Anyone else hate the new light bulbs?

[sixdogs]

Maybe I missed a thread on this but the new light bulbs are terrible. I sort-of gave in and figured what the heck, I could use a bulb that lasts "forever". Well, forever turned out to be not very long and it went out. Plus, the power was so low I could hardly see.

Maybe it was a fluke so I tried more of the bulbs and have not have gone the distance with any or many of them. They don't seem to last much longer--if any at all--and the low light produced means you need two or three of them to get the light you used to. Surely that must equal the energy used of one of the earlier bulbs.

Now, I really do like the old fashioned florescent bulbs for their cool operating temps and longevity but something seems to have been lost in the translation to a light bulb. Maybe there is some newer technology I am missing? What about LED's and I don't even know what they are.

Anyone else feel this way about the new light bulbs or have any advice? Well, make that advice suitable for print.

 

[Buppies]

Sometimes new is not always better. Do not notice them lasting any longer than the old type

 

[MikeInEburg]

The new compact fluorescent bulbs are particularly bad in a location like my woodshed. They don't start well in the cold temps, I only run them for a few minutes a day, and some of them don't fit in my exterior-grade lamp socket. I'd go with LED, but would never recoup the up-front cost. And, if I nailed one with a stray piece of wood, it would be costly.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I went with LED in flush mount canister for all the light fixtures in my house (except ceiling fans that I cant seem to find a LED base to fit them. They give off a bright white light, come on almost instantly (there is a 1-2 second delay) and give the light of a 60W bulb from 12-15W of electricity. I designed the lighting arrangement based on mfg. overlay recommendations for my 9 foot ceilings and when the contractor got them all installed, my wifes comment to be was "Ray Charles could see in this house. I have 19 LED flood lights throughout the house. I also bought some LED outside porch lights. They are not terribly bright but give off enough light to habitat the porch but you wouldn't want to try to read by them, they are the wall mount globe type. I put in some dual CFL flood lights on each corner of the house and they really light up the area if you have 5 minutes for them to get to full brightness. Big disappointment there but since I don't use them much, I will let them be till they go out. I have seen that they now make outdoor duty LED flood lamps which will replace the CFL's. I also have some of them in the master bath, they come on immediately, run cool but in 3 years I have replaced 3 of them, so they will be phased out and replaced with LED's. They are coming out with some better LED (high lumen output) now that weren't on the local market 4 years ago when I built my house so I will phase them in when and if the current ones go out but that may be a while with their supposedly 50K hour life span. So far not a one of them has failed.

 

[3v0]

CFL's can take a few minutes to come up to full brightness. A poor choice for a place where you only need light for a few minutes.

When we started out with CFLs we bought the cheapest ones we could find. We got less then we paid for. Dim and did not last all that long.

 

[avillahdw]

Like Gary Fowler, I use primarily LED's in my house now. As the CFL's that I have go out, they are replaced. If you are looking for a light that falls between the old incandescent and the LED in price but gives comparable light to the incandescent, check out a halogen light. They aren't as expensive as LED's, don't cost quite as much to run as an incandescent (but more than CFLs or LEDs) and are pretty readily available. If you can swing the price, I would recommend LEDs.

 

[dave1949]

Almost all of our bulbs are CFL. Still have a few 40 watt incandescent in bedside table lamps.

In six-plus years of use, I haven't replaced very many. They do have a warm-up period and I like the color of the light better in those that tend toward yellow, not blue-white.

Our house is small, there aren't many ways to arrange the furniture except the way it is. I put in ceiling cans that light specific places, like task lighting.

 

[sixdogs]

You guys are talking about using the equivalent of 60W light bulbs. How can a guy see anything with those? I'd need two or three of those to see.

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

I replaced 18 incandescent 100 watt bulbs in by barn with 23 watt CFL "daylight" (5500 K color temp) saving about 1400 watts. My only complaint with the CFLs was that they had to be washed off every 4 months as they just screwed into lamp holders and therefore got really dirty when used in an exposed dusty barn environment. I have now since replaced all of the CFLs in the barn with these, which are waterproof and can even be pressure washed.
The CFLs in the house are daylight as well and produce a really nice natural looking light. In the garage I had 2 200W incand. that got replaced with 2 42W daylight CFLs. Amazing amount of light however they do take maybe 20 seconds to warm up to full brightness when it is cold.

LEDs don't save any power over a comparable lumen CFL so I won't re retro-fitting again with LEDs anytime soon. I have a number of pot lights with 50W halogen bulbs in them, so I bought one 6.4W LED cool white spot bulb to try out in one of these fixtures to see if I liked it or not. The light produced was very similar to the halogen, but it flickered! So, back it went to the store and I got my 15 bucks(!!) back.

 

[dave1949]

You guys are talking about using the equivalent of 60W light bulbs. How can a guy see anything with those? I'd need two or three of those to see.

Is it the bulbs or your vision that is the problem? :laughing: I think it's natural to lose some visual abilities with age, and seeing well in dim light is one of them.

The old 3-way table lamp bulbs (75W-100W-150W) normally got cranked up to max.

Light placement, ceiling and wall color, texture and finish are important to consider.

 

[sixdogs]

dave1949--I just like it bright plus am red-green colorblind and that apparently makes it harder to see in lower light conditions. OK, I'm older as well...

If a bulb says it replaces a 60W bulb does that mean it produces the same amount of light as a 60W incandescent?

