"Sam Goldwasser" wrote in message
...
Ken Weitzel writes:

Rick wrote:
Hi
In theory these are supposed to be a great idea. Almost all packaging
stipulates somewhere that the bulbs are expected to last for five
years.
All packaging has that "Energy Star" logo on it. In practice, I'm
finding the bulbs made in Asia aren't lasting longer than 18 months.
Some have failed in under 10 days. I've collected about a dozen bulbs
in
the last two years - none of which lasted more than 18 months.
When I questioned the people at energystar.gov about the problems
with
the bulbs, and specifically asked them who actually reviews these
products to make sure they are living up to the energy savings claims,
they ignored the question and only wanted to know what model numbers
were giving me problems. They didn't say the problem of premature
failures would be addressed either. There is no policy information
regarding who gets to use that Energy Star logo and why/when.
Is it me? Well, that's what one manufacturer says must be the
problem.
(I must be using the bulbs "too long" each day. I'm turning them on and
off too often. Or I'm putting them in fixtures they shouldn't be used
in. Apparently these are very delicate things...) But I've used the
early model CF bulbs from Panasonic, Osram/Syulvania and Phillips in
the
same light fixtures, under the same conditions, and they all lasted
five
years or longer.
Is this whole Energy Star/CF bulb concept just bogus? If you have to
toss out even a $2.00 bulb every 18 months are you actually saving
anything at all when you compare the alleged energy savings to the cost
of frequent bulb replacements?
Anyone else having failure problems with these bulbs? The grand
champion
of failures has been "LightWiz" by Harmony Lighting. Coming in a close
second is Lights of America. Both brands offered by my utility company
at discount so I can save something...

Hi Rick...

Suspect that in these days of spin-doctoring the energystar
folks are talking of saving _energy_; which they surely do...

Saving energy is far removed from saving you money, eh?

Having said that, I've used them throughout my house for many,
many years, and have had only two fail catastrophically, and
one I discarded because light output fell off too much.

If you catch them just before they fail totally, it may just be
a matter of touching up bad solder connections in the ballast.
I've also found that the spiral type run in anything other than
normal base-down position and/or in semi-enclosed fixtures tend
to fail early. I've only replaced one that failed in a normal
table lamp and in that case, the fluorescent tube itself had
an open filament.

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Most of the CFLs I've caught just before they fail, had drying up
electrolytics - I used to repair these when they cost £6.50 each but the
local Morrisons store now sells them for £1.99.