I don't know about 5-7 years, but I haven't had any blow out in the 2 or 3 years I've been using mine. I wonder if it's a wiring issue in your house? I have heard than an unreliable power supply can degrade the lifetime of the bulb.

Here's what the wikipedia article says: "The lifetime of any lamp depends on many factors including operating voltage, manufacturing defects, exposure to voltage spikes, mechanical shock, frequency of cycling on and off, lamp orientation and ambient operating temperature, among other factors. The life of a CFL is significantly shorter if it is only turned on for a few minutes at a time: In the case of a 5-minute on/off cycle the lifespan of a CFL can be up to 85% shorter, reducing its lifespan to "close to that of incandescent light bulbs". The US Energy Star program says to leave them on at least 15 minutes at a time to mitigate this problem."

Well, we do live in an old house with old wiring, but we don't flip lights on and off. Which is a good thing apparently, or we'd be replacing them even faster than we do now. :)

I have the same experience, BoPo. They do seem to last longer, but not years, no way. And the house is older, and what muddgirl says, the little one we have in the lamp that stays on all the time, that one I think we've only replaced once, so yeah, that's maybe a year and a bit we're getting out of that one.

Odd, I switched everything over about five years ago and none have gone so far.

I live in an older house with a circa 2002 addition. The CFL bulbs in the older part of the house definitely have shorter lives, often coming to an abrupt end. I have a few being used as growlights on the new wiring that have given me probably thousands of hours so far without a single blowout.

It should be mentioned that they contain mercury and need some special care during disposal.

The 1st CFLs I bought had a pretty high failure rate, some failed right out of the box. The quality seems to have improved a lot.

"In the case of a 5-minute on/off cycle..."

Bathroom.

Pretty much every light bulb was either out already or on its last legs when we moved in two years ago. We replaced them all with CFLs and haven't had to touch one yet. We're moving in a month, and it's tempting to take them all with us, though I'm not sure how the landlord would feel about that.

One thing I will not miss: The kitchen and bathroom lights were, for whatever reason, powered by chandelier style bulbs:

≡ Click to see image ≡

These go out every month or so, and the way the lights are built, are a major, major pain to replace.

Yeah, I began changing bulbs to CFL in almost all fixtures at least five years back, and almost all of them are still on their first bulb. Some of those that have harder service -- longer hours on, like the kitchen ceiling, or more on/off cycles, like the back hall -- have not lasted as long. And you get the occasional dud, like the one I put in over the sink that stopped working after two weeks (fortunately our local hardware store has a very generous return policy -- oh, and they take disposals as well). So in general I feel they've had pretty good longevity.

I'd guess there's a big old-wiring effect for you, even though this house is pretty old too. It's possible the fixtures themselves could be asking for replacement, rather than the wiring. Or perhaps the light switches with the moving parts and wonky contacts.

The one that scared me a little was the hall light that my ADHD/bipolar niece liked to flick on and off as a way of getting attention. One day it sort of exploded noisily, and the ballast was glowing blue. Good thing I was right there.

Oh, that's just run of the mill poltergeist activity, nothing special about that.

I've been on the gradual-replacement plan for about 3 years now and haven't had to replace any yet. Quality may very well make a difference.

*Whew!* Thanks, Wolfdog. I didn't mention the dishes flying across the room or the furniture sliding around at night, but maybe I should have.

People are bringing me piles of those twist lights to dispose of. So, yeah, I have doubts as to their longevity.

On the plus side, I don't see many incandescents anymore.

"In the case of a 5-minute on/off cycle..."

Bathroom.

Not at our house- that light stays on because the cat's food and water are in there. :)

I write the date of first service in Sharpie on the ballast of the CFLs I use. In our house (built in '59, original wiring but all new fixtures) they consistently die in less than 2 years. I've largely switched back to incandescent (prefer the color) except in metal-shaded spot lamps that would otherwise get too hot to touch.

Even if the life of the bulb is short, don't you still see gains in energy use?

Not at our house- that light stays on because the cat's food and water are in there. :)

Psst, BoPo, they can see in the dark!

I have one in our hallway- the bulb is high up, on the ceiling at the foot of the stairs (which is the same level as the ceiling at the top- so very high!)

