January 7, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:More on CFL
Michael O'Hare's post here about sums up the amused contempt directed at me for saying that I didn't like Wal-Mart's compact flourescent lights. I'm a moron, I don't know what I'm talking about, CFLs are awesome, and what kind of spendthrift bobo yahoo gets all worked up about the colour of her light?
Perhaps I can clear up some confusion.
First of all, I am not talking about some platonic ideal of CFL which may or may not exist; I am talking about the actual ones I purchased at Wal-Mart, which suck. I got several wattages from (as I seem to recall) several manufacturers; they all sucked. Since CFLs at Wal-Mart were the subject of the article, these are the relevant items to discuss, not some fantastic CFLs you mail-ordered from Japan.
Second of all, I don't have the choice of finding some lampshade in which they don't suck. I live in a 400 square foot apartment, and my landlord picks the white glass shades that go on my overhead lights. I'm sure that if I found some lovely tiffany glass in just the right hue, they'd be adorable.
Third of all, unlike almost everyone on the planet, I am dependent on these lights all day. My apartment does not get enough natural light to work by, and I often work at home. There is a big difference between having kind of sucky light for a few hours a day, and spending your whole day drenched in it. Light really does have an affect on your spirits: that's what Seasonal Affective Disorder is all about, and why people fight so hard for offices with windows.
Fourth of all, I did actually try these things; I'm not mindlessly extrapolating from the lights at work. I don't know what I hate about them--the colour, the glare, whatever. I don't care about the shape, and didn't notice any particular flicker (I'm one of the unlucky ones who can see it in offices with cheap lights). I just know that the one in my range hood now, the equivalent of a 100 watt incandescent, emits an ugly glare that is strongly reminiscent of being interrogated by the Mossad, and did so no matter what light fixture or lamp I screwed it into. The actual 100 watt incandescents now there do not. This was the bulb that was advertised on its freaky high-security plastic wrapping as being just like an incandescent.
Nor is this some hysterical reaction from someone prone to hate CFLs. I wanted to like CFLs; indeed, I believed so strongly in them that I had to throw out about $50 worth when I found out they didn't work in my apartment. And everyone else who walked into my apartment with a CFL in the socket had the same reaction; approximately: "Eeeeeeew." The place, now a warmly lit corner of paradise in the cold-hearted city, looked like a badly planned ladies dressing room in a failing discount department store chain. Now, what's really funny: someone who tried CFLs and found that she couldn't stand the way they looked in her apartment, or someone who is so completely unable to imagine any circumstances in which someone might have had a different experience from him with a product, that he writes several thousand words from another city asserting that I must be mistaken? Although I do want to make it claer, for the record, that I fully support Michael O'Hare's right to insert his foot in his mouth, clear up to the sacrum if he chooses.
Now, since my experiment five months ago, perhaps Wal-Mart has changed their entire line of bulbs. Perhaps they are all wonderful now. But they weren't, when I bought them. I'm sure that some people have found that they work wonderfully in a variety of places, but they do not work wonderfully for someone in a cheap, dark rental apartment. I'm just guessing of course, but I imagine that sort of apartment is fairly common among Wal-Mart's clientele, which might be why their bulbs aren't doing so well.
That said, I do plan to experiment, very cautiously, with other brands. I'm cheap, and as I say, I want to conserve electricity. But if they look like the Wal-Mart ones, they go right back out again. My green street cred may suffer, but given that I live in a tiny apartment in a highly efficient dense area, have no dishwasher or car, use a tiny gas range, do only full loads of laundry, and run a single air conditioner only in the room where the dog is, I feel like I've got a little reputational capital there to burn.
Posted by Jane Galt at January 7, 2007 10:15 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksWhat I've found works really well is one of those 5-armed octopus light stands with 4 normal CF bulbs and 1 blue ("daylight") CF bulb. It produces a much better chromatic spread than either alone. And the octopus lamps are like $20 at target, and reasonably unobtrusive in a room.
