I don’t care about their “green” aspect. Fact is, I can put them in and not worry about changing them for 5-7 years.
I used some a long time ago; and they didn’t help lower my electric bill. But they were more expensive.
Save your money. LEDs are the future.
I think they’re helping fill landfills with plenty of mercury.
Actually, I have them in my backyard where I have outdoor lighting. There are 7 15-watt bulbs that emit the light equivalent of an 80 watt incandescent bulb. In total, they consume about as much as a 105 Watt incandescent light bulb, so I don’t worry about flicking the switch and lighting up the backyard in the summertime.
I’ve put them in my street lamp and outdoor porch lights too. They also last a long time.
With regard to my garden lighting, I had no choice as the housing and cover is plastic - incandescent lighting would have quickly overheated the whole thing melting the entire housing...
Just this week I bought 3 for a fixture that’s like 15 feet off the ground - change’em once and forget for a long time - works for me. Also can get more lumens/watt which helps because a light that high disperses very quickly.
CO2 is garbage: alarmist nonsense. These energy-saving bulbs are great though - save me a lot of time climbing a rickety step-ladder!
I placed a few of these things in non-crucial parts of the house (bedside lamp, garage). The bedside lamp had a noticeable buzz/hum. The garage lamps was not as bright as the incandescent bulbs they displaced.
My sister-in-law gets headaches from regular fluorescents (die to flicker). When she visits next month I’ll see if she gets them from the screw in kind.
I agree that LEDs are the future if they can scale them up enough to truly light a room.
They give off horrible light but when you put them in hard-to-reach places, it’s wonderfully convenient not to have to change them as often. And you can leave a hall light on without affecting the bill much.
I am not worried about the environment. I want people to start conserving energy because energy (gas, nat. gas, and oil) are getting expensive, and I think it’s bad for the economy. I like nuke plants, I like like hydro, I want a plug in electric car/hybrid that runs of nuclear power, I want a wood stove (any ideas on how to fit one into a smallish living room?). I want to spend less on energy, without overspending on more efficient stuff.
It helps my indoor plants.I leave it on 24/7 and the plant next to it is constantly sprouting new offshoots
No. That’s the simple answer.
If you want to save money and energy, just shut the lights in the rooms you’re not using, open the blinds during the day, and watch TV in the dark.
You’ll save plenty and still only pay .50 a bulb. Plus you don’t have to worry about having mecury dumped on the floor if I happen to break one.
Pay $6 for a lightbulb. Talk about dim bulbs
I put CFL’s in and regret it already.
Incandescents best mimic natural light and they are dimmable.
CFL’s suck
Made all the difference in the world.
Put em in my hanger I have two of them burning keeping a pretty good light at all times so I can go in and see my gas guzzleing plane and Harley and boat any time day or night.
And I feel good, like I’m helping save the planet by not having to turn the hanger lights on.
I’m not going to use them just because the greenies are trying to make me.
Well, changing to compact fluorescent bulbs DOES have one benefit, however small. The monthly cost of lighting my home has dropped, a very real advantage I can recognize and apply.
As for the number of cars on the road it would replace if every incandescent bulb in America were swapped out for a compact fluorescent bulb, that is a totally meaningless estimate for me. We put more new vehicles on the road each year than that.
Five years from now, compact fluorescent bulbs will fast become obsolete, as more and more LED lighting systems are available. Right now, an LED light with the power to replace a 100-watt bulb is ~$20 or so, but with the economies of scale, the Chinese will be producing them for LESS than compact fluorescent bulbs. Individually, one LED emits a singularly bright monochrome light, but in arrays, they provide a much more efficient light source, consuming about 3-5% of the power needed for a similar amount of light from an incandescent bulb, and less than a quarter of the power needed for a compact fluorescent bulb.
Which is totally irrelevent - CO2 is the new whipping boy, but it's effects on climate are largely bunk.
“They may lower your bills, but don’t really do much for C02:”
Who gives an airborne rodent’s rump? They lower my electric bill and last longer than regular incandescent bulbs.
C02 indeed...
ruefully
We have one fluorescent bulb.
The hall light didn’t work. The landlord attempted to fix it. Now the hall light won’t turn off. He tried one more time. We gave up and put in fluorescent bulb which has now been on 24/7 for about 3 1/2 years.
Have we saved the environment yet?
Switching over to CFLs for our outdoor display, went from a gallon every two hours for the generator to a gallon for a weekend.
Your millage can and will vary - if one type annoys the heck out of you, try a couple more. Even from the same manufacturer, same packaging, we’ve had color variations - Our preference is a bit more yellowish than the ‘pure whites’ that make me look like I’m sick.