Something that I forgot mention -- that you might or might not know -- is even though we humans cannot see fluorescent lights flicker, the sensory system in some individuals can somehow detect the flicker and can effect ones health by causing such things as headaches, migraines, eye strain, and general eye discomfort.

After the light bulb in the lamp in the room where my kids play burned out, I replaced it with a compact fluorescent light bulb. One of my kids complained for several days every night about having a headache. I figured it was just a way of delaying going to bed. After a few days of my child complaining, I happened to mention it to a co-worker who is a nurse, and she told me she just saw a news report the previous night about the health effects of fluorescent lighting. My wife moved their toys to a different room without fluorescent lighting, and no complaints from my child ever since. Had she not mentioned it to me, my child might have continued to have headaches and we would have take her to the doctor for them to say they do not know the reason or put my child through a lot of tests and cost us a lot of money when it was something as simple as the light bulbs we are using. My child is very light sensitive and wears prescription sunglasses while outside, and it appears her sensory system must be sensitive to fluorescent lighting too.

 

Lights of America, sold at Walmart.

 

I'm one too. There are days ...

Sad to say, there is a solution, a high-frequency driver, 50K Hz, but these seem to have disappeared. I like florescent light spectrum but hate that flicker.

FYI, I hate CRT screens too and really don't like movies that much.

Bob Wilson

 

I have 2 older generation CFL's in my garage and they have been working for over 12 years now. Granted.........i don't use them all that much but they have been workng in 2 different households and seem to still work fine. I have had one of my CFL's fail after a few years but other than that, they have lasted many years.

 

I saw a decrease of about $18-20 on my electric bill (from $100 to $80).

It has been 3 years almost since the switch to them. We went crazy and raided Home Depot's supply of bulbs. NONE of them popped yet. The need of not changing out bulbs is good enough for me. I bought the cheapest ones from Home Depot and forgot the brand due to not having to change them for 3 years. I'm quite happy.

Maybe it's the type of bulbs you buy. I bought a few (about 8) from the Dollar Store and wow, they went bad within a few month and sometimes 2 weeks.

 

The thing I noticed is that the CFL death is typically preceded by a voltage surge. If the power to your house or a particular circuit is 'dirty' with lots of spikes, then the CFL will have lifespan issues. Clean, stable voltage and frequency seem to be critical to a decent life. Our utility has such 'wonderful' service that all the computers and most other electronics are on batter-backed UPS in order to not fail.

 

I've had CFL's and regular fluorescent lights in my house since shortly after I bought it in 1993. There are only a few places that I simply cannot find a CFL that will fit. They are:

Headboard lights - standard base, straight tube same dia. as base about 6 inches long
China hutch interior lights, miniature base round globes about 1.5" in dia.
1 table lamp that has shade bows that cannot be extended to account for longer CFL height.
Driveway floods, two speed motion sensor. PAR38 size, CFL PARs are too wide in the base

All other lights, including the sealed fixture in my shower stall, and all my ceiling fans have CFLs

I replace maybe one or two a year. Some have been in use since 1993.

 

I'm the minority who have a terrible time with these.

At one time we bought several packs and replaced all but about 4 in the house, maybe 25-30 CFL's.

One month later we had a dozen failures. Replaced those. A dozen more within a couple months.

Today, about two years later maybe 2/3 is back to incandescent. We just can't afford to always replace the expensive CFL's.

We have a couple outside floods and tried replacing with outdoor rated CFL's. Exposed to rain only last maybe a week. We tried four of them. The incandescents last 6-9 months.

 

My guess is that you got very poorly manufactured CFLs. What brand were they, and where did you get them? I sure want to avoid them.

Of the dozens of CFLs I've put in my home over the last 11 years, there has been one replacement (it only lasted a few months), and one fixture over the bathroom mirror where I didn't like the lighting from them and swapped back to incandescent. In that time, I have also replaced a set of full size (4') tubes in my closet, and am probably close to replacing them in my garage. I started using CFLs to replace burned out incandescent bulbs, but then just started swapping otherwise good bulbs in rooms that are used a lot.

I have lots of ceiling cans with spots in the kitchen and hallways. I find a mix of incandescent and CFL works great. The biggest problem with the CFLs for me is that they are too dim for the first few minutes, and that is where the incandescent bulbs fill in nicely (just one at the far end of the hallway does the trick, but a couple are needed in the kitchen).

-- Alan

 

I have found that many of the more recent CFLs I have bought brighten up much quicker than the original CFLs I bought 6+ years ago. The news one appear to be at 90% within a few seconds and the older ones would take a few minutes to fully warm up. My issue is the incompatibility with most electronic switches (timers, remote light, etc). If it is multi-socketed I will just add a single incandescent to workaround this issue. Some newer light sensor switches are CFL compatible.

FWIW, from my experience with the short term fall out, I have gotten into the habit of testing out the CFLs as soon as I buy them. This way I can return them promptly rather than finding out a few years from now, when they have never been used but no longer returnable.