In article , Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 05/06/08 06:39 pm Don Klipstein wrote:

When we moved into this house in Nov 2003, we replaced most of the bulbs
by Sylvania CFLs. Many of those have had to be replaced already; some
emitted "cooked electronics" smells at the end.

I'm going to go easy on the CFLs and hope that LEDs become more widely
available.

So, most of your CFLs lasted less than 5 years? How long would
incandescents have lasted?

Probably not as long, unless I had bought 130-volt ones. But the point
is that the CFLs did not last as long as is being claimed. Maybe the
fact that they were Sylvania has something to do with it: a few years
ago I bought a couple of packs of Sylvania incandescents, some of which
popped as soon as I flipped the switch and some of which lasted only a
day or two.

My experience with Sylvania, both CFL and incandescent, has been
generally good. I have been using maybe half a dozen Sylvania CFLs over
the past several years, and had 2 die young. One made it to maybe 3,000
operating hours IIRC and then "died young" in an enclosed ceiling fixture.
The other died after 20-30 hours in a downlight (ceiling fan light). I
should have mailed the latter one back to Sylvania - I thought of that
after my dumpster was emptied! All my other Sylvania CFLs have yet to
die! I also have Sylvania incandescents not giving me any complaints -
and I see enough Sylvania incandescents often enough along the way to know
despite generally not using incandescents to light my home!

Also keep in mind that a 130V "100W" incandescent, when operated at
120V, consumes about 88 watts while producing hardly more light than a 75W
120V incandescent. Analyze what would cost you more - loss of maybe 60%
reduction of bulb changing cost, or the extra 13 watts of electricity for
each lightbulb? All too often, it is the elctricity!

Meanwhile, are you putting any CFLs in small enclosed fixtures or
recessed ceiling fixtures? CFLs can overheat there, especially if they
are higher wattage ones (more than 23 watts).

Many were CFL floodlights (65-watt equivalent) and were installed in the
cans that had previously held incandescent floodlights. Some that didn't
last long were the exposed-spiral type and were not in cans.

I have lowish expectation of what CFL floodlights do in recessed cans,
especially if they are other than Philips SLS non-dimmable of wattage up
to 23 watts. Philips SLS non-dimmable 15-23 watts is actually *rated* for
use in recessed ceiling cans ("heat hellholes" for CFLs). I suspect
Sears "Hardware Stores" have them. Bulbs.com has them, as well as R40 (5
inch diameter) and R30 (3.75 inch diameter) snap-on reflectors for them to
use in recessed cans. Use the bigger one where it fits with about or over
1/4 inch clearance for any airflow that manages to go up the fixture - the
smaller one appears to me to have significant optical compromise for
smaller diameter.

In my experience, the more successful recessed ceiling fixtures with
CFLs are ones with their own ballasts and requiring pin-ballastless CFLs
of specific type/wattage. Better to use ones that take
more-industry-standard bulbs, such as any offered by all of the "Big 3" or
which are available at both Home Depot and Lowes. The most-common,
most-standardized of those are 13 watt twintube/PL/TT and
quadtube/doubletwintube/cluster/PLC/DTT, and the 26 watt
doubletwintube/quadtube/cluster/PLC/DTT.

Other than that, among screw-base (ballast-included) CFLs, things are
usually better if at least one and preferably both of the following
conditions are true:

1. The CFL is of one of the "Big 3" brands - GE, Philips or Sylvania.

2. The CFL comes with the "Energy Star" logo. The CFL needs to pass some
sort of testing for some sort of quality assurance and some sort of good
functionality as well as good energy efficiency in order to be allowed to
have that logo.

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Also see in home centers how easy it is to get CFLs with "limited
warranties". Be prepared to make warranty claims if things continue to go
bad - that may force CFL manufacturers to make their CFLs more robust to
various conditions, such as use in recessed cans (or at least say
explicitly enough to not use in recessed cans - and they would sell more
CFLs if they can avoid saying that.)

- Don Klipstein )