Though the best lighting I've ever seen are 4' fluorescent tubes labeled "sunlight" (not the "daylight" ones). Closest thing to fake sunlight I've ever found, and I've tried a lot.
It's intriguing that no one from Wal-Mart or GE or any of the other CFL manufacturers joined the fairly extensive discussion here. I would think that brand and product managers would do well to keep tabs on Internet discussions re their product lines, and chime in if they have anything to contribute.
Somebody told me this was a forum for libertarian politics. They lied!
Let me know when you review fruit juicers - I'm in the market for a new one and I'm just soooo confused over the range....
Julius Seizer
I did feel it was a bit unfair that Michael O'Hare slagged you off for saying that the light from CFLs was different, and then spent the rest of his entry explaining that it was different. Could do better.
Hey, this article had nothing to do with the Connecticut for Lieberman Party! I've been robbed!
I would enjoy some juicer reviews, though.
I revised my post this morning before I saw this, partly because Mark Kleiman, fearless leader and editorial wise head of the RBC, said I was unfair to Jane. I hope she's not as upset about the current version. I wish in any case she would be a little less willing to impute moral judgments where I didn't make, or mean to make, them; I'm sure Jane is an environmentally responsible person and wants to do the right thing, and also smart and capable of using knowledge to better achieve her purposes.
The italicized claim in my second par was not meant to be sarcastic; I think one of the best uses of energy is to create value, including aesthetic value. I myself drive to concerts and operate my electric stereo and television with a clear conscience, and if I had the same reaction to CFL's that Jane has, I wouldn't use them.
The NYTimes Week in Review section today has an article on Wal Mart's fluorescent lights which might interest you.
Jane, add this to your list of why people take up religion and go to church on Sunday. There are bigger moral fish to fry than CFL.
I am currently putting together a home theatre system for my 250 square foot living room. With the large flat screen LCDs like the 40" Sony XBR3 I have my eye on, lighting experts shining a mild light on the wall directly behind it to reduce eye strain and enhance the perception of blacks on the screen. Do you have any recommendations for the type of light to use?
To be fair to Michael O'Hare, the original JG post was a bit snarky in presuming that JG's personal preferences were universal and obviously correct based on the "Nobody I know voted for CF!" argument. The follow-up with "I live in Manhattan so am by definiton green!" doesn't help.
Anyway, I have ordered some fancy full spectrum bulbs with a secret blend of 11 phosphors. I'll let you know how that goes. And as I said before, I've lived and worked in even smaller and darker conditions than JG while using all kinds of light bulbs, including CF, wihtout problems, and I see flicker up to 75 Hz. My street cred is fine.
* Your January 2nd post used Walmarts CFL push as a touchstone but your complaints seemed to be directed at CFLs generally.
* You description of yourself as a "fairly committed green" seems inaccurate given your gripes with CFLs.
* Did you actually throw out $50 worth of bulbs? I know that rents are high in New York, but that sort of extravagance seems to clash with your living in a 400 square foot apartment in which you're not even permitted to monkey with the light fixtures.
To put my comment in context, I share a 550 square foot apartment in Hong Kong (where the rents are also quite high) with my wife and cats, work mostly from home, and all of the fixtures in our home (except for a fluorescent tube in the kitchen that we haven't gotten around to replacing yet) are CFLs.
I'm trying to figure out whether (a.) my wife and I were just lucky enough to have stumbled into a stash of exotic non-madness-inducing CFLs at the mom-and-pop electrical/hardware stall downtown, (b.) we're both fanatical environmentalists (who'd have guessed!), or (c.) the CFLs we're using came from the same factories in China where Walmart buys their bulbs, but we're just not hung up on the naturalness/non-naturalness of our lighting.
CFLs suck for most home uses. They can't be dimmed and the color between brands and models is wildly inconsistent.
I did attach a CFL behind my monitor to reduce eye strain and it works great.
O'Hare's post is chock full of interesting information, but the basic thrust of his argument is bizarre. "If you don't like CFLs, your opinion is wrong." Aren't we all allowed to have our own opinions about what we like and dislike? Do the thought police now patrol not only for political ideas but also consumer preferences?
