Do they? I thought you had to take them to the household hazardous waste center.

A Class I landfill is household waste. So if they are just putting in there, you could save yourself a trip and put them in your trash can (seal them up in something).

Until I replaced these bulbs with better swirls, I would use these in multi-bulb fixtures, and leave at least one of the bulbs as a traditional incandescent. That way, I’d have decent light instantly, and full brightness within a couple of minutes. It was a good compromise.

Regarding ceiling fans, I use CFLs in all of mine without trouble. You just have to get the ultra-compact swirlies, which I can get in packs of 4 at Target for around $8 to $10. I prefer the 40-watt equivalents (10W), but the 60-watt equivalents (13W) are a lot easier to find, especially in bulk. (Last I checked, you could get a 6-pack of these at the Home Depot for around $8.)

I’ve owned my house for four years, and the only CFLs I’ve had to change are the three-way kind (you’re better off just getting the wattage equivalent you’ll use most of the time) and some candelabra-style ones that I use outside (they apparently don’t like the elements very much, since I’ve had exactly the same bulbs in frequent use inside and have never had to change them).

Also, they may have improved them since last I tried them (about four years ago), but the kind that have a “wrapper” to hide the swirls were crap — they take about three to five minutes to “warm up” and achieve full brightness. The open swirls I have light instantly, don’t hum at all, and provide an easy-on-the-eyes, natural light.

And if you want to go CFL, you’re probably going to have to give up your dimmers. I’m betting you don’t use most of them as dimmers anyway. Leave the ones you do use (like dining room) as incandescent, and change out the rest to normal switches — it’s easy enough to do.

Also note that if you do go CFL, you can’t just throw the bulbs away in the regular trash any more, since there’s mercury vapor in there. I sent #9 a list of a couple of places where you can recycle them a while back, and it’s not as big of a pain as you might think, since they last many times longer than incandescents anyway, so you’re not changing them very often.

I’ve changed one in three years, which I think was bad out of the box.

As for ceiling fans, even the squiggly ones are ok, I mean, if it’s on you’re not likely to be staring at the lights, right?

The two circuits I have dimmers for, I keep incandescents in. One is a little minisocket lamp which CFL isn’t an option for, and the other is a chandelier over the dining room table, which is rarely on more than a half hour a month, if that.

She has a problem with the color temperature and the 60 Hertz flicker.

Actually, the CF bulbs run at a much higher frequency. One of the early complaints was that they interfered with TV remotes. Here’s something from google (HTML and same as PDF)

Most IR remotes are around 40 KHz, if I recall correctly.

Oh and they come in a whole range of different tones of white now too.

Does anybody make three-way CFL’s?

Number 2 in Google: here\

Now I have a bleg: Anyone got any hints on recycling High pressure sodium (HPS) lamps? It seems to me that it’s legal for me to dispose of one or two a year, but since you can see the mercury amalgam in the bulb, I’d rather that they be recycled properly.

I’ve had no luck on Google. I’ve even searched teh hippie hydroponics sites, seeing as the dopers ought to be all green and shit while growing the only cash crop that cost effective to grow under HPS lamps indoors. Nope, no luck there either.

Remember kids, always hate Hippie-crites.

There’s a few places around the country that will recycle them for a fee, but I’m nowhere near any of them.

Philips makes dimmable CFL reflector floodlight bulbs, which are likely exactly what you need.

It would be very easy for a big box store to set up something like this.

They also make bulbs with pretty glass covers on them for applications like hanging light fixtures and bathrooms. I’ve got all types in my house, most installed long before the current CFL boom (as in, before I even started blogging, on my previous stint here at Ft Lewis).

I can take some pics of my various lights tonight if you’d like. I got all of them from my local Home Depot or Lowe’s.

It would be more like 99.36 mg/year for me, not 2900 mg as previously stated.

(Slight “rounding” error in my spreadsheet).

Great info. Now I can dispose of my dead 48″ fluorescent bulbs I have been storing. Mucho Gracious.

http://www.knoxviews.com/node/4493

The Knox Co. recycling centers accept them, but I don’t know what they do with them. Something similar, I’d guess.

