Asymmetrical Information

I keep meeting people who try to tell me that their compact fluorescents emit a "natural" light, and are indistinguishable from regular light bulbs.

I'm fairly sure these people have some form of color-blindness.

No Jane, you don't use the new bulbs because you're too selfish and uncaring, or too unintelligent to know what's good for you. Unlike the sensitive NYT writer. Just do what the NYT tells you, ok?

Are these the same compact fluorescent lights that take about 2 minutes to fully come to brightness?

I have some ceiling-mounted fixtures with multiple sockets (some two, some four). I've found that putting an incandescent in half of the sockets and flourescents in the other half works well. The flourescents are actually brighter than the incandescents and the mix of color temp is actually closer to natural light.

Klug, no, the bulbs I use (they look like little twisty neon tubes formed in the general volume of a normal bulb) turn right on without a flicker.

This one is as much physics as chemistry. We're used to incandescent bulbs, which are pretty much black-body radiators - they put out light all through the spectrum. That's why you see those temperature ratings for colors of light bulbs - that's matching the color of light from a theoretical black-body heated to that (rather high) value. Wikipedia's article on this seems pretty good.

Problem is, black-body radiation is pretty continuous (although not even in intensity), while fluorescent light isn't. Fluorescent bulbs put out most of their light at in several well-defined spectral lines instead. The color-spectrum chart near the end of that Wikipedia page is a good illustration of the difference, which makes color-temperature measurements of fluorescent light very hard to interpret.

Putting several different phosphors into the fluorescent bulb will give it a more varied emission spectrum. But that also cuts down on efficiency and raises the cost, and I can't imagine the cheap bulbs that Wal-Mart is selling are optimized in this direction. The Engineer's Triangle is inescapable: "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two."

I changed all my lights to high-power "daylight temperature" CF bulbs at once. They looked fine to me after the first day. My lighting bill would be something like $4 a month with tungsten bulbs, so it wasn't a cost issue. I just don't like feeling like I'm living by candlelight.

If someone came up with an incandescent bulb with a filament that operates at 5500K, I'd happily throw all my CF bulbs away.

Do you ever read an article and wonder "Where on earth does the author live--Mars?"

Tact forbids.

We have compact fluorescents in three light fixtures, and I must say I've not noticed much of a difference between them and the incandescents. They don't have the harsh color you usually associate with fluorescent lights.

Although occasionally we do find ourselves wondering, "Was that always that color?"

Are these the same compact fluorescent lights that take about 2 minutes to fully come to brightness?

This would be more of a problem for some people. Ours start out dim and yellow, and gradually brighten and whiten. (They do not flicker, though.) They wouldn't work very well in some place like the closet, where we need instant light, but just for a few minutes.

We got them because the incandescents just didn't last very long, and we were tired of replacing them.

The author points out that the CFLs contain mercury, but fails to mention that the coal burned in power plants also contains mercury, which is very difficult to remove from the stack exhaust.

I use one in the range hood, and if I had closet lights, I'd install them there.

Given the tendency of fluorescent bulbs to consume more energy at startup (and setting aside fire safety), isn't the closet just about the worst place to put these things?

I use CFLs in various places in the house. We hav spotlights in the kitchen, and most of these are CFLs, as my wife hasn't complained yet. I also put them in various enclosed light fixtures. Also, any light fixture that is in an inconvenient place is switched over, mainly because they last a lot longer than regular bulbs. But for normal lamps, we use CFLs very infrequently, as well as for lights with a dimmer. CFLs don't look that great, but in some fixtures, you can't really notice the difference.

I'm not very green. I don't recycle, for instance. CFLs are a lot cheaper, and if I'm paying, I'll try to reduce my costs. Also, CFLs last a lot longer, and if I need to climb a ladder, I'd just as assume not do it all that frequently.

I've also noticed a big difference in brands of CFLs. One brand I got off the internet takes about five minutes to fully warm up, whereas the ones I get at Home Depot generally get to full brightness in about 15 seconds.

I, too, have had pretty decent results switching to about 50/50 CFL and incandescent. I've done this in the master bath, and will probably do so throughout the rest of the house going forward. The reason for me, aside from being more energy efficient themselves, is that by putting off far less heat my AC bill will be a lot lower. Living, as I do, in South Texas this is a major gain.

Compact (or for that matter non-compact flourescent) bulbs are more efficient because they work on entirely different principles.

Ordinary incandesants work by getting a tiny wire very very hot so that it glows. This gives off light in a nice range of colors; it also wastes most of the energy as heat.

Florescents, IIRC, convert household current to high voltages, which they then run through a gas, directly producing UV light and only a little bit of heat. This then strikes phosphors painted on the inside of the glass (unless it's a blacklight), which converts them to particular frequencies of visible light at a reasonable efficiency (and some heat). I guess it has a mix of phosphors to get a mix of colors; I suspect reddish tones would be less efficient, but don't know for sure. They're more efficient just because they waste less energy as heat.

The ideal thing, engineering-wise, is LED lighting; it's darn-near 100% efficient, converting electricity directly to visible light, and the lamps last darn near forever and come on instantly. The color is tricky, as with the CFLs (though the best LEDs produce a pretty good slightly bluish light now). More to the point, they're insanely expensive; the LED equivalent of a 40w bulb costs about $100.

The flickering issue previously associated with fluorescent lamps of all types is largely eliminated thanks to the use of electronic ballasts instead of magnetic ballasts. They start quicker as well. As they age, those problems do reappear, though-- they fail slowly, instead of suddenly like incandescents.

Stores do sell more expensive CFLs that produce a better light with multiple phosphors.

