On Wed, 21 Oct 2015 03:44:01 +0000, Dave Why
wrote:


I was sat in my basement the other night and there was an electrical
burning smell. One of those swirly fluorescent light bulbs started to
flicker.
Over a 10 minute period the flickering got worse until the thing died. The
screw in part (not the glass) was very hot and I could not touch it. I
thought they were supposed to last 15 years !!!


Some years ago, I was in the bathroom sitting on the toilet when one of
those CFL bulbs began emitting sparks inside the glass fixture. It died
leaving a thick cloud of smelly smoke. About that same moment I shut off
the switch. I replaced it with an incandescent bulb.

If it had not been inside a glass fixture dome, and had I not been
there, it could have started a fire.

I never liked those CFL bulbs, and none of them last anywhere near the
amount of time they say on the package. That's just advertising lies.

I did have one of the original ones, which were a simple arch that stuck
out about 5 inches. That one lasted 8 or 9 years, and was on almost all
the time. It did not burn out. I was broken when a furnace guy came to
fix our furnace and was carrying a long duct pipe, and hit the bulb
because it stuck out of the fixture so far.

I'm grateful the LED bulbs are now available and getting affordable. I
dont like paying for electric to power incandescents, but I always hated
those CFL bulbs for many reasons, including they are dangerous, they
dont work in cold weather, if they break, you got mercury contamination,
and so many more reasons.