energy saving light bulbs are rubbish

arknor said:
the free ones that get posted to people these days are pathetic.

they take 2-3 second before they light up and ive also had one die after only a few months :S

some i had posted to me around 5 years ago are much better quality than the newer ones that seem to have been profit margin squeezed
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Buy some then?
 
I hate energy saving lights for most applications.

Ive bought lots of 75w bulbs that = 100w-now that they are banned. The bulbs look like the ones that go in car headlights.
 
Even if they only lasted a few months, I bought 5 for 50p at Sainsburys the other week so its still not a big hassle.

However, I've never had one die and I've been using them for years, so either your wiring is **** or you are doing something quite wrong. I'm going with the latter.
 
I read somewhere recently (probably the Grauniad) that the light output from energy saving light bulbs reduces by something like 25% over their lifetime, that they are oversold in terns of "equivalent light output" and that there are suggestions that they may be associated with increased migraine attacks.

Another aspect that irritates me is that they either aren't readily available for some light fittings (e.g. GU10) or simply don't fit.

Despite all that, I do try to use them wherever possible - even if only because I know that it would upset Jeremy Clarkson
 
The one thing against energy saving light bulbs is that they do not work with the lights that have say three different light settings.

:/

We have a light in our youngests room that you touch to get different lighting but with the new energy bulb it only gives one setting.
 
In 6 years of using energy saving lightbulbs I've had a grand total of 2 die (out of about 15 in use in our house). Halogen lights are the worst for burning out quickly, was forever replacing the 50w ones in our last flat's kitchen.
 
I hate halogens, parents asked me what lighting I wanted in my room when I lived there, pointed to one in a catalogue, but instead they cut holes in my ceiling and put 4 of the bloody things in, causing my room to get stupidly hot, and pointing right at me

Energy savings I think are pretty good, as long as they're the ones that give off a blue/white light, not the yellow ones
 
every room in my home has nergy saving bulbs we have never had one fail.

As has been said above some do takea long time to get up to working light conditions. the one we had in our toilet (until council put new lights in) took ages you were finished before you could even see lol
 
Werewolf said:
It's also worth noting that if you use a normal bulb, the coal fired powerstations that make up a fair percentage of our power supply will release many times the mercury than is used in the energy saving bulbs, providing the power for the normal bulb compared to the energy saving ones
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I don't know where you read this but I followed a lifecycle analysis in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment and the conclusion was the quantity of mercury in the bulb compared to the amount in the coal was about the same. Both bulbs use roughly the same energy and resources to make except the energy saver uses significantly less energy overall. The light output of the energy saver was noted to be slightly less than the 'equivalent' 60W and 100W bulbs, which is compensated by increasing the power slightly. If you look at the better quality models they are higher power than the cheap ones and light up quicker.
 
Not yet had an energy saver blow on me. Maybe it's the circuits in your house? Though to understand that would need to know how often you go through normal bulbs. Tesco have an offer on at the moment, 5 energy savers for £1. Pretty cheap if you ask me.
 
i use candles, they put out more light than energy savers.



/me hugs the 200 box's of 100watt bulbs we "horded" before they were banned.
 
I went from 60W -> 40W -> 11W ES

The difference in the bills are huge, you just have to wait a minute for them the warm up to full brightness :)
 
mattheman said:
total rubbish they dont last long had 3 go on me and each of them lasted around 6 months. plus they arnt eviromentally friendly, the contain mercury,
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Manufactured by the New World Order Lightbulb Inc no doubt with all profits ploughed into masonic lodge drinks cabinets, arms sales to the third world and a hover bike for the Pope.
 
I don't see the problem with people moaning about the time they take to 'warm up'. Cheaper ones don't take too long anyway, and if it is an issue by the bigger brand ones.
 
Kol said:
Not yet had an energy saver blow on me. Maybe it's the circuits in your house? Though to understand that would need to know how often you go through normal bulbs. Tesco have an offer on at the moment, 5 energy savers for £1. Pretty cheap if you ask me.
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Morrisons have 6 for 26p, and Tesco themselves were selling 100 for £1 (1p each) not long ago.
 
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