Don't they cause seizures in some people?

Given the tendency of fluorescent bulbs to consume more energy at startup (and setting aside fire safety), isn't the closet just about the worst place to put these things?

Mythbusters found that the startup power usage in fluorescent tubes is equal to something like 36 seconds of steady state use. It was much less (by at least a factor of 10, I think) for CF, and well under a second for incandescent.

There seems to be a ton of variation in people's experiences with different brands and types of CFLs. We put together a CFL guide with reviews, prices and side by side photo comparisons to help people find bulbs they'll be happy with.

Hi Jane,

I have no problem with the light given off by them. In fact I have a CFL torch lamp and a CFL bulb in another fixture that provide all of my light for my living room. The light is very warm. It's different than incandescent, but not unpleasantly so, and not any kind of harsh blue light like you might see in your office.

My biggest beef with CFLs is that they often do not fit right. Try as they might, the CFL bulbs are bigger and often stick out of fixtures or make putting the glass domes over them impossible.

All of my bulbs at home have been replaced by compact fluorescents. I use Phillips bulbs and find the colour temperature is fine. I am forced to use CF's because the line quality in my apartment is bad (I live in Costa Rica, and I think there's some big inductive loads on the same phase as me). There are constant small under and overvoltages, and the lifespan of an incandescent filament goes something like the twelfth (!) power of current. With incandescents I was replacing bulbs almost continually.

I'm waiting for white LEDs to hit an attractive point on the price/luminosity curve. For one thing, you can use a dimmer switch with LEDs, but not with fluorescents. Plus, their hundred thousand hour lifespan means changing a bulb would be a once in a few decades experience.

I think you're universalizing your own tastes more than is necessarily justified. I use them, and don't notice a difference (not to mind it, anyway. I can see the difference if I'm directly comparing a compact flourescent to an incandescent.)

It's possible that the problem with marketing them is that most people share your dislike of the color of light they give off, but I wouldn't assume that it's true without data.

I use CFLs in all my light fixtures in my house and dno't notice much difference. Bulbs do vary quite a bit, though. I bought some that put out a harsh light that I use only in closets. Most of the bulbs we have put out perfectly good light. Many of our fixtures have tinted globes that change the light, anyway.

I have found 50-100-150 three-way CFLs as well as dimmable CFLs, though they are harder to find.

EI

My college campus gives out free CFLs to any student who promises to use them on campus (combination of green activism and cutting energy costs). My overhead light is regular fluorescent; I have a lamp I use when I want softer/dimmer light, which used to have incandescent bulbs but now has the CFLs. I haven't noticed a problem with the color temperature of the CFLs; I know that they're noticeably warmer and softer than the overhead regular fluorescent lights in the dorm. We probably have relatively high-end CFLs, though.

On the other hand, the light quality of the fluorescent light never bothered me much in the first place. It just sometimes seemed a little bright/harsh for entertaining.

Is this a compact fluorescent chosen randomly or chosen by price, or have you tried the fluorescents that advertise a more natural white? I've gotten the latter and like them somewhat better than incandescents, and I don't like traditional fluorescent at all.

This is an honest question; I'm curious about other people's experiences. Your milage will vary.

I've replaced nearly all of the bulbs in my apartment with CF. My main reason for doing so was that I hated changing incandescent light bulbs. As soon as I replaced one, it felt like another burned out. As a result of the change, I have been mostly happy, but I do have two complaints:

1. If the bulbs are cold there is a delay between flipping the switch and seeing light. This is disconcerting at first, but you get used to it.

2. The room always seems too dim while the bulbs warm up.

My issue with the NYT piece is the author's failure to realize that different people have different preferences, and that these differences are perfectly valid.

If only these NYT people would realize that everyone should just read the WSJ, think of the resources we would save.

Every light in my apt is some kind of CFL - and I'd like to get more of the recent ones I've been buying because last few I've gotten have been "true light" (pure white) bulbs and it helps my wife and I with our SAD.

Some of the earlier ones we got throw a light very close to incandescent, but they take a bit of time to warm up to full brightness. Others come on immediately, but are a blue-white light. Since my wife and I both have color-based hobbies (she cross-stitchs, I paint miniatures) brightness and whiteness of light is a major concern.

I've switched to CF bulbs because I'm the only one in the family who possesses the gene for turning off lights (if I were not around, eventually every light in the house would be turned on and remain on permanently, except for those in bedrooms during the middle of the night). I'm also the only one with a light-bulb changing gene, so it's a double win.

I don't mind the color (and I hate light of traditional fluorescent tubes). And I actually kind of like the slow warm up in some situations -- it gives you eyes a bit of time to adjust rather than being blinded.

I'll have to second the slow warm up problem. The previous owners of our house had used almost entirely CF, and as they burn out, we've been putting incandescents back in. When I turn on the switch, I want an adequate amount of light now, darnit, not two minutes from now.

I've noticed that I need more color spectrum, not less, in order to stave off the headaches I get from reading under fluourescent lights--so we not only have none in the house, but we actually have some of the more expensive full spectrum incandescent bulbs in several places.

I also frequently travel with several incandescent bulbs of the 100 watt variety to use in the motel rooms I stay in.

I don't see what the problem is with the color of flourescent lights. The ones in my office are rather a pale orange in color, not blue. In fact I can't remember the last time I saw a bluish one.

Then again, I run my monitors at the 9300K setting so what do I know.

IMO, good flourescents are closer to natural daylight than incandescents, which have a spectrum that peaks well into the infrared. That is, they radiate much more heat than visible light, and their visible light is weighted towards red. I've no idea why some prefer reddish light. I can't see as well for reading or any other fine work under incandescents.

