Bleg: CFL
So, R. Neal reports 15% savings from switching to CFLs. Sounds excellent. So, here’s the deal: Save bedroom lamps, practically every light in my house is a can light. Anyone know of any CFLs made for can lights? I am, of course, some number of years away as the last house had can lights too and we changed maybe two out in two years. They last a while.
I’ll still get some CFLs for the lamps though.
Update: Excellent pointers in comments. And the issue is compounded as my can lights are on dimmer switches. Also, we also have a lot of ceiling fans (at least one per room). I suppose regular CFLs will fit those and look OK?
July 12th, 2007 at 10:26 am
We use CFLs in our track lights. No problems, and they last way longer than the regular bulbs for that application. I tried the swirly kind, but I thought they looked kind of dumb, so I started buying the ones where there’s a cap on the end so you can’t see the swirly bulb.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:54 am
These guys have just about every CFL made:
http://www.topbulb.com/find/compact_fluorescent_light_bulbs.asp
These are probably what you are looking for:
http://www.topbulb.com/find/prod_list.asp_Q_intSubCategory_E_689
Dimmable switches complicate things, and dimmable CFLs are a LOT more expensive, and virtually impossible to find in local stores. Looks lilke they may have some that will work for can light applications, though.
If you don’t need dimmable, Wal*Mart has a pretty good selection of floods that will probably work in your can lights (if you’re inclined to shop there). Lowes has a good selection, too.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I would wait for the LED technology. I have CFL’s. They work well and are durable but I wish I had known about the mercury in them. Still no recycling program for CFL’s. When these burn out I will go LED.
Not all CFL’s are equal. I have returned several that emitted a high pitched sound that was like fingernails on a chalkboard.
I don’t care for the swirlies either.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
What is a can light?
July 12th, 2007 at 11:18 am
I use CFLs in the living room at VFTP Command Central because that way I can just leave the damn ceiling light fixture on 24/7 and not replace bulbs every month…
July 12th, 2007 at 11:25 am
SU, be wary of bad advice re. CFLs and LEDs. LEDs are a great idea, but the technology has a long way to go before its practical.
Here’s a state of the art LED:
http://www.besthomeledlighting.com/product/OBS-120-E27-96-WC
It puts out 240 lumens using 8 watts. It costs $65.
A Sylvania bulb I got at Lowes puts out 800 lumens using 13 watts and cost less than $2.50.
If someone knows of a better deal on LEDs with higher output, I’d love to know where to get them.
Re. the mercury, all fluorescent light bulbs, including those long tubes you probably have in your garage and closets, have mercury. The typical CFL has about 5mg. Phillips is working on reducing that to about 1.5mg.
Running coal-fired power plants to make electricity to run a light causes mercury emissions. A rough calculation shows six CFLs (with about 30 mg of mercury that can be contained if properly disposed of) could reduce coal-fired power plant mercury emissions by about 2900mg per year. So my CFLs could remove a net 2870mg of mercury from the environment, even if I just crush them and throw them in the trash.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:26 am
A Sylvania bulb
should read: A Sylvania CFL bulb
July 12th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I’ve switched to CFLs as well, but mostly because I hate climbing ladders to change hard-to-reach lights, and the CFLs last for years. I have the swirly ones too, because I didn’t find out about the more attractive kind until I had already replaced all my bulbs. I don’t know about the actual energy savings, because I switched out all the incandescents for CFLs as soon as I moved into my new house. I’ll agree with #9 that LEDs might be the way to go in the future. They are even more energy efficient, the color can be controlled more precisely (although I like the color of light from a CFL better than an incandescent), they can be made to be brighter, and LEDs really do last forever.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:42 am
i, too, am ignorant about can lights. LEDs will be the way to go once they mature enough, but they’re just not there yet for anything past a flashlight.
what i’d like to know about is whether any CFLs can cycle on-off relatively quickly, as in blinking a couple of times per second, without risking damage. i’ve got a garage door opener with built-in work lights that i need to change bulbs in, but the thing uses rapid blinking of that worklight as a signal when changing codes or to indicate something wrong, and i’d hate to destroy the CFL in a week because the damn garage door was being ornery again.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Running coal-fired power plants to make electricity to run a light causes mercury emissions. A rough calculation shows six CFLs (with about 30 mg of mercury that can be contained if properly disposed of) could reduce coal-fired power plant mercury emissions by about 2900mg per year. So my CFLs could remove a net 2870mg of mercury from the environment, even if I just crush them and throw them in the trash.
