Couple of years ago a paper reported that an regular light bulb has
been lit in the loft of the NY Opera House for forty years as nobody
knows where the switch is to turn it off.

On 20 Nov 2006 06:17:40 -0800, "RicodJour"
wrote:

---MIKE--- wrote:
These bulbs are supposed to last much longer than incandescent types. I
have had several of them give up the ghost way too soon (the last was a
Philips brand). Has anyone else had this problem?

Yep. I ran across an article on fluorescent bulb lifespan a while
back. As with incandescent bulbs, turning them on and off is what
shortens the life. If the fluorescent is on 24/7 you'll get the rated
hours. If it's on say a third of that time, you'll get about half of
the rated hours (please note all of my numbers are either right or
wrong or somewhere in between, but the gist of it is correct). The
article calculated that if you were going to be back in the room in a
half hour it made more sense to just leave the light on. This is one
of the stumbling blocks to those automated motion-sensor lights.

The compact fluorescents have healthy warranties - years, so just give
the manufacturer a call.

R