There are lots of different varieties, but the ones I use turn on in under a second. It's not quite instant-on, but it's close enough. Frequent turning on and off does cut down their life expectancy. I wish white LEDs were cheap enough to use in such places, also where dimming would be nice.

If CFLs are flickering, either they are getting too old or the wiring to them is defective.

There is one CFL in the house that is disturbingly blue in color - the amazingly stingy 7 watt one that just barely lights the back porch all night. In incandescent, that little power would be a small nightlight, in flourescent it casts enough light to see all the way to the driveway. So what if it distorts colors?

I have mostly incandescents throughout the house, but I do run CF's in my home office. It's not for energy efficiency but for heat. My office gets so much hotter than the rest of the house (it has me and several computers in it), that the ability to eliminate a 300-watt heat source was too much to pass up.

However, I'm really on the hunt for some of the white-LED light bulbs. They promise to burn at "daylight" color and operate at even lower electrical and heat rates than the CF's. Alas, I've only seen them on geek-TV shows and in science articles. I'm yet to see one on the store shelf.

Oh, another things about CFs is that you also have the option of replacing 60 and 80 watt incandescents with 100 watt equivalent (in lumens) CFs and still get power savings. For me, the additional brightness (without the wasted heat or power draw) is a win.

No time for the Times article at the moment, but I strongly suspect the big reason for the reluctance of consumers to buy the bulbs in the up front investment. Sure, they may save you cash in the long run, but I recall seeing them at Ikea when taking my carless girlfriend to Ikea to shop for a lamp. I urged her to take advantage of the long term savings, but she balked at the up front cost. Aren't they, like, four or five times more expensive?

Applied Genius ran an economic analysis on CF's last April, and concluded that they're the best investment around on an NPV basis, offering 200+% ROI.

I tend to use them in mixed situations - two of each in one set of hall lights, for example. However, I find that the places I want them most (bathrooms), the expensive CFs burn out faster than cheap incandescents.

Applied Genius ran an economic analysis on CF's last April, and concluded that they're the best investment around on an NPV basis, offering 200+% ROI.

Oh, really?

*checks*

Nope, looks like AG didn't account for the cost of having your soul sapped by the light quality.

*yawns*

Jessica, thanks for the EDF guide. It is useful and may cause me to rethink my attitude towards environmental groups. Prior to seeing and following up on your comment I would have thought that in its first 100 hours the new Democratic Congress would have banned sales of incandescent bulbs thereby requiring folks to buy a new $50 CFL bulb from the unionized employees at the state-owned former WalMart store.

Seriously, as many have said, I have, over my spouse's objections, installed CFLs everywhere possible because: (1) I'm cheap; (2) I hate to change bulbs; (3) candles are a fire hazard with a bad habit of setting off the smoke detector; and (4) oh yeah, they're supposed to be good for the environment.

To those who think CFLs are those ugly swirly things-they also come encased in a bulb like enclosure which hides their ugliness. A point that NYT misses. We have CFLs everywhere. Haven't changed a bulb in 3 years.

Jane, when you started this post I thought your complaint was going to be that the snooty liberal NYT reporter seemed like he was just learning about this quaint little heartland custom called "Wal-Mart."

"Yeah, Jane!" I thought, "You give it to 'em! Urban elitism needs that smack upside the head!"

And then you continued with...this.

Jane you're an excellent person with a soul more brilliant than a thousand compact flourescent bulbs running on next to no energy for the next 100,000 years (or whatever). But you messed this one up.

The light from CFLs is noticably better than the kind that came from those regular fluorescent bulbs (the long kind that you're complaining about).

For someone like me—and doubtless you—who reads a lot, these things are so damn useful and a big improvement over their predecessors.

Now for decorative lighting...well...nothing beats a few fragrant candles, some bubble bath, and a glass or two of wine.

Sorry...the lighting punditry seems to have trailed off into a my dream date with Donald Rumsfeld. How embarassing.

c-monkey, the CFLs I've bought from Wal-Mart give a harsh, glaring light that makes my apartment unbearable. It's possible that this is taste, or some genetic affinity for yellow light, or the fact that I have to have the lights on all day in my apartment, rather than a few hours in the evening, so I notice it more. But it's not because I haven't tried them, and I've heard the same complaints over and over from my cheap/green friends.

I've been using CFLs for years, as much as possible given the limitations (most can't be used with a dimmer switch, whether or not you plan to use it on dim, and they're just plain too big for some uses, although this has improved dramatically). In terms of light quality/color, there are big variations. Overall, it has seemed that they've been getting better, but I bought a cheap one by Feit recently, and the light looked unnatural.

Even the nasty-colored CFLs can be OK behind, say, a stained glass lamp shade. But probably the best fix is to try a different brand. Walmart is great for low prices, but there are times when it's better to pay a bit more.

The newer CFLs I used have a yellowish tint, so they look more like incandescent. They are pretty bright on startup, but take a minute or so to get to 100% brightness.

CFL's vary; the packages are marked (somewhat obscurely).

I bought a bunch of them, various wattages & manufacturers and put them all over the house. In the fam room, we have identical lamps on either side of the sofa. For some reason, the right-side lamp would not take a CFL. And the first CFL I tried on the left-side lamp looked horribly purplish.

BUT >> BEHOLD!!!!

I tried one of the "warm/household lighting" ones, and the light it emits is indistinguishable from that emitted by the regular incandescant six feet away (in an identical lamp).

Go back to the store, and look for the "warm" variety. You will not be disappointed.

It sounds like Jane is down on her lux.

