I hate compact fluorescent light bulbs. I really do. I like the fact that they use less electricity than a standard incandescent bulb, but aside from that there is absolutely no up-side to using them.
We’ve got CFL’s installed in various places around the house, and I discovered one of them was out this morning. I went to replace it, and it had this brown gunk oozing from the base. When I first opened the fixture — an old recessed ceiling fixture that holds the bulb horizontally — I could see a drip of the brown at a seam in the base and some splatters on the inside of the fixture’s glass; great. When I unscrewed the bulb, the drip travelled around the base; wonderful.
Then once I got the bulb out of the fixture, I caught a whiff of the thing, and even now, more than an hour and two hand-washings later, I can still smell it. And I can feel a headache brewing too. It was most likely a failure of the starter circuit’s componentry, which in most cheaper bulbs is the weak link.
I still had one 23W CFL in the cabinet downstairs, so that’s what went in to replace it. It’s a higher-quality bulb than what it replaced (made by GE), but I’m pretty sure the dead one was supposed to last five years. I didn’t date it when it was installed, but I’m reasonably sure it was within the last two years. I marked the new one with today’s date, and I will be hanging onto the warranty card; it’s guaranteed to last five years, and by golly, if it gives out before then, they’ll hear from me.
Aside from the nastiness that comes from them when the electronics fails, you’ve got the mercury in them to deal with if the glass breaks. But I hate them most when they’re “working”; you flip a switch on, and the things take up to a minute to warm up & give full light. And that’s considered normal. I sure don’t think of it as normal. I flip a switch on & I want light now, not when the bulb gets around to it. And you can forget about using a
I think today’s will be the last CFL I install. To me, the leaking crap that comes out of them the disposal hazards and the operational goofiness and the crappy cool white light they give off make them completely not worth the bother. Unfortunately, our wonderful Congress passed a law a while back that sunsets the use of incandescent bulbs, so that may not be an option for much longer. Might start stockpiling now. That or look into LED’s, which may not be much better than CFL’s. Bother.