These bulbs are costly, ugly, made in China, and contain mercury which will ultimately be put into the environment. I put half of them in my house and noticed no savings on my electric bill. I think I will horde incandescent bulbs made in the USA that cost about 25 cents each, are not ugly and contain no mercury.
kill-a-watt meter? I have never seen one!
CFL’s are a joke. That said I am a big fan of LED’s.
Here are some facts for you:
If you get a kill-a-watt meter (a device that tells you exactly how much electricity an item consumes) and plug in a lamp with an incandescent bulb and then a cfl bulb you will see for yourself that the cfl uses 75% less electricity.
As for the mercury when you get your electricity if you are the majority of Americans you get it from a coal fired power plant this power plant emits many pollutants in the air one of which is mercury. By using cfl’s that have around 4 mg of mercury you cause that plant to spew a fourth of the pollutants that you would have to with an incandescent, Also if the cfl is recycled unbroken the mercury in the cfl is never put in the environment.
If you Absolutely want no mercury in your house go with the led option, but also get a programmable thermostat because the old fashioned thermostats have a mercury switch that has over 200 mgs of mercury in it (yes over 50X the cfl) and half of neon signs have mercury.
As for the made in China part, the country as a whole is a little late on that a house that is all american made and only american products is near impossible today. I would check those bulbs to make sure they were US exclusive.
For anyone like uncle dud here is a google search so you can see many kill-a-watt meters most of which you can get for about $20 -$30 and then you can see with your own eyes what will save you money (cfl & led) and what uses energy.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=kill+a+watt+meter&gbv=2
I love that argument….
the savings in energy is important even if it is such a small amount that you dont’ see it .. it adds up…
the mercury is such a small amount it is insignificant…
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and they don’t recognize the hypocrisy of saying that pollutiing the earth with mercury doesn’t count because it is a small amount.. while saving such a small amount of energy does count.. hmm HELLO the mercury adds up to.. they BOTH count!
Because part of indoctrinating you is to make you do something. Doing what they want you to do, especially if it’s pointless is part of mental surrender.
Well, the CFC bulbs are a lot more efficient, maybe you don’t see it on your electric bill because it is such a small difference compared to all of the rest of the things you run in your house, but it is proven they use less energy. They also do not waste much energy, the incandescent bulbs that you are talking about waste almost half of their energy to the heat that they release. Also if you do some research you will realize the mercury that is in these new bulbs is such a small amount it will not affect anything. You can say they do pollute the environment but the energy you waste with the incandescent bulbs is far more.
CFL’s use 1/4 the energy for the same amount of light. Quality bulbs will last up to 10 times longer. So, over the life of a bulb they are cheaper to use than incandescent bulbs. Yes, they contain mercury, but they are 100% recyclable and if they are disposed of properly the mercury will never be released into the environment. Occasionally one will break, but there is such a small amount of mercury that there is little risk, but you should ventilate the area and not use bare hands to clean up. Ugly is subjective, compared to a gas flame many thought the incandescent bulb was ugly as well. There are many light fixtures that hide the bulb completely. Most bulbs are made in China, incandescent, CFL’s, other fluorescent, halogen and LED are made in China. You can find made in the USA brands for most types of bulbs, but that is a challenge even for incandescents.