Must be a matter of taste. I like CF light just fine, and I don't like replacing bulbs. The only reason I don't use it EVERYWHERE is that it STILL doesn't fit all the fixtures.

But, then, I don't much like direct sunlight either.

By the way, I got "Odd number of elements in hash assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 71. Use of uninitialized value in list assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 71." at the bottom of my page.

Probably the greatest problem to CFL acceptance is that people approach them with a wide range of established prejudices, many of them real, but some of them largely outdated. A lot of these have been revealed, in one way or another, in this thread.

1. CFLs take a long time to start up.

Some, especially older ones, do. The newer 'ice-cream-swirl' units, however, do not; they start up instantly, although as some have noted, they can be just slightly dim for a few seconds until they fully warm up. Another point worth noting is that if you use CFLs in enclosed fixtures, they will heat up a bit more after a half-hour or so, increasing the luminous intensity and color temperature slightly above their normal operating point, and shortening the bulb life slightly.

2. CFLs put out a harsh light, like the lights at my office.

Not enough people realize that even your office's fluorescent tubes can be purchased in different color temperatures, but most offices use Cool White. Cool White, and the even more extreme Daylight, attempt to come closer to the color temperatures of sunlight. Problem is, you won't achieve the intensity of natural sunlight unless you install 15 or 20 of the things in each room, and there is no feasible way to make that many lamps behave like a point source, so contrast is lost -- much like being outside when there is a thin, but very even, cloud cover.

Warm White, on the other hand, and the even redder Kitchen & Bath, are virtually indistinguishable from incandescent temperatures unless you're looking at the bulb and telling yourself, "If that were an incandescent, things would be different." And that's always a good way to create a difference that your brain will then enforce, even though it may not really exist.

3. CFLs are too expensive.

Individually, perhaps, although the savings will still be realized in your utility bill. But regardless of that, watch your local Lowe's Hardware or Home Depot, and they will periodically stock 5-7 packs of warm white CFLs at a price of about $1/bulb. The quality control on these doesn't seem to be so hot (I usually see ~1.5 crib deaths per 10), but this is still a better per-unit price than the single and 2-packs.

4. I can't stand fluorescent flicker.

As someone has already noted, this is only true of conventional magnetic ballasts, which operate on the 60Hz sinusoidal cycle of the AC mains. These have been linked to eyestrain and headaches in some people. On the other hand, ice-cream-swirl CFLs and any other fluorescents that use electronic ballasts, operate on a sqaure wave in the 15kHz to 30kHz range, and do not create these problems. (Note that if you have a CFL that flickers several times at startup, possibly accompanied by a popping sound, it is using a magnetic ballast.)

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, although there may be others.

The color of the CFLs varies significantly with the wattage level. I buy 60W-equivalent CFLs, which output light very similar to incandescent. The 100W-equivalent CFLs, on the other hand, output that eerie fluorescent color that makes everything look ugly. This pattern is consistent across all of the CFL brands I've tried.

So most of my house is filled with 60W-equivalent CFLs, but you'd never know it. I'm surprised that Wal-Mart doesn't do something to educate consumers about the different colors at different wattages, because people who buy the 60W type are going to have a much better experience than the people who buy the 100W type.

I have replaced every light bulb in my house with 100W equivalent 'daylight' CF light bulbs. I actually REALLY like the high temperature light. You do need somewhat more of it, but that's why I went the 100W equivalent route. I far prefer the light quality to fluorescents. I just couldn't go back to the fluorescent light quality anymore.

Get good quality bulbs, they come on instantly, they don't flicker (unless hooked up to a dimmer switch) and the light is *so* good.

I don't know what these bulbs are that emit harsh light. I have CFLs in my place and the light is just about the same as regular light bulbs. Maybe they are a different brand and not sure if they have some sort of coating to change the light color, but they don't feel like office lights. And if you have them in a lampshade, they actually look better then regular light bulbs.

And no, these are not the ones that take 2 minutes to light up. Buying those to save electricity is like buying a car that doesn't work in order to save gas.

My experience with CFLs has been, well, strange.

At Home Depot they sell a brand of CFL ("nVision" or "nSight" or something) that comes in a standard color, a bright color, and a daylight color. (Incidentally, they don't make or HD doesn't sell all colors in all wattages, but you can get all three in 60w, I believe). I figured that the "daylight" CFLs would be best, because we have "daylight" incandescents in all our fixtures at home and we love them. When I popped the CFLs in, I immediately loved the clean white color, but within a few minutes it was actually making my wife and me physically ill, something that never happens under the "tube" lights at work. I got some of the other CFL bulbs that more closely match the color of light thrown off by the "daylight" incandescents. I couldn't match it exactly. The best I could do is a color somewhere between a regular incandescent and a "daylight" incandescent, but that's close enough.

So here's my overall ranking for color quality, from best to worst:
(1) daylight incandescent
(2) regular CFL
(3) regular incandescent
(4) getting brain cancer
(5) daylight CFL

I have come to the conclusion that the "daylight" claim on CFL bulbs is just wrong. Real sunlight is much more yellow than the color thrown off by the CFL.

Derek:

Excellent explanation of why fluorescent lights give off "weird" white light. Now here's a comment that will blow all of you away. Carbon dioxide is a fantastic energy absorber at a couple of individual wavelengths, and absorbs subtantially nothing at other wavelengths. One of the spectral lines happens to be about the same as the black body radiation temperature of the Earth. Global warming, right? WRONG! Black body radiation is a distribution of wavelenths centered about the temperature (the mean), and like all disgributitions there are values above and below the mean. So alllllll that Earth infrared radiation that is NOT at the carbon dioxide absorption wavelength just wafts out into space like water through a strainer.

