Incandescent bans comin' - There's a way to deal with them!

[Vince]

We are now just under half-a-year away from the phase out of 100W bulbs in North America, and 75W bulbs in Canada. From that moment on, two affordable choices will be available for you: Halogen of CFLs. Most people agrees that CFLs definitely has reliability problems. Although from my experience (and other's too!), some brands seem to be less likely to dangerous end of life than others.

So I suggest you guys to put a sort of summary of all the brands of CFLs you used in the past with as many details as possible (year of installation, number of hours of use per day, model, total lifespan, etc.), so that people can have a guide to choose the better CFLs and avoid the dangerous and/or low quality models.

Here's my personal testimonial:

- Sylvania: They seem to last their average lifespan, but they have problems with burning plastic at EOL. I would personally avoid these.

- Globe Electric: Some older models from the early 2000s had serious safety issues, although newer models from the last couple of years seems to have improved a lot. Mid-2000s lamps are kinda hazardous, I've seen about 1 lamp out of 10 with burnt plastic. Their lamps currently sold in hardware stores generally are safe lamps.

- General Electric: Probably the best brand to get today. Burnt plastic on those is scarce, for all years and all models. Although a non-negligible amount of lamps seem to have early failures, it doesn't represent the majority of GE lamps though. Many testimonials of long-lasting GE CFLs can be found. I currently use three 14W Bug Lites from GE in my backyard light (base down), one of them failed prematurely in 2007, the two others work flawlessly for 10 hrs/day since 2006.

- Rona/Noma: Most CFLs from those brands are manufactured by Globe Electric. Some Noma lamps are made by GE.

[Mike]

Hey Vince!

I know this is a late reply at this point but I'll share my two cents too.

I agree that GE Helicals are good stuff. They seem to fail for electronic reasons though, not the lamp itself. The plastic gets a little yellowed when running base up. I've had some in our house that have been running great for multiple hours a day since around 2006 or 2007. I've had one helical go mercury starved which was pretty cool. I kept it since it's the only CFL I've ever seen go mercury starved. It lights a nice pink color too and when it's first switched on the electrodes flash and it looks like lightning.

Most of the CFLs in my house were removed working and just replaced due to upgrades (it looks tacky with incandescent and fluorescent mixed together). The outside lights had a trailmix variety of lamps in them so a month or so ago we installed all clear halogen lamps in them. One was a dud out of the box so I popped in a 40W incandescent. It's about as half as bright as the halogens but it does the job.

In the kitchen there are 8 CFLs in use (two 4-lamp fixtures, one over the island table in the kitchen and one over the dining room table; my kitchen, dining room, and living room is all one big open studio room). they've been failing one by one. seven were Helicals and one is an N:Vision lamp, which must have made its way into a box of GE lamps at Lowe's even though N:Vision was the HD store brand.

Well, to cut to the chase, the four dining room CFLs are still original with just faint yellowing of the plastic. Three of the four kitchen CFLs have been replaced with A-shaped Maxlite CFLs which I really like. They have to warm up, sorta like HID, but that's a pain if you want instant bright light. First thing in the morning it's nice though since you're not blinded by the light at 6AM in December when it's still dark out lol. The only original CFL left in the fixture is the cheapy N:Vision lamp and I might remove it just because it's eight years old. It's lasted a good long while and running base up, the palstic is looking decently browned out so i think it's time for a replacement. Plus then all four lamps will match.

I've also removed all CFLs fom enclosed fixtures, replacing them with either halogen or incandescent. I prefer halogens but we have a few incandescents to burn through. I also have a few of those A-shaped MaxLite CFLs that I bought with a Green Kit for 10 bucks from NGrid. It included ten or twelve CFLs, two LED nite-lites, a stand-up desk lamp, and a clip-on desk lamp (desklamps have GU24 base CFLs). I gave the stand-up desk lamp to my brother, the clip on one to my grandpa who uses it. i kept the LED nite lights and Maxlite CFLs. This was back when I was into the CFLs and all that. I like LEDs but they're still too expensive at around 10 bucks a lamp. That doesn't sound like much but when you buy 10 bulbs that 100 bucks whereas you can (err... COULD) buy a case of 24 incandescent lamps for 25 bucks.

I buy the bulbs but i don't pay for the electricity so you can see why I don't buy LEDs, though I bought LEDs for my room in 2011 to test them. They're pretty much drop lens flood lights but give high-CRI light and nice and bright too for just 7.5W. They don't light the ceiling which doesn't sound like a big deal but a fully lit room looks less dreary lol. They were 10 bucks each too but I had a 25 dollar giftcard so I bought three of them and payed the couple extra dollars in cash. I like them mainly because they don't generate any radiant heat. I like to keep my room cool so the LEDs work great, though i find myself using my street light display to light my room most of the time isntead lol.

If I buy any new LEDs, I'll probably buy Cree LEDs since they're pretty close to incandescent lamps in appearance. But for now, any new lamps bought will be halogens.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

I can also say good things about the 13w GE Helicals, and I have some 5000K Satco 13w ones that are tiny but seem decent.  And of course my house is mostly linear fluorescents, so I don't use that many incandescents or CFLs anyway.  I use the old/large preheat 22w circline adapters where they fit though.
Feit (Western-Family) ones also seem decent, I've had a couple of those die but not too bad.  Just bought some 6500K ones and the first one (only one in service) seems to be "rectifying" (fast, almost invisible flicker) but that's not an issue where it's being used right now.