What a pompous mass of pedantry Mr. O'Hare has produced. I notice that in his passive-agressive little disclaimer ("Before I go on, I wish to record my absolute commitment to Galt’s and Hamilton’s and anyone else’s perfect right...") he never acknowledged Jane's original complaint: the perceived quality of light, which is not the same thing as its measured "warmth" or "coolness". No amount of "look how smart I am!" bloviation will change the fact that the light is ugly.
On the other hand, we have 4 CFL's in a near-inaccessible location in our house. They save much energy, because they are too ugly to turn on, and too inaccessible to bother changing.
Paco, much as I was unimpressed by his response, O'Hare did address that when he talked about the blind tests you could run.
You CAN by CFLs that are dimmable. I have one in a dimmable fixture in our house. You can also buy 3-way CFL bulbs.
EI
"...O'Hare did address that when he talked about the blind tests you could run."He seemed to have missed this bit from the NYT article, then:
Though as Professor Leslie at the Lighting Research Center has demonstrated, people can’t pick out the type of light a lamp is producing without seeing the bulb, seeing skin in its light is a giveaway. Mr. Gordon said: “Just stick your hand under it. Retail, four-star hotels, restaurants have figured this out. You won’t find the Gap using compact fluorescent light bulbs to sell clothes.”(Emphases added.)
BD: because someone didn't keep with CFLs they're not a green? Nice litmus tests.
You also seem completely unaware of how apartments work, despite living in HK. I'll lay it out in big letters and small words: Jane's landlord owns all of the fixtures in her apartment. Since she's there for the short term, and is somewhat Green, she hasn't invested the hundreds of dollars in new accessories for her ceiling lights. Maybe in your world people normally splurge on capital investments for rental accommodation, but in this universe people don't do that. As the saying goes, no one ever washes a rented car.
This just highlights a tendency of certain political/religious strains to elevate aesthetic differences into moral imperatives. People have a high level of variability in their sensitivity to light colour and frequency, as they do in all of their perceptions and understanding of environmental stimuli. These differences have all sorts of interesting implications and effects, but aren't failures of morality no matter what your friends at Greenpeace, PIRG, Democratic Underground, etc say.
Course the crazy lefties aren't the only ones that are hung up on the morality of aesthetics (Amish being the best example), but they're rather more militant and are much larger than the anti-aesthetic strains of the right. Though Rod Dreher and his supposed crunchy-cons have a similar hectgoring, moralising, holier than thou anti-aesthetic aesthetic and anti-materialism materialism. Disgusting no matter who engages in it, just as disgusting as the original NYT article was.
Paco: That's an interesting point. However, what you linked to was written after Jane and O'Hare made their posts. Again, my point was not that he thoroughly refuted the argument, just that he addressed it.
That said, I'm having trouble seeing why being Green means the CFL light doesn't bother you. It might make you *more willing* to tolerate it, but it won't fundamentally change your light sensitivity. I'm willing to bet that telling these people that "there really is no difference" is like telling me that "CRT televisions don't make a high-pitched squeal". Yes, they do, and yes, I can hear it. Blind test me if you're not convinced.
David Foster wrote:
It's intriguing that no one from Wal-Mart or GE or any of the other CFL manufacturers joined the fairly extensive discussion here. I would think that brand and product managers would do well to keep tabs on Internet discussions re their product lines, and chime in if they have anything to contribute.
I just conjured up the most delicious image. It's 8:30 a.m., the Wal-Mart CEO has just arrived for work, and the first thing he does is run straight to marketing. He's sweaty, out of breath, and he's looking for his director of public relations, blogger division. "I came here as quick as I could," he says. "Tell me--what do the libertarian bloggers think about our new fluorescent lights?"
The director's face is ashen. "I've never seen anything this bad. They're exchanging sarcastic posts, and the snarking is off the charts!"
"My God. Do you know what this means? We're ruined. I'm ruined. You don't lose the libertarian blogger demographic and keep your job, not in this country."