You want global warming? Try water vapor. It has spectral absorption bandwidth that makes carbon dioxide look like it's not even there.

PS- I use CFL's because myh worthless stepkids don't have the sense to shut lights off. They save me about 30 bucks a month in electricity and who know how much on replacing the bulbs.

I have the CFLs in my house as well, I bought a pack of ten of them from Sam's to see how well they work.

I do not mind them one bit, in fact I love it in my reading lamp as it does not give off as much heat as the Incans do. Those things would bother me with the heat put out. I also put them in rooms were lights blow often, bathroom, utility room. And I put one in the light that needs a step ladder to get to.

I prefer the colors in the new bulbs myself. Incandescent bulbs are too yellow-orange for my tastes.

To me the new bulbs look more like daylight.

Some of them gave me a headache. Installing a single incandesant bulb in the fixture with the two or three CF eliminated the headaches. Most of the fixtures in our house are lamped in that fashion. They do change the appearant color of things.

They don't work well in the cold, refusing to start at all here in the unheated garage most of the winter.

"Derek Lowe" had this one right. Fluorescents can *simulate* full spectrum lighting but they cannot *provide* it. (Note the Alanis irony of greens installing lights whose spectrum peaks at ... green.)

Anyway, the discontinuous spectrum and ugly color balance drive some people nuts. I am one of them; you appear to be another. It's interesting that one of your commenters finds CF lighting helpful for SAD, since they give off very little UV light, which is the part of the spectrum that supposedly helps with SAD.

I use fluorescents as much as possible at home, but only for indirect lighting. Once the so-called 5500K-equivalent fluorescent light is done bouncing off the painted walls it looks fine. I once bought "daylight" fluorescents without looking at the package, and K of C is right. They are much hotter than 5500K - more like a blue-white "bright overcast" sky (which may measure around 10000K). So, it's daylight, but not sunlight. Whatever it's called, though, it's painful.

BTW, photographers and cinematographers often use a filter called "minus-green" to balance color temps. It looks like magenta saran wrap (magenta being the complement to green). I've used it on shoots, but never at home. It looks weird but it works.

Of course, 5-10 years from now we'll all have daylight LEDs. I can't wait.

CFL's vary; the packages are marked (somewhat obscurely).

Yes, and isn't that strange--that they're marked obscurely?

We've got nothing but fluorescent lighting here in the government offices- and I've got a CF bulb in the fixture in my desk.

My parents use them everyplace in their house- basement, laundry room, closets, kitchen, bath & bed rooms- you name it. They even have 3 arrays of CF spotlights on photo sensors outside. I have the things all over my coop- we even have them in the elevators and the hallways- the only real problem with them is you can't put them on a dimmer.

My parents have a huge house and they save scads of money on the electric bill by using those bulbs. I really think that the objections to the color I've read here are somewhat overstated. Regarding the start-up time, most bulbs now are virtually instant-on.

There is one real advantage of CFLs. If you have a fixture that limits you to 60 Watt bulbs, you can get more illumination out of it using CFLs. Simply put in "100 Watt Equivalent" bulbs!

Not very green, but it's great in our dingy kitchen. Home Depot sells a "warmer" bulb that looks good (bright candlelight color) and doesn't flicker. Takes a while to get to full brightness though.

I've bought a number of CFLs for my house. There is a BIG difference in color variation and warmup speed. I bought a batch of cheap (about $1 each) CFLs recently, and have noticed a 30-second delay to full light. (They start at about 80% then warm up).

I've had a few long enough for them to finally burn out, and I have also noticed that they fail gradually.

Bottom line - buy 1 of a given brand and try it. If you don't like it, get another.

I live in a 125-year old brownstone. On the garden level, which is naturally quite dark, we've had several fixtures that burn out light bulbs every 2-4 weeks. We've changed fixtures, rewired, experimented with different wattages and nothing has really worked. So for several years we've had to change bulbs too frequently or live with very dim light. Recently an electrician suggested that we switch to fluorescents. I initially resisted the idea because I've always hated the quality of the light but given the situation I felt it was worth a try. It's now nearly four months later and the fluorescents are working beautifully. Nothing has blown out and the quality of light is pretty good. We're using 100 watt bulbs. They're much brighter than the incandescents and not nearly as harsh as I anticipated. And that's great, since our dark garden level is properly illuminated for the first time. I can actually read there now. We've experienced no flickering at all and we get light immediately, as soon as the switch is flipped. They do take a few seconds to come to full brightness, though. I feel no great need to replace the incandescents in areas where we haven't had problems but as bulbs blow I may experiment with a combo of fluorescent/incandescent lights. Brownstones are so dark that I'm always looking for ways to bring in more light. But we'll never use anything but fluorescents on our garden level.

I've replaced our most-used bulbs with CFLs and am very happy. I've found that the color varies hugely between brands, even if they're all labeled "soft white" (the warmest/yellowest type). The good ones give light as good or better than our old incandescents, to my eye.

The warm-up issue doesn't bother me -- all of our spirals come on around 75% and hit full brightness quickly. But no, you probably wouldn't put them in the hall or closet.

No, they don't flicker at all.

They turn on instantly or in half a second or so, depending on the model.

I like the n:vision brand from Home Depot best. Yellow light, just like incandescents, instant on. GE is nearly as good. Bright Effects is pretty good, Sylvania much worse. Contra an earlier comment, I've actually found that color seems the same across all wattages within a brand, not across all brands at the same wattage. Just my experience.

