just heard on the local news here that the goverment is extending that deadline by 9 months

 

I wonder if the guy I saw with the stockpile will return them

On a personal note, I redid my house about 3 years ago. According to my power company annual report, I reduced my annual electric costs by $200.00. That, with the new SUPER efficient A/C unit, which was installed the year before and saved another $700/annum, made a big difference in my electric bill.

I did purchase bulbs that have a 3500K, so they are pretty close to the illumination that we were used to. But I do agree with Brad, the slowness of total brightness is a little slow....which is somewhat dependent on ambient temperature.

I know the flourescent lights I have in my worshop/garage are a bit "hesitant" when the temperature is about 50 degrees.

Oh and the bulbs are the European type that have a lesser amount of mercury.

 

I know mine are about to go out when they take a bit to start up in the garage. Like you said cooler temps. But If I wait until summer they will fire up fine until the next winter.

I am not understanding why the gov thinks it's ok to dump the mercury in our land fills when these bulbs get thrown out. Oh sure some will dispose of them properly, but most I am betting wont.

 

I agree, Brad. And it's easy to recycle them. Home Depot has a big box in the inside front of the store for that.

Oh. and forgot to say. there are special low temp bulbs for the garage. I replace with them....as needed. They seemed to work much better.

 

This.....


Also, we still make incandescent light bulbs in the USA, none of the CFL are made here so they are in effect banning existing jobs, and employing the Chinese instead...... Makes no sense to me, but they rarely do make sense to me in DC.......


Not wanting to get to political for the forum so I will stop there.

 

I bought some CFL lights probably 7 years ago now when they were first coming out. They were very expensive to buy back then around $14.00 each. I thought that over time the less electricity used by them would pay for them in a year or so.

Those particular bulbs went in my ceiling fan light fixture. They were very noisy when I would try to use my amateur radio especially on the HF bands.

The did not last as long as I had hoped either. It may well have been partially do to the vibration they would get when the fan ran. When they burned out I replaced them with some from the Dollar Tree.

The ones I got from the Dollar Tree were substantially smaller than the Sylvania ones and seemed lots brighter.

They have been in the fixture for over 5 years now and still seem to be just as bright and the best part is they do not cause any noise in my HF radio.

We had always had a two ring fluorescent light fixture in the kitchen. The cost of replacing those round bulbs got to the point that replacing the entire fixture to take the new CFL bulbs was cost effective so I did that. I actually put a ceiling fan in the kitchen with a three bulb light fixture.

In the garage I had 4’ long fluorescent shop lights and some incandescent lights here and there for when the cold weather would come and the florescent bulbs did not work so well. I’ve replaced the incandescent bulbs with LED replacement bulbs but they too take a while to get bright when its cold out there. You wouldn’t think they would.

The replacement LED bulbs do have a little direct conversion switching power supply in the base and I suppose maybe when that is cold it takes a spell for it to get up to speed, but I have my doubts, electrons tend to move right along at the speed of light no matter how hot or cold it happens to be.

So far I only have the high brightness ‘white’ bulbs out there but they look more blue to me than white. There are some newer ones out now that are more of a stark white like a regular incandescent bulb.

Also the LED bulbs even though they have a switching power supply in them do not effect my radios either.

I’ve been thinking about replacing all the dash lights in all the cars with the LED bulbs. I’ve been doing that with the old radios I restore for a while now.

 

ALL my lights with the exception of the ceiling fan in our bedroom are CFLs or in the case of the garage electronic low temp working ballast 4 foot flor overheads. I even changed my kitchen flor 4 foot assemblies with new electronic ballasts. Only cost $10 each (needed 2) to have instant on lights, no pcbs, and save $.

This was done years ago when my electric company offered a visit, talk about the CFLs, and possibly give a new energy star refrig. Guy came, gave me half a house of CFLs (about 18) and tested our old fridge. Well he said our fridge was such an energy eater he gave us a new one!

Saving money every day, yes I am....


Oh and as far as the mandated change over-we all survived the R12 to r134a change over somehow... Just give it some time.

 

I'm all for it except for the warming up issue and for me more importantly is that I have lots of antique lamps in my house and office. There is nothing more stupid looking than a non-correct bulb(s) on a beautiful chandelier.

I kind of wish they'd trade off this one in favor of a federal recycling program on plastics, metal, etc. I think it would have a much better/higher impact and be good for our children's children.

 

Obviously they never thought about all the thousand $$ chandeliers that will just look plain tacky with the new bulbs...probably because they are replaced by the "hired" help and not the owners who are too busy trying to lookgood in front of comapany.....and dont forget the fancy bathroom lights with the big globe lights....

 

Well, they do make CFL with globes, but my bathroom lightbar that takes globes has a dimmer...... That they didn't account for. Just like the original fixtures in this house and my vintage lamps, none of that matters.

Face it, none of this was thought out. It was lobbied for, as is everything else.... follow the money. It can't be thought out, these guys have no brains...... Oops, there I go, getting to political again.