;)
The key thing is that the same flourescent bulb can look quite different in different settings. The same bulb that gives a corpse-like bluish glow on my back porch looks perfectly normal (aside from being quite underpowered) in my living room. Some pigments can respond to the spiky spectrum of flourescents quite differently than to the smooth spectrum of incandescents. Jane's apartment must be loaded up with things that react quite badly to flourescents, just as the sheet metal roof and treated lumber on my back porch do...
It is NOT because it is dark and cave-like. I love dark and cave-like spaces - with a 30 watt "mini-sunlight" (6500 Kelvin) lighting them up brightly.
I am suspicious of CFLs. I kind of like the curly look, but I think the prices are too high to justify unless the actual wattages are correct, which I have no way to measure. I have noticed that the different brands have really different visual aspect. I have one Sylvania CFL that seems really good, but I can't find any more like it in our region. I have a gooseneck lamp that I use a lot for reading. It uses parabolic reflection to get good intensity from a normal 15 watt bulb. I really love that lamp, but I haven't seen anything like it for years. I'm hoping for a revolution in LED lighting. The LED flashlights are amazing and cheap.
In some fixtures I have mixed incandescent bulbs with CFLs to get the right light. I've also used halogens for brightness and longevity in places where a CFL won't fit.
Jane, tell us about being interrogated by the Mossad, instead of this whining about CFL's.
When I was 8 years old I remarked to my parents that I thought incandescent lighting was warmer, and more enjoyable, than ordinary daylight. They immediately sent me to a psychiatrist to find out what was wrong with me.
After I escaped the psychiatrist I have kept my thoughts on lighting to myself. If you talk to photographer you will find there is an entire profession that believes there are different temperatures of light and that light temperature has a psychological affect, or even a psychological effect.
Nevertheless I believe most people are color blind when it comes to lighting and never notice the difference between warm white and cool white.
It is said that "in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king". Not true. He is at the mercy of psychiatrists and will be confined for his own good until he no longer hallucinates.
You won’t find the Gap using compact fluorescent light bulbs to sell clothes.”
Compact fluorescent lighting technologies have been used in department and specialty store displays for years. Mind you, these are commercial display fixtures, not $5 Wal-Mart drop-in-replacement CFLs, but it is quite possible to achieve suitable color balance and intensity with compact fluorescents. (Also, unless you're running the kind of store that has price tags starting in the high three- to low four-figure range, energy-efficient lighting is one way to reduce your overhead costs.)
I am suspicious of CFLs. I kind of like the curly look, but I think the prices are too high to justify unless the actual wattages are correct, which I have no way to measure.
Uh...do you also take a RadioShack multimeter to your incandescent bulbs before installing them in the socket?
Jane, for your next post why not a combination review: CFL lighting plus low-carb diets? Maybe add a Schiavo retrospective to add flavor?
Jane, I have switched to CFL's in several places in my house. In my den I have 2 sets of 3 above me. But, I use 60 watt bulbs (purchased at Home Depot). They are bright but for me not too bright. Maybe try a lower wattage. You can not use CFL's in reostat light switchs.
Good luck.
As a singleton, living alone, you may have less reputational capital to burn, than you think.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3355927.stm
Jane, Lose the guilt.
Today's Lefties are moral descendents of the Puritans by way of Stalin and Mao. Screw them! Your personal decisions about what to wear or what to drive or what kind of light to use should be personal, as long as you pay for your decision.
FWIW, I think CFLs are fine (I also like the real CFL where talented US football players who are too small for the NFL get to strut their stuff on a bigger playing field) and, because I'm cheap, use as many as my wife, who hates 'em, will allow. We also drive a small used car, and would buy a hyrbid in a minute if we could afford it - because we're cheap and SUVs are butt-ugly - sort of like NFL players, and use a lot of gasoline which is getting more expensive in the long run.
Given NYC's high electricity rates (I assume that you pay your own electric bill - of course if you don't my advice would be to put the highest safe wattage bulb you can find into each fixture), you'll pay dearly for your choice, but it is your choice.
