THE PEOPLE SPEAK BUT … DOES ANYONE LISTEN OR CARE? NO! THE FREEKIN EU HAS SPOKEN! PERIOD.
on 04/19/2009 at 10:29 AM
Back in the mid-to-late 90’s, when CFLs were first hitting the market, I did some calculations and realized that if these things lit up a room as well, and lasted as long as claimed, it was possible to save money with them, so I decided to subject them to a real-world test: My house.
At $18 to $20 USD a pop, my buy-in costs for some of the first CFLs produced by General Electric certainly hurt the pocketbook, but in for a penny, in for a pound. I bought enough to do most of the bulbs in the house.
I found that these first-run bulbs lasted wonderfully long, some of them going longer than the 5 years they were supposed to last. Only one of about 20 died in under 2 years, the rest lasted. Eventually they all died the same death of “Oh look, the bulb’s flickering like a strobe light”, and had to be replaced.
I believe I at least broke even, if not came out a bit ahead. Fair enough, a success as an experiment.
Not so for the CFL’s I’ve been buying lately… They’re cheaper both in terms of cost and quality. I’m lucky if I get a year out of the CFLs on the market now. The circuit-base appears to be made a LOT more cheaply, and is what usually shorts out.
Annoyed? You bet I am. I think it’s time to re-work the Cost-benefit analysis on these and see if it’s time to go back to incandescent bulbs.
To mandate the purchase of CFLs is just freakin’ stupid. It makes no sense!
I did that cost analysis thing as well, only it was in response to a guy who was fanatical about them and the money he was going to save. I figured at the 10 to 12 bucks they originally cost and based on their claim of 7,500 hours, including the cost of replacing regular bulbs every 1000 hours, and determining an average daily use, it would take 7 to 9 years to recover the cost in electrical savings. He didn’t talk to me for weeks.
I haven’t had one last more than 3 years yet. At $10 each, there was no way I was going to get them. But if you are careful, you can find them for about $1 and then it is worth it for some lights, like the front porch.
Last Christmas I gave the wife a case of 100w, 60w and 75w incandescent bulbs. She said it was the best present I had ever given her. And yes, the new cfl’s are nainly made in China and like most of their exported products, are crap.
Posted by emdfl
04/19/2009 at 09:51 PM
I don’t know about anyone else, but I find the CFLs with a rating of 6500K are not so harsh on my eyes.
To mandate the purchase of CFLs is just freakin’ stupid. It makes no sense!
And mandate covers it well. As I said, the EU speaks and everyone in member countries has to obey. So much for a sovereign state.
Were I still living back home I would most assuredly be hording as many of the good bulbs as I could possibly afford. And I wouldn’t worry about space either. I’d make space wherever I could. May appear over the top to many but guys I do NOT TRUST Washington and not only the current admin. I’d be afraid even a conservative administration might jump on this bandwagon. Heck .. hasn’t my former state (Calif.) already put something in place to that end? Someone posted about it here a few months ago I think.
Well you guys did better than we did - we knew we were in trouble as we have dimmers throughout the house, and flood lighting and track lighting and so on - as a result we just got a few - two now reside wrapped up on the work bench waiting for me to find the paper (or take the time on the Internet) to read proper disposal procedure - we may have gotten a year from one, maybe 30 days from another. For the price and the bowing to the Goracle on GlowBall Warning - ain’t happening again in this house.
We have a Sam’s Club box of light bulbs and a number of small multipacks throughout the house. Will get another the next run to Sam’s. Since they will probably start getting harder and harder to find or buy.
Once again - back when the Goracle was a daily read - I did his carbon footprint deally - we are a negative number - when the Goracle gets there - then we’ll talk. Until then he and the enviro-wackos can bite me.
04/19/2009 at 02:02 PM