It's such a nightmare to change it, we were thrilled it would possibly be the last bulb we'd worry about for the rest of the time we lived here.

Since we don't leave the hall light on very long, I'm now wondering if that was the case...

I can't stand the sound CFLs make nor the light they give off, so all of our lamps have incandescent bulbs.

We have only two ceiling fixtures of which only the one in the kitchen uses two regular florescent bulbs (hate hate hate that fixture, it'll eventually get changed). The other ceiling fixture is an uglier-than-sin chandelier in the dining area of our living room. I think it uses chandelier bulbs.

The only CFLs we have are in the two front porch lights. They've each had to be changed once since we moved in. I think they were changed about two years ago. I have no idea how old the previous bulbs were.

Even if the life of the bulb is short, don't you still see gains in energy use?

I haven't, no, probably because I don't pore over our power bill in any great detail. It would have to be a big jump (say, a change of +$20/monthly) for me to notice and we certainly didn't get that during the year we went all CFL. What I did notice was how damn much I was spending on the bulbs and the extra effort it took to properly dispose of them. And the crummy quality of light. And the humming, oh yes, the humming which makes me batty because only me and the dog can hear it and everyone else in the house just thinks I'm insane.

I've gotten a lot better about turning off the incandescent lights when I'm not using them, though, being mindful of their power usage. That's the best savings of all.

to the color/hummer people:

I strongly suggest buying a *lot* of different kinds of bulbs. I think I bought a dozen last time I was outfitting a house with CFL. I found a couple different kinds of bulbs where I heard no hum and liked the color, then I re-packaged the ones I didn't like, and gave them to a local thrift store.

I actually use a different CFL for reading than I do for general lighting. It's one that takes a bit longer to warm up, but I found the light easier on my eyes.


As far as the fast burnout goes... I had that with one of my houses too. I think it's just something to do with older electrical systems.

I have been using CFLs for about 20 years and they always last more than 4 years or so. I have one in my garage that was here when we moved in 9 1/2 years ago. One of my brothers-in-law had the same fast burn out issue in a house built in the 90's. He was told it was incorrect wiring but I don't know what exactly was wrong. I do know the bill was high.

\It would have to be a big jump (say, a change of +$20/monthly) for me to notice

Not to be an asshole, but then, why have you switched? The whole point is that very small, incremental gains, made in the aggregate, amount to large gains. Maybe you are only saving $5 a month, so you don't notice -- but if everyone on your street of 10 houses is saving %5 a month, that's $50 a month in energy generation costs, or $6000/year. and that's just your neighborhood. I guess if you were expecting huge personal gains you'd be disappointed. But isn't the point to reduce your overall energy dependency on fossil fuels - coal and oil - for which even very small gains have a big impact in the aggregate?

It seems to me that it's just plain responsible to choose the options that use less energy, even if your perceptions are that element life is about the same as the element life was in a higher-energy-consuming form. You're not out anything (last time I bought CFLs I was amazed that they cost about the same as the decent incandescents), and yet your small savings, multiplied over thousands of households in your services area, produces a net energy gain.

Since "electrician" is one of my former job titles, I looked askance at this "incorrect wiring" business. I found after some googling around that, yes, "incorrect wiring" is a problem, although a bit of a euphemism. The problem appears to be in old sockets that for some reason do not provide a tight connection. Apparently these bulbs are a bit finicky physically and older sockets were not made with a high level of quality control. A soft connection can cause the ballast to underheat and overstress the entire bulb system as it gives off its rated amount of light. Heck, I have come across sockets so bad that they blew normal light bulbs.

Another problem is the existence on the same circuit of electric motors. Blenders and hair driers (particularly if imported) are notorious for adding noise to a 60-cycle AC current (and your usual house current is not all that great to begin with). Larger motors connected somewhere to the house's electrical main box can also add local noise. This noise can also cause a CFL ballast to underheat. In some underheating situations, these bulbs consume more -- often, much more -- energy than a normal bulb.

Finally, power surges. The ballasts in these bulbs are quite susceptible to overheating caused by surges and are not at all tolerant of it. Brief power outages also can cause a ballast to momentarily overheat when the power returns.