Immoralist...somewhere in Wal-Mart, there is an individual--buyer, brand manager, whatever--whose career is closely linked to the sale of CFLs. Similarly, somewhere in GE is an individual, probably called a product manager, whose future will be much brighter if these things sell well than if they don't.
Wouldn't you think it would be wise for these individuals to get some samplings of the pro-and-con thoughts that their prospective customers have re the purchase decision?
Your personal decisions about what to wear or what to drive or what kind of light to use should be personal, as long as you pay for your decision.
The problem, of course, is that the people who pay for Americans' wasteful energy consumption are in places like Iraq.
The problem, of course, is that the people who pay for Americans' wasteful energy consumption are in places like Iraq.
That's a good point, purple. If not for the Iraq war, it would have been impossibe for Iraqi oil to hit world commodity markets.
Oh wait, that's complete humbug.
Person, can you explain how world commodity markets factor in little boys losing both their arms?
purple: I know you're not really thinking about this rationally and simply want to appeal to emotion, but to the readers who *are* thinking about this rationally:
You were claiming that America's wasteful energy consumption is responsible for the victims of the Iraq War. That would only be true if such a war was necessary to secure the energy. It wasn't. Saddam was willing to sell Iraqi oil onto global commodity markets. The deaths were a failure of foreign policy, not excess consumption.
You can get CFLs that can be used with dimmers. Here is one example:
http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/us/ecatalog/cfl/pdf/p-7016.pdf?PHPSESSID=518d79faf291d90f4154f233c8163c93
It took me about a minute to find this one.
Sheesh.
EI
Sol: They don't believe that light "has temperatures", as such. The "temperature" thing is comparing the spectrum the light gives off with the radiation (in the visible range) of a black body heated to that temperature.
(The other use, "warm" and "cool", refer to respectively less blue/more red, and more blue/less red in the visual color of the light, pure-white being neutral. But that's never actually called "temperature" in my experience, and the "cooler" blue in terms of color theory actually represents a hotter black body temperature.)
Unrelatedly, I'm very Environmentally Responsible - I just have thoroughly different assumptions and standards for what Environmental Responsibility is than Greens do. That's the great thing about the term - it doesn't actually mean anything in itself.
I've used several kinds of CFLs. One kind, bought at Sam's, put out really harsh blue tinted light, despite being touted as daylight. I use those in the porch light, which is on quite a bit. Another kind, also bought at Sam's, is slow to warm up but has good light for reading. We use those in our bedisde reading lamps, since I can get them to full brightness in the time it takes to get ready for bed. Alas, they won't fit into most lamps due to size constraints, and I've not found any to fit our ceiling fans, though they may be out there.
As for LED lights, I was briefed on them a couple of years ago as part of a multi-corporate R&D program. Expect them to be viable for household use in 5-7 years. As an aside, I switched to LED christmas lights this year for most of our outdoor light display. Got quite a few compliments from the neighbors on how pretty the lights were. I expect to pay off the increased cost of the light strings ($8 each for 70 light strings) in 3 years of use.
Can you explain how world commodity markets factor in little boys losing both their arms?
Nope...and evidently, neither can you.
I'm willing to bet that telling these people that "there really is no difference" is like telling me that "CRT televisions don't make a high-pitched squeal". Yes, they do, and yes, I can hear it. Blind test me if you're not convinced.
I can hear it too--didn't know anyone else could. Especially when they're changing channels. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
colagirl, I can hear it also. My parents never believed me, though.
Person, please tell us all why the United States invaded Iraq.
I guess we are not going to hear about Jane's interrogation by the Mossad. I was really looking forward to that.
Gabriel_Malor: Why not have them test you? That is, have the TV on or off and then they lead you into the room blindfolded. It's also a great trick at parties (at least if no one else can hear it).