How do you properly dispose of CFL’s? Will the local recycling center accept them? I don’t want to encourage people to do something where mercury can end up in ground water. Also, my statement was that I would wait for the LED technology. I am aware it is expensive and not fully developed.
I am not an expert on landfills but I don’t think most landfills are lined. The mercury from coal powered plants is dispersed. Mercury in ground water is concentrated. The answer is recycling. Maybe you could use your Progressive Blog to lobby for that recycling since you have gone to such efforts to encourage the use of CFL’s?
July 12th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Excellent. Thanks for all the pointers. I’ll look into it. All of my can lights are dimmable.
It’s a light that is recessed in a cone (i.e., a can) so it is in the ceiling. Like this.
We also have a lot of ceiling fans (at least one per room). I suppose regular CFLs will fit those and look OK?
July 12th, 2007 at 11:53 am
according to the EPA, it’s best to recycle them, but if that’s not possible you can just toss ’em. seal them in a ziploc or something first and put them out with regular trash, apparently.
there was a scare about mercury in CFLs a while back, but seems to have been bunkum. take that for what it’s worth.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:55 am
ceiling fans sometimes have really tiny, cramped lamp shades, so a regular grocery-store spiral CFL might not physically fit. (unless it’s so low wattage as to be uninteresting.) you may have to order one of the better brands from something like that link R. Neal posted, they seem to have a better selection of shapes and sizes.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:56 am
We also have a lot of ceiling fans (at least one per room). I suppose regular CFLs will fit those and look OK?
Fitting can be problem. I have several floor lamps that will not accept CFL’s. The neck of the bulb is not narrow enough.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I had some outdoor rated reflector CFL in a motion sensor light outside. Bad idea. They don’t come on right away, which is what you want in a motion sensor light. They also don’t come up to full brightness right away, that takes a minute or so. Finally, they take even longer in cold weather.
I took the reflector bulb back inside and put it in a recessed lighting fixture. This was a good match because the sides of the fixture were black. The regular CFL wasted a good amount of useful output in that fixture.
The CF reflector lights are a bit more pricey than the “four for $10” regular bulbs.
Something like this.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Rich breaks out the mercury situation on CFL’s here.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
The Blount Co. solid waste disposal center accepts CFLs for disposal and they are put in a lined (“Class 1” I believe is what they told me) landfill. You have to take them to the center yourself, though.
The Knox Co. recycling centers accept them, but I don’t know what they do with them. Something similar, I’d guess.
My post on CFLs a while back called for local governments and big box retailers to start recycling programs, or at least proper disposal programs. That’s something we will be talking to our local .gov about soon.
Sylvania has started a service for recycling CFL, tubes, and other hazardous electronics:
http://www.sylvania.com/Recycle/CFLandHouseholdlightBulbrecycling/
The consumer kit from Sylvania handles 12 CFLs and costs $15 which includes shipping. They have other services geared for commercial/industrial/government users. There are other companies offering similar services.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Here is my post on “Everything you wanted to know about CFLs and the mercury problem” from a while back:
http://www.knoxviews.com/node/4493
July 12th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Sylvania has started a service for recycling CFL, tubes, and other hazardous electronics:
http://www.sylvania.com/Recycle/CFLandHouseholdlightBulbrecycling/
Great info. Now I can dispose of my dead 48″ fluorescent bulbs I have been storing. Mucho Gracious.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
UPDATE: Error in my previous calculations re. mercury emissions reductions.
It would be more like 99.36 mg/year for me, not 2900 mg as previously stated.
(Slight “rounding” error in my spreadsheet).
July 12th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Yes, they do make bulbs of the right type/shape for can lights. I’ve got 5 of them in my kitchen, and I’ve had them for like 5 years. The main issue is they take a bit to get up to full brightness. Doesn’t bother me too much but annoys the heck out of my wife.
They also make bulbs with pretty glass covers on them for applications like hanging light fixtures and bathrooms. I’ve got all types in my house, most installed long before the current CFL boom (as in, before I even started blogging, on my previous stint here at Ft Lewis).
I can take some pics of my various lights tonight if you’d like. I got all of them from my local Home Depot or Lowe’s.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I don’t use many lights in the summer. The sun goes down late enough that I don’t need to. In the winter my normal light bulbs are 100% efficient. 5% light and 95% helping me keep warm. I use a CFL for my porch light though. No sense in heating all of the outdoors.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Grainger has several different options for recycling flourscent lamps.
