On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:49:19 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

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).


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.

Understood. My eyes certainly aren't what they were, needing strength
(?) 2 ready specs for reading and watching the TV (3's for soldering
etc). Long distance stuff is still fine without. However I do find I
need plenty of light to do detailed work (something a carpenter mate
also noted when we were working outside putting a new roof on my Mums
shed the other day, how easy it was to 'see').

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.

Hmm, I can't say I've noticed that particularly. I do have one of
those 'natural light' spiral type CFL's and that is VERY white!

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.

Strange, as you say. I wonder if the coatings on the physically bigger
lamps has a higher fluorescent inertia .. (I've just made that up, the
same a the thermal inertia you get on a heavier filament
incandescent).

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.

Whilst I've seen that effect it's only really obvious on one of those
little Ikea 7W mini ES lamps I have over my keyboard area. It comes up
in 3 stages but only takes about 4 seconds to do so (it's quite cool,
looks like a soft start). ;-)

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.

The Mrs is nearly 60 and has needed fairly strong prescription glasses
since she was 15. She regularly reads in here to an 11W CFL laying on
a bit of radiator heat foil on a shelf 18" from the ceiling (and the
only example of 'mood lighting' we have). ;-)

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.

So fine in the winter (or Canada when they are always under 6' of
snow). ;-)

FWIW we don't have central heating either and haven't had any heating
on this year yet. There were days when we probably would have turned
it on but we just put a jumper on instead.

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 ...

I don't get involved in the politics. I buy them because the work and
(think they) save us money.


Cheers, T i m

p.s. I normally write the install date on these CFL's when I install
them. I recently replaced one that was over 10 years old and it is
used every day for about 6 hours (it's on a time switch so ~22,000
hours). If it was a 20W CFL and gave off the equivalent light to a 60W
and if it cost me £5 10 years ago, would it have saved me any money
over a 60W incandescent?