By the way, does anyone know a cheap and easy way to find out your audible frequency rage? I tried to play a bunch of frequencies on my home PC's speakers, but they max out at low levels. Are there centers that you can go to test for hearing capacity? (I'd like to know my volume sensitivity as well.)
purple: I don't have to explain that. I don't even know what was going through key advisors' heads. All I need to establish is that the invasion wasn't truly necessary for the oil to be available somewhere on world markets (at which point it doesn't matter who it's sold too, as Jane has able demonstrated in the past). Maybe the advisors believed it did, but that doesn't mean they're right. Imagine that -- a government official making an error!
David Foster wrote:
Immoralist...somewhere in Wal-Mart, there is an individual--buyer, brand manager, whatever--whose career is closely linked to the sale of CFLs...
Wouldn't you think it would be wise for these individuals to get some samplings of the pro-and-con thoughts that their prospective customers have re the purchase decision?
Well, sure, of course it would be wise. No doubt a manager would want to identify the characteristics of CFL buyers and measure their satisfaction with the product. But I'm highly skeptical that a manager would waste his time trolling libertarian blog comments in order to obtain a representative sample of his purchasing public. It's not likely that libertarian bloggers and the people who read them constitute a major purchasing segment of Wal-Mart CFLs. Feedback in the form of consumer surveys or complaints filed on more relevant message boards (e.g., "Tell Us What You Think of Wal-Mart CFLs"--maybe operated by the company itself, or maybe not) would be more useful.
Even supposing that someone at Wal-Mart is watching, what exactly would he learn about customer satisfaction with his particular product from a discussion that is more about the quality of CFLs generally? That commercial CFLs which cost more are superior to $5 Wal-Mart versions? He knows that already. And he's probably not interested in hearing people say so unless he can get commercial-quality CFLs without raising the price beyond his target demographics.
In short, libertarian bloggers and the people who post comments on them are probably not a big enough purchasing demographic of Wal-Mart CFLs to get Brand Manager Waste of Space to pry his eyes from whatever other data he's examining. I hate to use jargon from that most dismal of all social sciences, economics, but the brand manager has opportunity costs to worry about.
Immoralist...I doubt if everyone commenting here is a libertarian, and I doubt if "libertarian" is a useful demographic category for marketing (other than T-shirts, magazines, etc). What probably *is* a useful category for consumer mnarketing is "bloggers and blog readers," since these people tend to be opinionated.
The best way to do this kind of research probably isn't so much to troll specific blogs as to use software tools to identify discussions relevant to one's product or service.
Sounds to me like there's a lot of confusion about the varieties of CFLs and the light qualitites of each: even about things as basic as startup times. Probably a good job for improved point-of-purchase displays.
David Foster wrote:
What probably *is* a useful category for consumer mnarketing is "bloggers and blog readers," since these people tend to be opinionated.
Yeah, I can agree with that. I'd still be careful about putting too much emphasis on bloggers and blog readers as a demographic, though. Noisiness and strong opinion don't necessarily translate into profit--remember "Snakes on a Plane?"
The best way to do this kind of research probably isn't so much to troll specific blogs as to use software tools to identify discussions relevant to one's product or service.
They have software capable of doing that? I mean, beyond Googling certain combinations of words and clicking on the results? Man. That's cool! I guess a brand manager could do that, then.
colagirl, I can hear it also. My parents never believed me, though.
Isn't this supposed to go away as you age, the concept being the basis for high-pitched ring tones for teenagers and the teenage loitering deterrent sound?
I find it amusing that warm light is light with a lower color temperature than cool light.
-dk
My CFLs burned out fast. I suspect they don't survive being turned on and off many times, the way an incandescent does. And they are expensive to replace. So, we use CFLs only for outside lights that we leave burning 24 hours per day and never turn them off.
"By the way, does anyone know a cheap and easy way to find out your audible frequency rage?" If you can hear the horizontal retrace frequency from a TV set, your range goes to at least 15.7 KHz. That's better than most people (adults, at least), but not by a whole lot.
I once saw a CFL game between Toronto and Montreal...does that count?
Person, high oil prices are good for many of the same people who planned the invasion of Iraq. If Iraqi oil were available on world markets the price would go down. Things are going just fine if you are Dick Cheney.