It would be very easy for a big box store to set up something like this.
July 12th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
>And the issue is compounded as my can lights are on dimmer switches
Philips makes dimmable CFL reflector floodlight bulbs, which are likely exactly what you need.
July 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Does anybody make three-way CFL’s? Just about all our house lamps have three-way switches.
July 12th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Number 2 in Google: here\
Now I have a bleg: Anyone got any hints on recycling High pressure sodium (HPS) lamps? It seems to me that it’s legal for me to dispose of one or two a year, but since you can see the mercury amalgam in the bulb, I’d rather that they be recycled properly.
I’ve had no luck on Google. I’ve even searched teh hippie hydroponics sites, seeing as the dopers ought to be all green and shit while growing the only cash crop that cost effective to grow under HPS lamps indoors. Nope, no luck there either.
Remember kids, always hate Hippie-crites.
There’s a few places around the country that will recycle them for a fee, but I’m nowhere near any of them.
July 12th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I tried to sneak some into the house. The wife threw them out as soon as I left. She has a problem with the color temperature and the 60 Hertz flicker. Heck, I can see the flicker in the short and long tubes even in multiple installations.
July 12th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Actually, the CF bulbs run at a much higher frequency. One of the early complaints was that they interfered with TV remotes. Here’s something from google (HTML and same as PDF)
Most IR remotes are around 40 KHz, if I recall correctly.
Oh and they come in a whole range of different tones of white now too.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
My house is full of CFLs. Now, granted that the previous owner stuck 75 and 100W bulbs everywhere (including in a dimming fixture, which permanently damaged the dimmer but we won’t go there right now…) I got about 40% by estimate, replacing them with somewhat less bright CFLs. I think most of my CFLs are 75W equivalent.
I’ve changed one in three years, which I think was bad out of the box.
As for ceiling fans, even the squiggly ones are ok, I mean, if it’s on you’re not likely to be staring at the lights, right?
The two circuits I have dimmers for, I keep incandescents in. One is a little minisocket lamp which CFL isn’t an option for, and the other is a chandelier over the dining room table, which is rarely on more than a half hour a month, if that.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:54 am
I’d be glad to offer up some help, after you answer just one question: What the fuck is a “can light?”
And if you want to go CFL, you’re probably going to have to give up your dimmers. I’m betting you don’t use most of them as dimmers anyway. Leave the ones you do use (like dining room) as incandescent, and change out the rest to normal switches — it’s easy enough to do.
Also note that if you do go CFL, you can’t just throw the bulbs away in the regular trash any more, since there’s mercury vapor in there. I sent #9 a list of a couple of places where you can recycle them a while back, and it’s not as big of a pain as you might think, since they last many times longer than incandescents anyway, so you’re not changing them very often.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:02 am
I see you already answered the can light question.
Regarding ceiling fans, I use CFLs in all of mine without trouble. You just have to get the ultra-compact swirlies, which I can get in packs of 4 at Target for around $8 to $10. I prefer the 40-watt equivalents (10W), but the 60-watt equivalents (13W) are a lot easier to find, especially in bulk. (Last I checked, you could get a 6-pack of these at the Home Depot for around $8.)
I’ve owned my house for four years, and the only CFLs I’ve had to change are the three-way kind (you’re better off just getting the wattage equivalent you’ll use most of the time) and some candelabra-style ones that I use outside (they apparently don’t like the elements very much, since I’ve had exactly the same bulbs in frequent use inside and have never had to change them).
Also, they may have improved them since last I tried them (about four years ago), but the kind that have a “wrapper” to hide the swirls were crap — they take about three to five minutes to “warm up” and achieve full brightness. The open swirls I have light instantly, don’t hum at all, and provide an easy-on-the-eyes, natural light.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:05 am
The main issue is they take a bit to get up to full brightness.
Until I replaced these bulbs with better swirls, I would use these in multi-bulb fixtures, and leave at least one of the bulbs as a traditional incandescent. That way, I’d have decent light instantly, and full brightness within a couple of minutes. It was a good compromise.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:45 am
The Knox Co. recycling centers accept them, but I don’t know what they do with them. Something similar, I’d guess.
Do they? I thought you had to take them to the household hazardous waste center.
A Class I landfill is household waste. So if they are just putting in there, you could save yourself a trip and put them in your trash can (seal them up in something).