This all sounds to me like a product that was not extensively tested in actual field conditions. Few people whose houses were built as early as the 50s would have had any reason to change their light fixtures for any but aesthetic reasons. Houses built before the 70s are notorious for ground loops that can cause unpredictable voltages. Most people can change a socket, but detecting and eliminating ground loops is an art even for the most experienced electrician. Conceivably, some houses may need to be completely rewired. Worse still, the problem may be that the power supplied to the house is too dirty to begin with.

This all sounds to me like a product that was not extensively tested in actual field conditions.

Are you talking about the CFL bulbs, here? Of course the data published by CFL manufacturers reflects the best possible operating conditions, in the same way that automobile MPG ratings are reported under optimal driving conditions, or the way that air compressors are rated by free air flow with no load.

Furthermore, the types of problems you mention will affect many devices plugged into those circuits, not just CFL bulbs. People with houses built before the 70s should also notice that, for example, cell phone batteries charged on those circuits do not perform as well over time.

The problem is the movements to enact laws around the US that phase out incandescents and replace them with CFLs. These phase-outs are premised on the idea that these bulbs save energy, but if they are undervoltaged, they can draw more current than an ordinary bulb. That's straight out of junior high school science.

The homeowners' fixes can be quite expensive, and rewiring a house is no small task. Although new wiring can be run through attics or crawlspaces, the old wiring is most likely within the walls and removing it could well mean tearing out a shitload of sheetrock or plaster and lath. More lime in the landfills, yay!

Then, too, what if the house is receiving electricity that is too dirty? Replacing the power infrastructures in many neighborhoods, not too mention entire towns and small cities, will be expensive enough for power companies to demand, and most likely receive, substantial rate increases.

So, to save a few milliamps per household, the tradeoff is one massive carbon footprint in getting every household up to spec with costs that far exceed a few pennies saved on every month's electric bill.

As an added issue, these bulbs require disposal centers because of their mercury content, but I will give you 10 for 1 odds that at least 90% of these bulbs will end up in the ordinary trash stream. More mercury in the landfills, yay!

This issue needs a whole lot more research on the overall environmental impact.

But we went through this whole thing when we started requiring emissions standards for cars. The end result was that older cars were exempted. There's no reason to throw out all CFL use just because older homes can't handle them, just as we shouldn't throw out all emissions standards just because older cars can't meet them (without great expense).

I'm not saying to throw out all CFL use. I'm against the mandatory phase-out of incandescents at this time.

I wonder, too, just how many CFLs ARE saving energy, but instead are drawing even more current because they are undervoltaged for whatever reasons. One fact I cannot find is the range of voltage variation that these bulbs will tolerate: undervoltaged means more current draw and increased bulb stress, overvoltaged means increased ballast stress. Nor can I find any quality control data on the optimum operating voltages from one bulb to the next. The bulb manufacturers must love these failure stats, and the power companies won't complain if the balance of energy usage actually falls in their favor.

Further, how many CFLs are being disposed properly? Or, will we ignore this just as we ignore the massive improper disposal of small batteries?

I think bulb manufacturers and utility companies created a bill of goods that too many environmentalists bought without question.

Like I said, these bulbs need a LOT more research.

CFLs aren't the only options that satisfy the new energy laws. Perhaps they just have the largest amount of lobbying dollars.

They certainly seem to have the most marketing dollars. heheh

Not to be an asshole, but then, why have you switched?

Well, I thought I explained that already but I'll offer a more detailed explanation. I tried CFLs out because I wanted to use less energy, based upon the promises of their marketing. I agree that using less electricity is more environmentally friendly. The actual impact on how much I was paying to the power company was not a priority since I likely wouldn't notice anything beyond a big +/- jump. We used CFLs extensively for about 6 years and for a little over a year every bulb at our house was CFL. I found many aspects of them frustrating and was not able to work around those issues in most settings. As CFLs died, I eventually stopped replacing them with more CFLs, which phased our much of our lighting back to incandescent. In the settings where CFLs worked well, we've continued to use them (~15% of our bulbs). Lately, I've been trying out LEDs, which do not have several of the issues I had with CFLs.

I've chosen to address the environmental burden in our choice in lighting by offsetting it with lower overall electrical usage in other areas, including but not limited to incorporating behavior changes in how we use lighting.