...emits an ugly glare that is strongly reminiscent of being interrogated by the Mossad...
But have you actually geen interrogated by the Mossad, Jane? See you don't know what you're talking about.
;)
There's no way to win this argument, Jane. To some people the CFL light looks perfectly fine. To the rest of us, they are soul-stealing helixes of damnation. Never shall the two agree.
purple: Your claim was that the ordinary user of oil, as an ordinary user of oil, is resposible for the deaths of Iraqis, becaust those wars are necessary for them to have access to oil. That claim was shown to be an error. Those wars are not necessary for them to get their oil. I won't dispute it if you think specific well-connected individuals benefit from wars. But that wasn't your original claim, which it appears you have since abandoned.
Chalk me up as one of the 'weird' folks who prefer CFL's. But I'm also a bit photo-sensitive, so the diminished light is, for me, a feature.
CFL's have been a waste of money for us. I replaced every incandescent bulb in our modest house with CFL's three years ago. They were made by several different manufacturers, including Phillips and GE.
Here's what happened:
1. In the real world, CFL's don't last as long as advertised. Even after purchasing a CFL-specific fixture, the kitchen lights only lasted a year and a half, and were deteriorating badly for months. In other cases, the bulbs fared even worse. Overall, we only got 2 or 3 times the life of ordinary bulbs.
2. ALL CFL's, regardless of manufacturer, interfered with over-the-air radio and TV. Want to listen to a ballgame without buzzing? Turn off the lights.
3. Several CFL's overheated and, in one case, the plastic base melted. This was in an open fixture in the basement with plenty of ventilation.
4. The ugly and unpredictable colors and flicker bothered my wife, who is very sensitive to this.
I replaced most CFL's at least twice before giving up. In the end, we went through almost $600 worth of CFL's, most of which ended up as toxic junk. Is this environmentally responsible? It seems to me that the energy and resources needed to manufacture the CFL's we used could find better use.
Theo: Others have said that CFL's don't have the flicker or that it's fast enough no human could notice it (30 kHz I believe the number was). Are you sure these were CFL's and not just FL's?
Any pro-CFL'er have a comment on this?
I think that Theo's comments are worthwhile, though I think that place and manner of use is important. I installed two CFLs for outside lights 5 years ago, and have yet to replace them. However, I've replaced all of the CFL's inside my home at least once during that span of time.
Theo: Others have said that CFL's don't have the flicker or that it's fast enough no human could notice it (30 kHz I believe the number was). Are you sure these were CFL's and not just FL's?
Any pro-CFL'er have a comment on this?
It sounds to me like he ended up with the types of CFLs that use a conventional (magnetic) ballast. Many of the "U-tube" style lamps do this.
I've taken apart a couple (dead) ice-cream swirl CFLs to examine the electronic ballast, and cannot imagine a scenario in which the base would overheat and melt, especially not in an un-enclosed fixture. A magnetic ballast could readily do this, however. Cheap ballast construction can mean that the already warm-running ballast breaks down its insulation and gradually overheats as shorts form within the coils.
It's also worth noting that the manufacturer's quoted bulb life, for both incandescents and any variety of fluorescent, are always footnoted with an estimated daily usage -- basically, this is how long the lamp will last if you turn it on once a day and then shut it off again after 7 hours.
The only fixture that gets that kind of steady-state use in my folks' place is the recessed kitchen fixture, and that has four 8' fluorescents. And they do last a very long time. Meanwhile, the CFLs seem to be getting 12-20 months after the 'crib death' units are weeded out, but the incandescents were yielding far less, so...
Could paint color be a contributing factor? My husband bought a bunch of CFLs and I expected to hate them, but they've been fine for me. But thinking about it, we have them in rooms that are painted a pale creamy yellow, a light dusty peach ("Flemish Still Life") and a soft brown ("Applesauce Cake").
Here's a little more, for what it's worth, on our CFL experience.
