100watt bulbs @ 110v gives about 80watts of lite but they will last 3-5 years where we use them...
p
The standard (no-name brand from HD) CFLs I've used seem to last a long time. I don't know absolutely, but at least 4x as long as regular incandescents, which is enough to make them worthwhile even if they didn't save electricity.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Good topic. Yesterday DW was watching some program on HGTV where this real estate agent/green expert (he he he) was making idiotic statements like "CFLs last 10 times" longer and "Home buyers say they will pay 25% more for green homes" - not saying that these people aren't out there, but making an across the board statement like that was just plain stupid unless you really focus on the word "say". BTW - maybe she had some good points but I only watched for 2 minutes...
Anyway, my experience with CFLs life has been less than satisfying. Has there been any studies done on CFL brand lifetime by some data collecting entity like Consumer Reports? BTW - I don't care for CR, but for something like light bulb life it would seem to be a pretty objective topic. Of course by the time you wait 5 years I'm sure that exact model of bulb would no longer be sold....
BTW I wonder if the pined based CFLs are any better? You don't see them commonly yet but I have put them in some ES homes. Obviously the regular 4' tubes with pins give good lifetime...
I'm relatively confident that commercial building maintenance types pay attention to the pin-base unit lifetimes, since lamp replacement is a big expense in commercial properties. Probably some reports out there if you knew which journals to search.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
yea - but, not that I've looked, but aren't all most those gonna be linear tubes rather than CFLs?
Nope. Lots of office buildings now use CFLs. Look up in any commercial can of recent vintage and you'll see a CFL.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
the deal with any tube and.. sure it holds true for CFL bulbs... is that they are 100% they day you install them and they go downhill from there... as a small commercial landlord I buy 1000's of 4ft tubes per year.. we don't wait for them to die to replace them... it's always been my understanding that near dead tubes are hard on the ballast... we buy a name brand bulb in 30tube bulk packs from big box stores with a 10% discount so each bulb costs about 80cents... we never replace just one bulb in an office... we replace the WHOLE office space... it costs more to go out there than it does to replace 40-60 bulbs...i see nowhere near the life in CFL that i see in tubes... PLUS people steal the CFL bulbs if they are in a public space... happens all the time stairways and bathrooms... bulbs will be gone a few times a month
p
Yep, I can remember when I worked at WPAFB they had the 1074th Relamping Group or some such that did relamping full time on base. They opened the fixtures, took off and washed the lenses, replaced the bulbs, and they had an electrician along to replace bad ballasts.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Yes, lots of consumer studies done. The U shaped pin style bulbs last many years but are expensive and harder to find. I've used
CFLs from HD for years now and I'm very satisfied. We moved into this house 3 years ago in Sept and I changed all the bulbs for CFLs then. I just bought my second 4 pack, $8.99 a pack, of new bulbs for replacement of burned out bulbs. I use them in open recessed cans, closed recessed cans, ceiling fans, table lamps and outside lights. I have no idea whether they've saved me any electricity although I don't see how they couldn't but I do know I'm not replacing those $4.99 60 watt Halogen bulbs in my cans every 4 or 5 months.
I've got two bulbs that need replacing now -- haven't replaced any in 6 months, I'm thinking. Used to be, with incandescents, I had to replace 3-4 bulbs every 2-3 weeks.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
My experience too. I'm writing the date on the base of any bulbs I replace now so in the future I can see exactly how well they are lasting. About 10 years ago, when CFL's were still fairly new and expensive I had added a second floor remodel to a fancy woman's clothing store. The downstairs was small, about 350 square feet and had 55, 100 watt floods on tracks. The store was an oven, with the air down to 60 it still stayed at 85 or so and had been that way for years. We replaced the incandescent floods with CFL floods and the place turned into a walk in cooler! They had also had a problem with color rendering so I used daylight CFL's and solved that problem too. I was a hero that day!
I work for a condo complex where we have used CFL's in over 100 photocell controlled outdoor lights for close to 10 years now. We use the cheapest 60W equivalent from HD or Menards. We normally mark the installation date. The date is usually pretty well faded by the time that they fail, but they generally fail at the 5 year mark, often a little longer. Assuming they run 12 hours per day on average, this is about 22,000 hours, much longer than the 8,000 to 10,000 hours rated on the package. At $1.50 or less, I am not complaining.Excluding unusual weather events or power failures, they do operate with only one on/off cycle per day. I do believe that most of the package ratings are for 3 hours per day for 5 years, the same number of years I get running 12 hours per day and mine are exposed to weather extremes of warm summer nights down to below zero in the winter.Dimmable and three way CFL's may also have a shorter life as they try to operate the tube a less than optimal condition to vary the light output.