Light Bulb Ban Fail

We've got only a couple of energy saving bulbs in the house.

Those are in the hallway and landing - where we often have lights on for many hours.

Everywhere else - we've got either standard incandescent bulbs, or halogen spots.

Energy saving bulbs just don't give a particularly nice light IMO.
 
We have a few energy saving bulbs in our house, and I think they're fine... I personally can't see why anyone would want to buy the old ones, as they cost more over a decent period of time, and use more energy, and need replacing more often... I really want LED lights though... they would be awesome!
 
They'll still carry on making them, along with the fittings, they are extensively used for TV lighting for example.
scorza said:
Which is the more efficient? 1 x 100W lightbulb, or 6 "energy saving" GU10 spotlights like these: http://www.yourwelcome.co.uk/acatalog/GU10_50mm_Halogen___box_of_10.html?

Genuine question - is it simply a case of going off the wattage? i.e. 6 x 35W = 210W?

Reason I ask is that my last flat was a new build (2003) where the living room had 6 of these instead of a normal lightbulb. My electricity bill was astronomical, I always took 3 out as I suspected they were the cause.
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it's not down to wattage, it's down to lumens.
 
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I don't know if there is an exemption for flouerescent lightbulbs but under EU (and now UK) legiislation they are hazardous waste and should not be put in the rubbish but disposed of at an appropriate facility. How many people do you think will follow that one?
 
it's really only down to the mercury but once it's last it's life it should have actually been burnt up in the lighting process.

most shops were you buy the bulbs from will accept them back to dispose of for you.

Good luck supermarkets :D
 
PlacidCasual said:
I don't know if there is an exemption for flouerescent lightbulbs but under EU (and now UK) legiislation they are hazardous waste and should not be put in the rubbish but disposed of at an appropriate facility. How many people do you think will follow that one?
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mercury vapour, nasty nasty stuff - don't breathe that!
 
Ive tried some different energy saving lightbulbs. Here is my take.

60 led spotlights, GU10: I bought 2 of these from China. The light was very white, even though these were billed as warm white, as opposed to bright white. After about 1yrs use, they packed up. Unreliable, especially when you consider that I paid about £30 for 2. Their brightness is poor, but they do run very cool and use hardly any power.

"Normal" energy savers that are freely available in supermarkets: These are well priced and last a decent amount of time. Price/performance, these are the best bulbs. They do take a long time to warm up and I have not encountered these 3second warm up bulbs in supermarkets.

Fast Start energy savers, brand: sylvana. I bought these a year ago. These do startup very quickly, but I paid around £7/bulb. Very unreliable. I bought 12 of these and on average they have lasted around 2 months/bulb. I shall never buy these bulbs again - they are expensive and have the shortest lifespan of any bulb I have ever used. The worst.

GU10, Megaman, energy saving spotlight bulbs. These cost me around £10/each. They do their job adequately, although they do take a long time to warm up and reach full brightness. I bought about 3 and on average they last around 1year. If the price was lower, I would buy them again, however at £10 each, they are far too expensive for 1yr's usage.

Perhaps dragonfly would care to comment on my purchases and update us on whether or not the technology has moved on or not?
 
SteveOBHave said:
I don't get the anti attitude to the energy saving bulbs - it seems like a no brainer to me. Every single bulb in my house is energy saving and they last forever rather than the standard bulbs that I have to replace every 4-6 months.
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I have about a dozen of them. Half a dozen different brands.

They are all inferior to incandescent bulbs.

With an incandescent bulb, I get clear bright light silently and immediately.

With a fluorescent bulb, I get less light immediately and a brightening over up to 10 minutes that never reaches the level of the incandescent bulb they are allegedly equivalent too. I also get annoying buzzing.

Incandescent bulbs are simpler to make, and thus have a lower environmental impact during manufacturing.

The "waste" of an incandescent bulb is heat. For much of the year in the UK, that isn't waste at all because it reduces the amount of energy used for heating in other ways.

So flourescent bulbs are inferior in performance and any benefits to the environment or your bills are far less than they're made out to be, if they exist at all.
 
NeilFawcett said:
Oh! The ones I have were sent to us for free from our electricity supplier last year. They definately take a good 20+ seconds to reach their full brightness...

So all modern ones - including dimmer friendly ones - are 3 seconds or so? That's fine!
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I've got one in a room I rarely use that takes more than 8 minutes to reach full brightness. That's the worst I've encountered. It's still there because I use the room so rarely that I don't really care if it's only dimly lit. I'm usually just passing through the room, so enough light to not walk into things is enough. The bulb cost me £7, so I'm going to use the bloody thing no matter how rubbish it is :)
 
I hadn't known that CFLs contained mercury. I doubt if most people know that.

I looked at a few sites, including one that's very enthusiastic about them. They argue that CFLs reduce the amount of mercury in the environment in general because coal-burning power stations emit mercury as a result of burning coal and CFLs reduce electricity use and therefore mercury pollution.

But...here's the advice from this very pro-CFL site on what to do if a CFL breaks in your home:

What is the proper way to handle a broken CFL?
Open the windows and let the room air out for 15 to 30 minutes, then remove as much material as possible without a vacuum cleaner. Using disposable gloves, scoop the glass onto a piece of cardboard and wipe the area with a wet paper towel. For smaller pieces of glass and powder, use duct tape to pull up the fragments and wash your hands after cleaning up the debris.
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Mercury is really nasty stuff.
 
Yes trace mercury is released by coal powerstations along with numerous other nasties. A coal station can burn uprto 16,000 tons of coal a day at full load of 2000MW, so even tiny proportions constitute meaninful amounts.

What is emitted to air goes up to great height and will be highly diffuesed. What goes into ash is normally used in building materials and thus encapsulated. Some ash goes to landfill, this is a potential source of nasties in the water table which is why it all goes into clay lined landfill to prevent this very effect.

The mercury in CFL bulbs however if disposed of in regular rubbish will go to landfill which largely isn't clay lined so their is a risk of the mercury being washed into the water table. Obviously badly disposed of batteries constitute a much much greater risk of this. Nonetheless both batteries and CFL bulbs should be disposed of as hazardous waste. An incandescent on the other hand could be recycled quite easily if people were willing.
 
I am annoyed about this as well, I consider energy saving bulbs to be an inferior product in every sense except energy consumption. They are extremely expensive, they take time to warm up and the light they give off is inferior.

My flat has two dimmable lights which currently have regular 60w bulbs in them. Dimmable energy saving bulbs are around £10 each which is ridiculous. It would take me years to break even on the price and what if one of them breaks? The energy costs saved mean nothing to me, but having an inferior product certainly does.
 
A number of posts above are saying that energy saving bulbs were lasting them a matter of months, or just a year or so? I thought they were suppose to be uber reliable and last longer than normal bulbs?
 
dirtydog said:
I am annoyed about this as well, I consider energy saving bulbs to be an inferior product in every sense except energy consumption. They are extremely expensive, they take time to warm up and the light they give off is inferior.
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Agreed, in addition the actual bulb itself is hardly the most attractive looking thing the world has ever seen. I've got a gorgeous nine arm chandelier in my lounge which is currently fitted with clear candle bulbs. There's no way I'm putting godawful white energy savers in there.
 
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