Am I the only person who has developed a certain jaundiced skepticism about compact flourescent bulbs (CFLs)? Or is that yellowish tinge around the eyes just the result of the dim and ugly light the dratted things throw off?
In the first blush of enthusiasm over CFLs, I went out and bought a boatload of them. Replaced all the incandescent lights in the house, except in a couple of lamps that cheerfully blew the contraptions out every time I stuck one in the socket.
Some inanimate objects have better sense than the rest of us.
Time passed. I saw exactly zero difference in the power bill. As far as I can tell, CFLs do little or nothing to lower your electric bill, at least if you’re the sort of person who turns the lights off when you leave a room and who opens the blinds during the day so as to navigate by natural light.
As it develops, there’s an explanation for that. Whether it’s the correct explanation and whether CFLs have as their unintended consequence increased greenhouse gas emissions, I do not know, but I certainly would agree with Sudden Disruption that these devices have been oversold. And removing all incandescent bulbs from the market to replace them with the things is Big Brother at his Draconian best.
Other unintended consequences wait in the wings. For example, studies have shown that CFLs may induce or aggravate migraines, may be harmful to people with retinal disease, and may aggravate certain skin ailments. The flicker and hum, unnoticeable to all but a few humans, are audible to and may be harmful to cats, dogs, and other household pets.
It could be, of course, that you can’t see much difference in your electric bill because you can’t see the bill at all. You can’t see much of anything by the light of a CFL. No matter what the equivalent wattage, they cast a murky glow, indeed. They muddy the colors in your room and require you to break out the reading glasses for copy you could decipher easily under a brighter light..
Especially annoying is the dim half-glow they emit when first turned on. Flick on the switch in my bedroom and you feel like you’re inside a cave lit by the bioluminscent mildew on the walls. The older a bulb gets, the more time it requires to come up to speed. It takes quite a while, now, for the lights in my house to reach their maximum brightness. Not a very maximum, we might add.
I’ve already bought a bunch of incandescent bulbs and cached them in the storage room. Thanks to the Selling of the CFL, old fashioned lightbulbs are now pretty cheap. I think I’m going to buy another couple of pallets before they go off the market!