Compact Fluorescent Bulbs, NOT a Bright Idea

The bulbs are supposed to put out about 3 times as much light per watt used as Edison's bulb and last about 5 times or better, as long. This saving of electricity is the big feature and each bulb is slated to save you about $30 average over the lifetime of the bulb.

As a consumer that is concerned about your health, a consideration has come up that can be drastic affecting health, that no one including the government agencies involved has not thought thru, resolved or warned anyone about.

This has just come to light and we want to call it to your attention and have you informed before you buy into this and replace all of your incandescent as a patriotic citizen just doing your part.

They say Edison's old fashioned incandescent has been labeled the villain and has to go but fail to tell you about the problems with its replacement.

Just uncovered in a story of a woman who broke one on her carpet, read the warning about the hazardous mercury material in it and called one of the state agencies in charge of this type of hazardous material.

They came out and told her the material was too hazardous for her to vacuum up herself and would require some specialists to come in and clean it up.

The bill for the clean up would be over $2,000. which she can not afford so they have enclosed the room with plastic sheeting to half air movement and her daughter is forced to sleep downstairs in crowded conditions.

Her home owners insurance will not pay for the clean up so things are at a stand still. No agency seems to have an answer for this problem yet that is going to become wide spread because this certainly is not the last broken bulb.

Fluorescent, including the long tubes we are accustomed to contain mercury and are hazardous. Mercury poisoning has become a wide spread fear particularly with fish all over the world becoming contaminated with mercury, which is then transferred to people eating the fish and the stuff accumulates in humans just as it did in the fish.

People in the Midwest not thought of as great sea food eaters are coming down with a few individual developing problems of severe mercury poisoning. No one knows why, but maybe the fluorescent breakage exposure could explain it.

I have personally broken many an eight foot fluorescent store bulb to get it to fit in a six foot wide dumpster. etc. Maybe exposure to this is what they have missed and just maybe we have an environmental disaster cooking with billions of these bulbs.

The fish and others are thought to be a result of mercury in the air from coal burning settling in the ocean and the mercury picked up and somehow absorbed by the fish.

So the unresolved problem, is what do you do if one of these CFI break. not just burn out. Most of these seem to be made in China were the quality control is often lacking.

These CFLs are all the rage, sort of the equivalent of the hoola hoop, if you remember that far back, everyone had to have one.

They are the spirally shaped, long-lasting bulbs everyone is being urged, cajoled and environmentalist guilt-tripped into purchasing in quantity as an "investment" that will pay for itself in electrical savings.

A concerted drive to replace Thomas Edison's incandescent, which are being called energy inefficient and generate great amounts of heat and small amounts of light.

However, there is no problem disposing of incandescent when their life is over.

It turns out now CFLs you wont be able to throw them in the trash can and if you do they may even hurt the garbage collector.

The CFLs will likely leech deadly compounds into the air or water and may harm innocent people working in the landfills. This is what you are going to hear as this is uncovered by the media in the months ahead.

Yes, they long ago knew these were hazardous mercury-containing CFLs.

Most bear disposal warnings on the packaging.

The entire country is on a timetable to eliminate and even ban entirely the only alternative – the old incandescent bulb.

If these turn out be a disaster what are they going to go back to....candles?

Practically the whole world – as part of the global warming phobia– is getting ready to totally ban the incandescent light bulb.

Fluorescent lights have been around for decades, and are nothing new. They've saved money on electricity for just as long.. They just have not been popular for home use for several reasons.

The mercury issue. was probably not on the radar screen of most. The truth is most people just do not like how things look under fluorescent light.

You know some older people are sort of "night blind" and I think this is true, on these fluorescent bulbs. Some people see them as not near as bright as the bulb they are listed to replace.

My sense is as you get older you start to see different wave lengths of light fluorescent and cool white fluorescent like most CFLs will often be seen by some people as far dimmer then the incandescent lumens they supposedly replaced.

