Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
I’ve finally decided to jump on board and try Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL) in my new home. Today I bought three GE Energy Smart 20 watt CFL’s. The 20 watt CFL is equivalent to a 75 watt incandescent light bulb. These new bulbs are supposed to last 6 years or 10,000 hours of operation. An incandescent light bulb typically only lasts about 750 hours. That means you’d need 14 incandescent bulbs to each fluorescent bulb. The cost of the bulb is payed for just comparing bulbs not even considering the energy savings.
Obviously using these bulbs is a great way to start living “green”. Some may argue that the Mercury contained in them poses a significant environmental issue, however, with proper education people will realize that they need to be disposed of properly. These bulbs are also energy star certified.
I put three of these in an overhead light fixture in our breakfast nook and I was quite impressed. The color of the light has improved drastically and the bulbs come on almost immediately. I plan on slowly replacing bulbs throughout the house and hopefully we’ll realize some decent savings on our electric bill. One word of caution, these bulbs do contain mercury so they must be disposed of properly according to local disposal laws.
UPDATE: 5-6-08, One of these CFL bulbs has already “blown”, “burnt out”, “kicked the bucket” and died. Hmm…..I THOUGHT THESE WERE SUPPOSED TO LAST A LONG TIME!! Maybe I just have bad luck……I’ll try again.
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Thanks for the warning on the mercury…it’s good to get that out there!
We, too, have slowly replaced all bulbs with CFL’s… I think we are finally at 100% after 3 years of replacing bulbs as they burn out!
We made the switch to about 50% CFLs 2 months ago and haven’t regretted it much at all. I’ve found that BrightEffects looks the best of the ones we’ve tried (all CFLs are definitely *not* created equal).
Fred
P.S. Thanks for the link the other day…
As someone who sells light bulbs for a living, I am less enthusiastic than most about compact fluorescent bulbs. This is due to the fact that the ones currently available contain significant amounts of mercury. If one of these bulbs should break inside of a person’s home, it could cause a challenging disposal situation. It is my belief that the technology should progress to a point at which the mercury levels are low or nonexistent before people changeover their entire homes. Another consideration is that as these bulbs burn out, they will most likely be thrown away as though they are normal rubbish and landfills will have incredibly high levels of mercury in their soil as a result.
I have switched on CFL’s for my lamps at home. No hesitation in using them at all. I had a client ask me how to dispose of them, especially what to do with one she broke, trying to remove it from the socket. She made a good point that the pamphlets provided by our local rubbish co. says they are not to be placed in the garbage or the recycling bins. So what are we to do?
I called our local trash p/u service and they said to drive them down to our nearest hazardous waste center. Wait a minute, I said, this is “rubbish”! (Pun intended.)
No one in their right mind is going to drive 25 miles to dispose of a CFL bulb. Burn more fuel at $4.00 a gallon to dispose of mercury laden hazardous waste? Most people will simply toss it in the garbage and try not to feel guilty. The trash service did back track and then suggested to place the broken CFL in a plastic back, and then toss in the garbage.
I head somewhere that CFL’s do not like to be turned on and off often, so places were we only turn the lgihts on for a few min or so I have switched to LED lights (very expensive but very energy efficent).
Most CFLs today on the market contain less than 5mgs of mercury and there are CFL options out there that contain as little as 1.5mgs of mercury- which can hardly be called a “significant amounts of mercury” considering that many item in your home contain 100s of times more of mercury including your computer. Mercury levels in CFLs can never be “nonexistent” since mercury is a necessary component of a CFL and there is no other known element that is capable of replacing it. But CFLs actually prevent more mercury from entering the environment. According to the Union of Concerned Scientist, “a coal-fired power plant will emit about four times more mercury to keep an incandescent bulb glowing, compared with a CFL of the same light output”.
I have gotten 20 of the bright effects light bulbs from Lowes hardware and put them in my home about a year ago in the third months of use I lost 4 bulbs and every other months I lose bulbs out of the 20 bulbs I had I know have 7 left they do not last as long as they say they will they may save engery but the cost of the bulbs will eat up the saving why but them at that price and no one will take them back when they burn out .I have been replaceing them with the old type of bulbs I would rather buy the regular bulbs at a lowers price and pay the different in the light bill…..