On Sun 20 Jul 2008 03:38:51a, told us...

On Jul 19, 6:36*pm, wrote:
On Jul 19, 5:40*pm, "pkmicro" wrote:

Hi all,

We have Fluorescent Light Fixtures in our kitchen and has a total of
12
tubes of 3ft long at 30 watt per tube.
4 of them already out and I have replaced almost all of the other 8
tub
es, recently one or 2 of the tubes is starting to go out. *Sometimes
it
turned on sometimes it doesn't. *I was thi nking would it be more
economical in the long run to replace the Fluorescent Light with
"Recessed Light" and use comp act fluorescent bulbs instead?
The Fluorescent tubes are very expensive compare to compact
fluorescent
bulbs. *Would this be a diy job?

* *You should have long life from those tubes. *If you don't have a
good ground to the fixture, that can cause problems and poor quality
ballast and sockets can also cause the problem. *I would start there.

Yes, I was also thinking that standard fluorescents have long life, so
something must be wrong. Certainly a lot longer than the CFL indoor
flood type crap ones that are made to go into recessed light
fixtures. Those are the worst CFL's I've seen. The spiral bulb
ones seem to last. I guess you could screw some of those into
recessed light fixtures, but they would probably require extenders and
look like hell. Also, if you do that, be aware that some sprial
types say they can't be used pointed down.

The sealed flood type CFL's I have used have 2 big problems:

1 - They take minutes to get any reasonable amount of light, way
longer than the typical spiral type.

2 - A good number of them fail after only a few months use.

Now, I know someone is going to tell me how wonderful they are, but
the problem is there is no way to know which ones warm up fast, which
ones last, etc. And the product lines, manufacturing, etc is
changing so fast, that what someone bought 3 months ago may be
different by now.

Let me be the first to tell you how wonderful they are. We have 12
recessed cans in our kitchen. When we moved into the house a year and a
half ago, we installed CFL flood lights. They actually contain a spiral
design CFL within the flood light shaped housing. They reach full
brightness in under 3 seconds (I just timed them). No, I'm not going to
climb up to the ceiling to find out what brand they are. :-) We bought
them at Home Depot. These are R-40 size bulb shapes with 23 watt CFLs
enclosed.

--
Wayne Boatwright
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Monday, 07(VII)/21(XXI)/08(MMVIII)
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Fire, Mr. Worf! [Worf picks up
extinguisher]
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