More details, including pictures for color comparison, at our dog's blog =) :

http://sydneysoccerball.blogspot.com/2007/01/sydneys-compact-fluorescent-lightbulb.html

Initially I bought some relatively dim fluorescent bulbs to replace my top light ones. Too dim, so I switched them to my reading light and hallway. Then I heard the blueish daylight lights were good for SAD. I bought them -- still too dim for a top light, so I put them into my stack light in the corner. Finally I bought one of those huge things that are bigger than your hand. (120 watt equivalent?)

After years of frustration with incandescents in my apartment, I've finally gotten the brightness level I've always wanted. And by running both the red top light and the blue daylight bulbs at once, I get a very nice, natural, happy light. In fact, now my problem is that I don't want to go to sleep unless I turn off the lights an hour or so before bedtime. And my power bills are really low! :)

I use CFL bulbs in most rooms. I get them from the web at 1000bulbs.com. My "color" of choice is 5100K full-spectrum, CRI 82+. I would also advise not bothering with the incandescent equivalent rating. Take the energy savings and turn it into light - like using 20W CFL's to replace 60W bulbs.

For torchiere lamps, the GE 2D light lamps are great. That's equivalent to 300W in a 55W bulb, and it's dimmable. Lowe's stocks some.

The problem with bad fluorescents (compact or linear) is NOT the color temperature. As noted above, natural overcast daylight is higher in temperature (bluer) than most fluorescents, and no one complains about the blueness of overcast natural light. Further, even some warm (yellowish) fluorescent bulbs look bad.

If you look at a graph showing light intensity versus color, color temperature is basically the slope of the straight line which best fits the graph. Incandescents have a smooth, almost straight line of intensity across frequencies, and so incandescent light is pretty much defined by color temperature (i.e., their actual output line is essentially the same as the straight best-fit line).

In contrast, fluorescents have peaks in their output. In extreme the case, a fluorescent (mercury vapor lamp without phosphors) puts out light almost entirely in two bands in the orange area, and two bands in the blue area. Together these look like "white," but the reflections off of various solid things, especially human flesh, look pretty sick.

The fluorescent bulbs' problem is not the color temperature, it is expressed in a poor Color Rendering Index (CRI), a measure of spikiness in the spectrum (taken by humans comparing brightnesses of several solid painted surfaces in different colors). Linear fluorescents often list their CRI. A score of 85 or more (where 100 is perfect, or incandescent) is very good.

Unfortunately, I have never seen a compact fluorescent labled with its CRI. Until consumers start to understand, and to demand, CRI ratings, I think the problems with CFLs will remain.

Since I have limited housing resources like Jane (not quite as bad though, more like a mayonnaise jar hidden in a tree than a matchbox buried in the ground), it seemed like a good idea at the time to get two of these in torchieres as my main lighting. I think they work great. They are impressively but not oppressively bright (fine for watching TV with one on, as long as it's the one on the same wall as the TV and not the opposite wall), and the light isn't blue, green, or yellow, but just a clean white. If I go to the hallway and look at the light reflected from the wall, it looks pretty close to sunlight. They turn on to max brightness instantly. Note that this series alone comes in 2700K/3500K/4100K/5100K/6500K temperatures.

On the other hand, the 15W daylight CF reading light I got is a bit much. I will get a yellower bulb for that eventually. The globes I put in the bathroom are just disappointing, since they take about 30 seconds to get to full brightness, although who knows how reliable the fixture is. Still, haven't changed a bulb in well over a year.

Compare this to my last living experience, where I had a bedroom even worse than Jane's cave. I used two 23W CFs from the hardware store in an overhead fixture, and they were . . . green. I learned to tolerate those, but the room always looked green. I mean, if you turn off your tungsten bulb, swap it for a CF, and turn it on, of COURSE it will look off initially. It wasn't that, so I understand the murderous quality of light comment. But really, if you look around a bit, you can find any kind of CF bulb you want.

As an architect, I have catalogs on my desk with hundreds of different lamps (the term for a light bulb). As some above have commented above they have different wattage, shapes, brightness, and color temperature. You have to find the right lamp for each application. I never put CF in our home bathroom, or any commercial bathrooms. Looking in the mirror with a bare fluorescent light is not very flattering. You look like a zombie. Same with the kitchen. Do you want your red sauce to look green? But if the lampholder has a reflector or shade like a table lamp, then I load them up with CF lamps. But if you expect your $1.99 CF lamp to perform as well as a $10.00 one, well you get what you pay for. The same holds true for incandescent lamps.

Been using CFLs for about five months now on my outdoor lighting - I have yet to replace one. Previously, I was replacing them every 45 days or so. (I too am the only member of my family afflicted the the gene to turn off lights or replace dead ones.) Walmart only sells GE - which to me has a harsher light. I use the Phillips Marathon CFL spot lights in my den and kitchen and have been very pleased with the light quality.

I've been replacing our bathroom mirror bulbs with CFL's as the old ones burn out. I've already replaced the ones in our living room ceiling fan and various other lamps. Everything seems to be working well, with no ill effects.

I have read that individuals with autism are especially sensitive to certain spectrum elements of light from CFLs. However, our eight-year old autistic son shows no reaction to them whatsoever.

While we are on the subject of the Nanny State - OK, OK, I use CFL's and advocate their use - I have something that is only slightly off topic (the common thread is corporate Nannystatism).

Turns out the U.S. automakers are being eaten alive by costs relative to what they can make selling cars these days, health care is a biggy, and Ford has started a "Health is not Automatic - it is Manual" campaign." My poppa is a Ford retiree and has got this calender of smiling Ford employees, many female, in tight T-shirts showing how a loyal Ford employee or retiree needs to be exercising and eating healthier, etc. etc..

