Those new twisty light bulbs

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This - I don't understand this switchover happening until we have good LED bulbs. The curly ones with the mercury that you can't just throw away, you have to recycle as hazardous waste - they're not a replacement. I still use incandescent, though only in the bedroom, where if I have the fluorescent ones I can't sleep at night - they wind me up! AND make me tired and cranky and give me a headache. We use them in the rest of the house, but I've been getting incandescent ones too just for that room. HOWEVER, the incandescent bulbs I can get now are so badly made they burn out really fast.


Interesting. I had one that melted and started smoking. Another looked as if it was melting, and the glass part felt wobbly and ready to fall out. We keep a closer eye on them now.

Last edited by SpiritBlooms on 22 Sep 2012, 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Any that burn out in my house will be going in the garbage. I'd have no other way to dispose of them.

We have some in my house and I don't like them.

How are they going to enforce this? People who don't have curbside recycling probably won't go to any trouble to take the burned out like bulbs they didn't want to begin with all the way to some hazerdous waste center, even if it's at a fire station, etc. I know I wouldn't. Let the garbage men do it.

use broad spectrum LED's,

where heat is needed an infrared bulb will always be more effective compared to the power you use.

i for one am not paying 10x as much for the power used, i enjoy not having to constantly worry about ones power usage.

my continous light usage if everything is on is barely 150 watts, quite literally the same as 3 light bulbs, that would light a single room.

never had an issue with cfl bulbs though, the mercury is only a problem if there isnt the infrastructure for it, we have bulb containers at many supermarkets so no real issue.
i havent had any that flickered to me, i have seen some though and it would be an issue, the light depends on what bulb and temperature you choose.

My monthly budget is so tight, I'm not sure I can afford the initial investment at $40 a bulb! How long do they last? Also, curious, where do you live that they have bulb recycling at the supermarkets?

I've used CFL's for quite a few years now and do not have issues with flickering, etc. I personally prefer them for the energy efficiency and longer lifetime, though they are not perfect - sometimes they will fail when there's a power surge. I haven't had any problems with disposal though - I just drop them off at Lowes, where they can be disposed/recycled properly.

As mentioned above, they will probably be displaced by high power LEDs (which are very efficient and last for a very long time) once the price drops to a more affordable level.

Per wattage they are definitely dimmer than the old kind in my experience.

It does seem that you have to change to a higher wattage to get the same amount of light.

But supposidly the new kind last many times as long as the old kind.


For a while we had a surplus of both kinds of bulbs.

So I use the new long lasting kind for hard to reach and the hard to replace lights (that take ladders and surgical mechanics to access), and reserved the old kind to replace the easy to reach lights (like desk lamps).

But were pretty much out of the old kind now, and I kind of miss having them for ez places like desk lamps.

Since we moved some of the lights have those bulbs and none have burned out yet. The only lights that burned out in almost 10 months was my bedroom light twice and the computer room light once. Those weren't the new kind of bulb.