"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:55:15 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:


So there we have it. Lots of responses in 12 hours, and not a single one
seems to be in favour of these dreadful things,

Ah, I thought we were talking politics. ;-)

We have many of CFLs (and full size flouros) and would have a few more
if only I could get them in the fittings or if they would dim (I guess
you can get dimmable stuff but not a straight lamp swap type thing).

We don't have a problem with them. I fit them (and have done so since
they were first available, no faux eco bandwagon here) and they last
and work (by 'work' I mean they give off light using less energy and
aren't also heaters).

But then we don't buy into this 'your house must have or look like
this' b/s. We do what works for us.

Cheers, T i m



I wonder how good your eyes are, Tim ? Mine used to be perfect not so long
ago, and I don't think that back then, CFLs would have caused me too much
trouble. Now though, as I get older, I find that my eyes are nothing like as
good as they were, and reading seems to be made much more difficult under
CFL light, than under standard tungsten - or even linear flourescent, for
that matter.
Which is odd, since you wouldn't expect there to be such a difference
between different implementations of what is fundamentally the same
technology. I don't know why, but I find the light from CFLs to somehow be
'offensive', even though they go out of their way to try and colour match
the things to tungsten. Interestingly though, I have no problem at all with
any colour of linear flourescents. I have them in my kitchen, utility room,
and my workshop, where I sit all day.

One of the things that I particularly dislike about CFLs, and which is worse
with some types than others, is the way that the light output ramps up,
especially if we are talking from a 'cold' start, and the way the colour
shifts during that warmup period. Although linear flourescents do 'warm up'
in terms of light output, they don't seem to suffer from the colour shift
thing. Other people I talk to, whose eyes are less than perfect, seem to
agree on the reading thing.

Someone from Canada near the top of the thread also brought up the fact that
the heat output from incandescents is not actually totally lost and wasted,
but in fact supplements the deliberate heating applied to the room. Seems to
me that this is a valid point, and one that is totally ignored by the green
mist brigade, when they vilify the humble, simple and cheap tungsten lamp,
for its claimed planet-damaging inefficiency ...

Arfa