Don't know why the not-automatic-but-manual campaign and that nice calender rubs me the wrong way. When I was working at Ford some 30 years ago, the big emphasis was on not substituting transit or walking for "using the Company product." Do you suppose Ford telling their employees that the reason the company is going broke is that they are fat slugs is kinda like McDonalds telling its employees to cut back on the cheeseburgers?

For anyone under age 50, the biggest cause of death and mayhem is accidents with autos being a large share. Should the Ford calender encourage everyone to wear seatbelts and to drive a car with automatic stability control? Stability control would limit employee purchases to Volvos, the Ford Freestar and Ford Explorer.

Back to the topic of CFLs -- there is another option for incandescent lovers -- motion detectors. The newer ones are better about not having to do jumping jacks to stay out of the dark. Also, while halogens are only a small saving, they are whiter in color, and you get can reasonable-wattage halogen spotlights for task-specific lighting like a reading lamp.

You should be aware that building codes mandate that all new construction and remodels use fluorescent fixtures in which the bulbs cannot be replaced with incandescent bulbs. As far as I know, this applies to only to certain areas of the house (bathrooms and kitchens) but expansion to other areas cannot be far off.

You better get used to them.

Paul_Milenkovic: It's not a mystery. Ford promised an employee benefit that was only payable based on long-term Ford profitability, in effect making employees involuntary investors, though they actually quite liked that for some reason. A competent actuary would have instead demanded that they buy the future health care from a third-party and through a structured plan, right alongside wage payments.

So now they have a massive unfunded obligation that their (competent) competitors don't have, meaning they're going to try clever ways to minimize that expense.

Yes, it's rather funny.

Don't know why the not-automatic-but-manual campaign and that nice calender rubs me the wrong way.

Neither do I. Nobody sends me free calenders of women in tight shirts.

You should be aware that building codes mandate that all new construction and remodels use fluorescent fixtures in which the bulbs cannot be replaced with incandescent bulbs. As far as I know, this applies to only to certain areas of the house (bathrooms and kitchens) but expansion to other areas cannot be far off.

That sounds like a specific state or regional building code...

You should be aware that building codes mandate that all new construction and remodels use fluorescent fixtures in which the bulbs cannot be replaced with incandescent bulbs. As far as I know, this applies to only to certain areas of the house (bathrooms and kitchens) but expansion to other areas cannot be far off.

I heard that the New York City Council is considering an ordinance that will require every incandescent bulb in the city to be replaced by five CF bulbs, to get five times the electricity savings.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about why some people like CF light and some people hate it. The important point is this: people who hate it really do hate it, and not because they are just being whiny. And if you had their eyes, you would hate it too.

The color system on the eye has only three types of cones, roughly responding to light which is Red, Green and Blue. Because of this, a light bulb can "simulate" white light by generating only three frequencies.

This really does seem identical if you are staring at a blank wall. But if you are looking at a real world scene (especially something with high contrast like text) the diffraction patterns on the retina are very different. Monochromatic light ( light of a single pure color) is constantly interefereing with itself, and everyone hates looking at a room when lit by a monochromatic light source. A CF bulb with three colors is like three monochromatic lights.

Ironically, the better eyesight you have (in terms of visual acuity) the more likely you are to perceive the diffraction patterns on your retina, and be bothered by them.

The other thing is that CF's give sopme people headaches. The reason is that people use natural white-light chromatic abberations to help their eyes focus. (Much like a camera, your eye can tell that a picture is out of focus, but it can easily not tell which way to adjust the focus to improve the image. Thats why video cameras ocassionaly focus back and forth, looking for a clear image) Red light focuses diffrently than Blue, so your eye can use the difference to figure out how it needs to adjust itself.
For many people, this mechanism does not work right under limited spectrums, so the eye is contstantly strainging back and forth in focus, trying to sharpen the image. The result is a splitting headache after a while.

The bottom line is that CF's really do work for some people, and really do not work for others.

Erik,

Thanks for the post, b/c I was thinking "WTF?? I run CFLs of all shapes, sizes, and colors in my house, and love, love, love them! Are the haters aliens, or what? And who the hell *travels* with incandescent light bulbs?"

So I'll stick with my near-sightedness and low electrical bills and be happy.

P.S. Richard- climatologists know all this, too. Do you really think you disproved global warming theory, just like that???

I did some more research. It turns out the requirement that I was referencing in Title 24 of the California Energy Commission and thus applies only to California. But many times regulations adopted by California are adopted by other states.

The preamble to the 2005 version of the code states:

"The most dramatic change since the previous Standards is that high efficacy luminaires are required for almost all rooms in residential buildings"

Basically all hardwired lights have to be fluorescent or equivalent (I don't know of any equivalents yet)

It seems to me that CFLs vary quite a bit by manufacturer. I've recently bought two batches-- one is by Commercial Electric; it lights up immediately and has a fairly pleasant tone of light. The other was the cheap kind they had displayed prominently at Target-- it takes a long time to light up and has a harsher color of light. Even that one was fairly palatable when I put it under a colored lampshade, though.

Yeah, we found out the hard way about not being able to use CFLs in fixtures operated by dimmers (though, Ann, you said "most" CFLs can't be successfully dimmed - do you know of a brand or type that can be?), by replacing almost all the indoor floods in our bazillion recessed fixtures, every one but one with a dimmer, with CFL floods. We burned out more CFLs in a year than we did incandescents, and this house races through light bulbs. Frustrating. Just as I'd pretty well gotten used to the different quality of the light - bam! Change another $5 bulb, or however much they cost - back to incandescent.

