I've enjoyed the topic.... CFLs are supposed to be kept vertical. Are
people replacing their light fixtures? My home has light fixtures that hold
two bulbs up against the ceiling. The CFLs did not last as long as
incandescent bulbs in this horizontal arrangement.
Many of our rooms have ceiling fans (to save energy). Has anyone found a
CFL that is recommended for that service?
I agree with the other poster about temperature, the colder it is the longer
they take to reach full brightness. At -20 F they may never reach full
brightness. At -30 F they generally do not start.
It was Mythbusters that did the comparison about leaving them on
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode69
23 seconds for a fluorescent tube, less time for anything else. It had no
appreciable effect on bulb life.
For me I need about 2000 hours out of the CFL to break even.... I have
tried it, they don't last that long.
73,
Joe kk0sd
-----Original Message-----
From: rfi-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:rfi-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Christopher E. Brown
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 6:17 PM
To: Diane and Edward Swynar
Cc: rfi@contesting.com; Bob Turner
Subject: Re: [RFI] CFL Bulbs that are OK!
On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, Diane and Edward Swynar wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> How have you found CFLs to behave in outdoor applications...?
>
> Here in The Great White North it's not uncommon to have sub-zero
(Fahrenheit
> scale) temperatures in the long, cold winter months. I have porch lamps &
> driveway lamps whose only protection from the elements are decorative
glass
> enclosures.
>
> Will these things fire-up when the thermometer dips, or will we be left
> here---literally--in the cold & dark...?
>
> ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ
I ran outdoor rated CFLs in the front and back porch and fron of garage
lights for a while.
In the -15 to -25 (F) range they could take 3 - 5 minutes to fire up (dim
glow
in 5 - 30 seconds, jump to 50% light after minutes). They never hit full
bright no matter how long they ran.
Below -25 they often did not fire up at all.
After 3 failures in one winter I replaced the front porch and garage front
lights with 30w clear bulb conventionals.
Still have a 100w "equiv" on the back porch, but we generally only use in
summer.
That particular one will fire up below -30, but we only turn on every
couple weeks in winter to shovel rear porch and turn on at least 10
minutes in advance.
In general the outdoor types do seem to be much better about actually
firing up, and the larger the unit (higher output) the better it seems to
work.
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