Yes, the units in the basement that gave me the most trouble were magnetic ballast types. There was no obvious reason that the one melted other than a ballast failure. I was trying to be a little cheap with these, as they were the least expensive. We've had a couple of close calls with electrical fires over the years, so after this happened I rooted out all indoor magnetic ballasts.
CFL's seem, in general, sensitive to heat and to being cycled on and off, as anony-mouse mentions. I've had a similar experience to Half Canadian's, with the outside CFL's lasting forever, and the inside ones going within a year. In fact, my first CFL, an 8-year-old Toshiba unit, is still working well as our front porch light. It hasn't deteriorated a bit over the years.
The most annoying flicker was from the dimmer-capable CFL's I put in the dining room. They tended to flicker at low levels--not 30 or 60 Hz flicker, but a more unstable output sort of flicker. Maybe a different dimmer would have helped. My wife banned them within a week, so I never found out. She didn't like the colors, she didn't like the hum they made, and the flicker was the last straw. We have a fairly low chandelier, and they were just annoying to be near.
My wife is subject to migraines, so the CFL's were more than annoying to her. She does a lot of work at the dining table, and cooking being a serious interest, she's in the kitchen a lot. She felt the CFL's were a big factor in some very bad weeks of headaches.
It may be that the newest CFL's are better, but having had a fairly poor experience, I'm not eager to find out. I've been enthusing about getting some LED bulbs when the price drops, but my wife has put me on notice that she will rip them out mercilessly if they in any way resemble CFL's.
But thinking about it, we have them in rooms that are painted a pale creamy yellow, a light dusty peach ("Flemish Still Life") and a soft brown ("Applesauce Cake").
Isn't there a "fresh whipped butter" or "spring daffodil dream" or something missing in that sentence? :)
Maybe, but I don't know the color name because we didn't paint that room.
A lot of people fantasize about being WalMart greeters. My fantasy job is to be the person who names paint or nail polish colors.
I haven't bothered to read any of the comments. Instead, I have three words for you, Jane:
"Light Emitting Diodes".
LED's are the real lights of the future. Git some now.
White LED's are similar to flourescents as far as the quality of light goes. LED's naturally produce a single wavelength, even more so than the gas discharge tube of flourescents, so white LED's are actually a blue LED covered with phosphors that downshift the blue to other colors. You'll get the same light out of the same phosphor mix, whether it's coated on an LED or a flourescent.
LED's do have plenty of advantages. They may be even more efficient, if the drive circuitry is designed for efficiency rather than cheapness (a switching power supply as a current regulator rather than a series resistor). Their lifetime isn't reduced by frequent switching on and off. They are easily dimmed. The one problem at present is that they are manufactured from exotic semiconductors, especially the blue or white ones, and therefore are very expensive per unit of light produced. There's hope of changing that, perhaps with semiconducting polymers and panels that can be manufactured by silkscreening rather than the mask and etch techniques of electronics manufacturing, but that's far from production ready.
Jane, another solution is to go with the flow. Accept the fact that you live in a dark room, then go beyond mere acceptance...exploit it.
Put heavy paper, such as butcher paper, up on all the walls and ceiling. Paint this paper a dense, flat, matte black. Replace most, or even all, of your lights with "black" lights. Hire one or more starving artistes to come paint your place with fluoro-paints; stars, comets, a few moons, some nebulae, the International Space Station, some UFO's, etc.
Then have a house party, and be sure to invite the appropriate guests, starting with the friends of ye starving artiste(s), someone from the Village Voice, a columnist from Nerve, someone from the Observer, etc.
Revel in your unique abode, embracing its difference.
They may be even more efficient, if the drive circuitry is designed for efficiency rather than cheapness (a switching power supply as a current regulator rather than a series resistor).
Also worth noting that the cheap series resistor is the least desirable option for the flicker sensitive, since the unidirectional conduction characteristic creates a 30Hz strobe (or the usual 60Hz strobe if the LEDs are wired in several antiparallel chains). Meanwhile, the presently-exotic status of such fixtures makes it even harder to determine what you're getting, than it is with CFLs.
Comments are Closed.