 

[EddieWalker]

I've read that they are designed to work with the threads facing down. If you put them in the ceiling, or with the threads facing up, they overheat and burn out quickly. I'm not aware of any fire dangers from the heat, it's more along the lines of overheating the bulbs themselves.

I'm sticking with standard bulbs for as long as I can get them!!!

Eddie

 

[oosik]

Over the years I've replaced all the bulbs in the house with CFLs. Once they warm up the light seems OK and for sure they have lasted longer than standard incandescent. Outside, porch light, I finally found one CFL that has almost instant on features. Otherwise, outside, the CFL is a slow starter especially in the winter.
As I've aged, gracefully, I need either more light or my reading glasses also.

 

[dave1949]

dave1949--I just like it bright plus am red-green colorblind and that apparently makes it harder to see in lower light conditions. OK, I'm older as well...

If a bulb says it replaces a 60W bulb does that mean it produces the same amount of light as a 60W incandescent?

That's the claim as I understand it. I think the color of the light will make a difference in our perception of how useful it is, and not everyone likes the same light color.

 

[RalphVa]

Think they've lost some quality in making the convoluted designs. They likely lose their gas and go bad due to leakage. Now, LED ones are out that use less energy yet. They won't be prone to the leakage of the CFLs. I never had any problem with CFLs being as bright. Some of them are slow to warm up and get bright. Newer ones don't seem to have this problem. The LEDs are fine, but expensive.

Ralph

 

[charlz]

I was at Costco the other day looking for some CFL's to replace incandescent bulbs that had burned out in the kitchen. They had a light bar with the various LED's in it and you could plug it in an check them out. They come on pretty instantly and to me the light looked the same as an incandescent. However, at $18 per bulb I passed. They had a CFL 4 pack normally $11 with an 8$ instant rebate from the power company. For less than a dollar a CFL I bought a couple packs and don't really care if they burn out sooner than what they are supposed to. Local recycling place takes CFL's so proper disposal is not much of an issue.

I would like to use CFL's on my wrap around porch but they just don't function well in the winter which is the primary time of year we have the porch lights on. My wife loves to turn them on and leave them on for hours on end with no purpose. :confused2:

Oh, and I do like the slow start of CFL's in some places... like the overhead lights in the bathroom. The warm-up gives your eyes time to adjust on those dark winter mornings

 

[mikim]

I put LEDs in the kitchen ceiling can lights and they burned out. There is a power supply in the base of the bulb that burned up. I now have CFLs in there but they aren't compatible with the dimmer switch and won't dim so they have to come out. The switch "hums" when ever the slider is moved off minimum. Going to try to find the old type and buy a supply of 'em.

 

[mikim]

My wife loves to turn them on and leave them on for hours on end with no purpose. ...........I heard years ago that it takes as much power to start a CFL as it uses in 8 hours so it's cheaper to let it burn for 8 hours than it is to turn it off and on ....that was several years ago ....things may have changed in that regard.

 

[dmccarty]

We have been using CFLs for about 10 years now. We have something like 85 can lights in the house and there was no way I would pay the power bill for regular light bulbs AND have to deal with their short lifespans. As it is, even with CFLs, I had to replace a few bulbs every couple of months. Not a big deal, but since we have 10 foot tall ceilings, I have to get out the ladder.

There are good CFLs and crappy ones. The originals CFLs we bought from HD were excellent and lasted for the rated lifetime. We still have many of them in service in low usage fixtures both inside and outside the house. We used to buy CFLs from Lowes that were just crap. They would last a very short period of time before failure. As a result of the failures, I now right down the install date of the bulb. I returned a few of the Lowes CFLs thinking I just got a bad one or two but it became obvious that the Lowes CFLs were crap. I know only buy named brand CFLs like GE and we have not had anymore problems.

Most of our CFLs are R30s and R40s but I am slowly replacing these with plain old CFLs due to cost.

There are different wattage CFLs just as there are for the old bulbs. When I designed the house, I used more light cans that needed so we would have plenty of light even with low wattage bulbs or bulbs that had gone out. I think we are using 60 watt equivalent bulbs at this point and they work well for us. We have some task lighting FL tubes in the kitchen that have been running since we built the house. The only time the bulbs have been off is when we had family visiting who turned off the lights or during power outages. Of the eight bulbs, only two have been replaced in almost 10 years of use.

I like the slow start up on the CFLs. I don't like the shock of the light first thing in the morning so the slow warm up works for us. There are supposed to be instant on CFLs.

Later,
Dan

 

[Scooby074]

CFL brightness, time to light and longevity vary greatly with brand and cost.

The Sylvania bulk box CFL's I have in all my fixtures other then the pots in the kitchen come on very fast and have been in use for over 3 years now. I shouldnt say all, I did loose one of two in my bathroom exhaust fan, but I consider that extreme service, what with the steam and vibration, so its not unexpected.

Until I got these Sylvnias, I was buning out the cheap chinese ones fairly regularly. I also dont like Philips CFLs either.

Now the Philips LEDs with the yellow lenses are darn near the best bulbs Ive ever seen. I got 2 of those and one older Philips LED on dusk to dawn outside with no issues. The oldest one was 1st or 2nd generation, close to 5 years old now, still no issues. When on promotion, you can find the "yellow" Philips for $15 or so, money well spent!

LED is the future. CFL will be around for a bit, but I fully suspect it to be gone in 10 years.