Incandescent put out generally a warm lower frequency light. Fluorescent are often referred to in the most common manifestation as "cool white".

As a store operator I can tell you that colored merchandise items do not sell well under "cool white" because they just do not look good.

(Some women do not want to be seen under certain fluorescents because they do not think they look good either)

We became aware of that and added incandescent using proximity detectors (you call them motion detectors) and turned on incandescent floods on this primarily red merchandise when anyone approached. Sales tripled.

Editors Note: To cut electricity use, consider instead, invest and install traditional incandescent lights thru out your home that come on automatically when anyone is in the area. (most are familiar with using these motion detector switches outside in the yard etc but have not thought of using them inside)

Installed looking like ordinary switching, they can be set to turn off at say ten minutes of no motion detected.

For example: Instead of leaving on semi bright night lights for Grandma, use motion detectors that turn on lights bright if move at all with up and about and automatically shut back off when she goes back to sleep. (time delay after no motion) (studies show it is far better health wise to sleep in total darkness.)

A friend operating a men's clothing store said that his men's suits (displayed on dummies,) the shoulders faded if exposed to the much shorter wave length fluorescent light over 30 days.

I go in an office of a 100k executive and he has expensive prints of great art work on the wall.

I am appalled that he has art that has died, the reds, and yellows have totally faded leaving what looks to me like a "blue print", unbenoticed to him the colors and 'life" in these wonderful art reproductions gradually and slowly died from fading exposed to the short wave length of fluorescent lights. I see the same type of "formerly great pictures" problems, donated and hanging on the walls displayed at Good Will because they have "died' from fluorescent light exposure. (lost all life).

These fluorescents are at least five times more fading then sunlight.

Schools now have eliminated windows to the outside world and make children sit for hours in 100% fluorescent lights only.

Studies connect and show that this standard issue wave length fluorescent light exposure is tied to behavior and learning problems in children.

School administrators keep right on building schools that way to "save money" now and can not figure out why they are having extreme behavior and learning disability problems with these kids.

Your hypothalamus gland regulates much of your hormone system based on light input. Wrong wave length light, wrong response.

There are ratings on fluorescent bulbs you need to be aware of. One of course is Lumens, this is basically how much light you get per watt, and I wont go into that because you can compare that easily.

The next is CRI rating. Be sure it is rated at very least a CRI of 80 or above, these would barely be acceptable for everyday residential use.

CCT - color correlated temperature measures how "warm" or "cool" a light seems. A low CCT (below 3100 K) is a warm white light, which is what you want minimum to keep your family from killing each other from wrong wave length light sources long term.

In the video stores we use every other fluorescent bulb "color corrected" at a much lower number (Kelvin, it is called) then that, because using all the normal higher more white light, the video (DVD) boxes art work does not look nor rent well.

These color corrected fluorescents cost twice as much as ordinary wave length fluorescents but we consider them absolutely essential.

One web site into health sourcing is offering CFI bulbs in color corrected and uses all of this information to justify the more then twice the Walmart price he gets for color corrected. If you go for CFI, this is the only way to go.

Personally I would hold off. The mandatory switch over, is yet, a few years away and look (and wait) for the next generation of lighting, namely LED lights.

They are made from semiconductor materials that emit light when an electrical current flows through them. You already see them in the more expensive quality flashlights, in the city traffic light down on the corner and in auto and bus taillights. (all currently primarily lights that you can not afford to ever burn out.)

When this form of light takes over, all other light bulbs including these stop gap CFI will be obsolete.

Your wall panels themselves can light up. Curtains can light up. Even the bath tub could be made to light up and all will be adjustable to the exact level and mood you want.

These bulbs last almost forever and use almost no electricity compared to bulbs as we have known them.

Jets came in before they even started to get the turbo's paid for and Howard's airline went immediately straight to jets.

By delaying, he cut out the expensive unnecessary conversion to turbo props and whether it was stupidity or genius, it was the right move.

It looks to me like you would be wise to hold off on the conversion to CFLs.

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