My post on CFLs a while back called for local governments and big box retailers to start recycling programs, or at least proper disposal programs. That’s something we will be talking to our local .gov about soon.

Sylvania has started a service for recycling CFL, tubes, and other hazardous electronics:

http://www.sylvania.com/Recycle/CFLandHouseholdlightBulbrecycling/

The consumer kit from Sylvania handles 12 CFLs and costs $15 which includes shipping. They have other services geared for commercial/industrial/government users. There are other companies offering similar services.

So, what’s the bottom line? CFLs result in energy savings, but do require special handling for disposal, and do represent a slightly increased health risk, particularly to young children and pregnant mothers. The magnitude of that increase is very small, much smaller than risks we take for granted every day, like driving to the supermarket for example, but it does exist.

Given what I know about the risk, and that I hate replacing lightbulbs, I’m converting over to CFLs in my house. But to suggest that there is no increased risk is dishonest.

I took the reflector bulb back inside and put it in a recessed lighting fixture. This was a good match because the sides of the fixture were black. The regular CFL wasted a good amount of useful output in that fixture.

The CF reflector lights are a bit more pricey than the “four for $10″ regular bulbs.

Something like this.

Fitting can be problem. I have several floor lamps that will not accept CFL’s. The neck of the bulb is not narrow enough.

We also have a lot of ceiling fans (at least one per room). I suppose regular CFLs will fit those and look OK?

ceiling fans sometimes have really tiny, cramped lamp shades, so a regular grocery-store spiral CFL might not physically fit. (unless it’s so low wattage as to be uninteresting.) you may have to order one of the better brands from something like that link R. Neal posted, they seem to have a better selection of shapes and sizes.

How do you properly dispose of CFL’s?

according to the EPA, it’s best to recycle them, but if that’s not possible you can just toss ‘em. seal them in a ziploc or something first and put them out with regular trash, apparently.

there was a scare about mercury in CFLs a while back, but seems to have been bunkum. take that for what it’s worth.

What is a can light?

It’s a light that is recessed in a cone (i.e., a can) so it is in the ceiling. Like this.

We also have a lot of ceiling fans (at least one per room). I suppose regular CFLs will fit those and look OK?

How do you properly dispose of CFL’s? Will the local recycling center accept them? I don’t want to encourage people to do something where mercury can end up in ground water. Also, my statement was that I would wait for the LED technology. I am aware it is expensive and not fully developed.

I am not an expert on landfills but I don’t think most landfills are lined. The mercury from coal powered plants is dispersed. Mercury in ground water is concentrated. The answer is recycling. Maybe you could use your Progressive Blog to lobby for that recycling since you have gone to such efforts to encourage the use of CFL’s?

what i’d like to know about is whether any CFLs can cycle on-off relatively quickly, as in blinking a couple of times per second, without risking damage. i’ve got a garage door opener with built-in work lights that i need to change bulbs in, but the thing uses rapid blinking of that worklight as a signal when changing codes or to indicate something wrong, and i’d hate to destroy the CFL in a week because the damn garage door was being ornery again.

should read: A Sylvania CFL bulb

Here’s a state of the art LED:

http://www.besthomeledlighting.com/product/OBS-120-E27-96-WC

It puts out 240 lumens using 8 watts. It costs $65.

A Sylvania bulb I got at Lowes puts out 800 lumens using 13 watts and cost less than $2.50.

If someone knows of a better deal on LEDs with higher output, I’d love to know where to get them.

Re. the mercury, all fluorescent light bulbs, including those long tubes you probably have in your garage and closets, have mercury. The typical CFL has about 5mg. Phillips is working on reducing that to about 1.5mg.

Running coal-fired power plants to make electricity to run a light causes mercury emissions. A rough calculation shows six CFLs (with about 30 mg of mercury that can be contained if properly disposed of) could reduce coal-fired power plant mercury emissions by about 2900mg per year. So my CFLs could remove a net 2870mg of mercury from the environment, even if I just crush them and throw them in the trash.