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We've been using them for about 3-4 years now in our house. Each bulb is to have a five-year life and can save you between $45 to $75 over the life of the bulb. (That might be a stretch according to many... that's assuming an average use of 4-hours a day)
HOWEVER... we had something strange happen to one of ours last night in the basement. Laurie went down to work on laundry and smelled something strange... she quickly realized it was coming from one of the CFL bulbs in the basement. The smell is difficult to describe, but was somewhat of an acidic/plastic smell. As I researched this online last night others have described it as an "acrid" smell (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/acrid).
When we looked more closely at the bulb it was obvious there was a problem...
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But, our CFL bulb wasn't near what some others have looked like, and as far as we know didn't give the flames/sparks/smoke that others have reported. It caused a lot of concern for Laurie and I last night because of how many we have in our house. We're definitely going to start watching them more closely, and will not leave any lights on using those bulbs while we're out of the house or during the night.
The bulb of ours that malfunctioned is as follows...
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Here is a link that reported others who had problems:
http://www.execulink.com/~impact/globe13watt.htm
And here is a link that might explain it all... http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc.mhtml?i=ask&s=cfl. Well, sort of... They say, in so many words, what happened to our bulb is normal. If that's normal, to give an "acrid" smell and discolor the base as if it was burning, that concerns me.
Like I said earlier... I guess we'll just pay more attention to use, especially while we're gone or at night.
5 comments:
You may want to check to ensure that the wattage on the bulb doesn't exceed the maximum on the fixture it is being screwed into. Also, that there isn't a cover over the bulb that would hold in the heat. If both of the above is okay, perhaps a different kind of energy efficient bulb should be used.
Wattage was fine and bulb wasn't covered. Many reports of this type of occurrence are out there. There are no out of the ordinary conditions. Only possibility is that some days it gets turned on and off more frequently if we're making several trips to the basement to do laundry, kids playing in the basement, etc.
I have three of these types of bulbs that I use in portable fixtures for when I need more light when I am working on a project. I think I have noticed the discoloration at the base, but I'm not sure I have noticed an odor. I will check the bases again. I am using the "100 watt" (actually 23W) variety. I was going to switch them out for "normal" 150 watt bulbs, but when I put a normal bulb in the fixture, the heat that bulb gave off in the first 5 seconds was enough for me to re-replace it with the CFL bulb. The CFL bulbs do not give off nearly the amount of heat as a normal bulb.
I checked my bulbs this evening and they are definitely discolored. Something else interesting that I noticed is that there is a notice on the side that says the bulb contains mercury. After doing some research there is really just a very small amount of mercury in the bulbs. There are actually a lot of items that can be in our house that have more mercury than these bulbs though. The government has a fact sheet on mercury in CFLs. These bulbs are supposed to be recycled, not thrown in the trash. There are places that have laws prohibiting improper disposal. I’m not sure what the Bloomington/Normal regulations are. Unfortunately the site from the fact sheet that can be searched for recycling centers of mercury shows the closest location is in the Chicago area.
There's a business opportunity for you Brian... CFL bulb recycling pickup. Lots of money in it I hear. :)
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