Low energy light bulbs

[mike48]

My experience has been good with CFLs, but only after I changed to quality brands, and used appropriate colour temperature lamps for the application. Cool white for work areas, warm white for leisure areas.

It does seem to be true that some older CFls failed early - not so now.

Incandescent lamps in smaller wattages eg up to 25/40 watts will be around for a long time (for decorative and special applications eg heat boxes etc)
Bunnings and others have them.
Talk to a lighting distributor eg Beacon etc.

A lot of campervan/caravan owners (like me) already have LED lights fitted and are amazed at the efficency and lighting effect.
It is expected that LED lights may overtake CFLs later

Have a look at this for some CFL myths (yes, produced in conjunction with Philips)
Philips - 7 myths

mike

[Fuzzie]

In my case I have a mix of incandescents,CFLS and low energy halogens in the household. In the last 12 months at least 1 CFL has failed under 12 months old. 2 dimmable Halogen globes have failed and I think I might have had 2 old incandescents of around 5+ years fail. We do switch the lights on and off when entering and leaving rooms and we do regularly change the setting on the dimmable globes.

The truth is once upon a time I could walk into any store and pick the cheapest globe on the shelf and have a pretty high expectation the globe would be as good as the expensive brand. Now these are no longer just light globes they are "very sophisticated electrical appliances" and I have to now research and search out the high quality expensive alternatives to achieve adequate performance. The power used in producing and disposing of these new electrical appliances never seems to be added in to the energy use equation.

Last time I looked the dimmable CFLs weren't available in a wide range of wattages and the available one was only a mid wattage. My reason for having a dimmable is to be able to crank it up high when needed. The only other alternative in the room where they get most use is to do a complicated rewire and add more lighting. That is not an option and anyway would probably result in net a negative energy cost.

BTW there are still some incandescents around the house which are 10+ years old, mostly decorative candles. I also note when looking to replace these that the Halogen replacement equivalents do not seem to have a low wattage equivalent to the current 25watt globes, the lowest power new tech replacement appear to be 28w.