Fascinating discussion on daylight/sunlight/etc. I knew that a "brightly lit" room never is, but I'd never heard the actual facts and figures. Thanks, all of you who know about light. (Heinlein's juvie Farmer in the Sky talks about daylight on Io, I think it was; the kid emigrating there was sure he'd be in perpetual twilight, but when he got there it looked just as bright as Earth - his pupils just dilated more, IIRC. I thought that was cool...)

This is my first experience with CFs, in my new house outfitted with *one* in my entrance foyer. I actually think the light is warmer and friendlier than old fluorescents, and truer than incandescent yellow - not as harsh as "full spectrum" fluorescents, either, which are supposed to approximate sunlight but IMO really don't.

Also I have no problems with flickering. Could be the brand or the wiring, for those that do.

True, the cover does not fit over the recessed can fixture. But it's an interesting spiral shape so I reluctantly call it "design." I have a goal to replace as many others as possible (grateful for recent leads to the dimmable ones for ceiling fan lights, and trying to figure out the other covered fixtures).

Thanks for all this commentary!

I think there are two basic problems with fluorescent lights: the color of the light emitted, and the irritating diffuseness of the light.

In Japan, Hitachi and others have been selling compact fluorescents which use about 1/4 or less of the electricity, last very long (mine are about 6 years old), and put out light that is nearly indistinguishable from that from an incandescent bulb. They are called "denkyu" (which in Japanese means "emitting light like that from an incandescent light bulb"). (There are also other types that emit the horrible blue light everyone hates. It is a mystery to me why anyone buys those.) All the bulbs on this page say "denkyu" in Japanese.
http://www.yodobashi.com/enjoy/more/productslist/cat_162_16565661_5886838/16148836.html
The spotlight ones are very bright.
These bulbs are expensive, about 12 dollars for the 100 watt types, but they more than pay for themselves.

The second problem is that long tube fluorescent lights produce diffuse light, which many people find annoying. Because these compact fluorescent bulbs are point sources, that problem is solved. I also put a conical metal lampshade above the light, and that really helps direct the light where you want it.

I have been using CFLs in my apartment for a number of years, (although I don't pay for electricity) because I hate changing bulbs and for ecological reasons. There is nothing wrong with the color of the newer bulbs, although the early ones did cast a blue light.

No one has mentioned what I took offense to in this article. The fact that US factories will close and Chinese or other countries will flourish thanks to Walmart's assault, once again, on American factories and workers. Sure, put more people out of work, we have profits to pile up. Walmart says you're with us or out of our stores. Personally I don't like Walmart's habit of telling me how I'm going to live and what I can buy, any more than I like the way the way they bully suppliers. The assertion that this is being done for "green" reasons is the usual Walmart bullsh*t. Instead we argue about spectrum. The old art of distraction.
We use a combination of 3 types of bulbs. 1) CFLs in hallways and outdoors as a porch light.
2) Long Lasting Incandescent bulbs which we buy from the Home Improvements catalog. A slightly lower wattage, like 93 watts for a 100 watt bulb for example. They have spots and floods which work the same lower wattage way. These bulbs last for years... 3-5 in our experience.
I buy a dozen of each size we use about every 4-5 years. The floods and spots I buy 2-3 at the same time.
3) Tri-light Reader bulbs ... the bluish toned which give a clear white light are in the lamps where we read.
2 & 3 are more expensive than regular bulbs, but all are worth it in energy savings and eyeball ease.
So too is boycotting Walmart, which can be hard to do here in Rural Arkansas where they've chased most retailers out of business. But I do it. For the sake of our planet.

you should really do more research before committing ignorance to print.

fluorescent lights are available in a variety of color temperatures and "daylight" bulbs are closer to real sunlight than incandescent bulbs are.

there are a spectrum of fluoros from reddish to bluish and they all serve a purpose.

i can even grow a prodigious amount of a popular plant under them. Bluish for vegetative growth, and reddish for those buds we enjoy so much.

open your eyes and see the light.

Do you ever read an article and wonder "Where on earth does the author live--Mars?" I had such a moment

Wow -- so did I, upon reading this post.

Anyone who thinks CFLs have the exact same color temperature as long-tube overhead office flourescents, or that they flicker or take any time to come on, hasn't bought a new one in the past few years.

They last longer, are cheaper in the long run, throw only a fraction of the heat, and have almost no downside.

This is a non-issue. Gripe against them all you want -- they are going to become quite ubiquitous, and deservedly so, at least until LEDs come down in price.

CFLs will save energy, but someone who doesn't like them for aesthetic purposes can still call herself green. Smaller cars will save energy, but many folks want bigger ones because they're more comfortable. Carpooling saves energy but it's inconvenient to wait on others and to put up with others.

On another point: Rather than view it as Wal-Mart forcing jobs overseas, why can't we view it as American industry yet again sticking with energy-inefficient products (re: Detroit) until it's too late?

I am using CFs some of which I put in more than 10 years ago. Almost every fixture in my house uses CFs. They come on with no flicker, but do take a split second longer than incandescents.

Being very sensitive to color, I emphatically do notice fluorescents (especially bad ones) in office buildings but these don't bother me.

I use the small bulbs in fixtures that won't accommodate the larger ones and I buy both at Costco, so they are reasonable in cost. I know for a fact that I have spent far less on bulbs over the last 10 years than I would have if I had been using incandescent, and I also have spent less on electricity.

And then there's the green factor. That one makes me feel better than just saving money.

One other note. I do a lot of photography, mostly digital now, but in scenes photographed by tungsten light, I still notice a distinct yellow/orange cast, when just using the auto white balance setting. Using the same setting with the CFs and there is no noticeable cast. That tells me a lot.

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