Who has CFL's in their home?

[mikebw]

So would you say that these "full spectrum" ones from http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com are comparable to natural light?

[Filliam H. Muffman]

[quote rickard5]Nope NOT A single one. You will NEVER see one in my home/ shop/ ect.......
it all has to do with color tempiture. Flourescent light bulbs are no where near natural light.
You can get full spectrum bulbs but they are generally not at your local hardware store and a little more expensive.
http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.php?ca...uorescents

[lafinfil]

[quote rickard5]Nope NOT A single one. You will NEVER see one in my home/ shop/ ect.......
it all has to do with color tempiture. Flourescent light bulbs are no where near natural light.
Color spectrum corrected florescent lights are a standard in the most color critical industries out there
including light boxes for photography and printing industries and textiles, ink, dye, and
paint standardized and evaluations / matching and more.
HMI's are standards in film and TV production and moving into digital photography
Even my local body shops use 56K as a standard for paint booths

So what color temps are "natural" for you ? What standard ?

5000 K D50 (US standard) and 6500 K D65 (Europe standard) ?

And yes I actually own color meters that I have worked with them
for over 25 years in the most critical of applications.

[Carm]

Most of mine are. With the exception of 8 with six of them on my chandelier.

Carm

[Racer X]

I would have said the exact same thing as lafinfil, but he got here first.

even if you don't do that, you can use GE Reveal bulbs, and the 75 watters seem as bright as a 100 watt standard incandescent. Thats what I use in my home office for fairly critical color work on the computers.

[davemchine]

I have them in most lamps at my house. I don't use them for power savings though, I use them so I don't have to change bulbs as often. I calculated the savings once and realized it was negligible. It's the big appliances that suck the juice.

Dave

[Dick Moore]

I mostly have CFLs now throughout the house. The little 9W (approx = 30W incand's) lamps are great in my range hood and in the fridge. I got some Westinghouse units in reflector flood bases/housings, and nearly all of them have failed within 2 years of intermittant use -- just not good at all. The ones I've gotten from Costco and Home Despot have generally been good -- if they last longer than a week, they will go the distance.

Color temp is iffier -- my earliest CFLs were notably green. The latest ones have been evenly white and are good to read by.

[NOGoddess]

Replaced all our upstairs bulbs with CFCs last year, ran out part way through the downstairs (downstairs is being rebuilt post-K, all new wiring, didn't think to order enough bulbs for downstairs). Will be ordering more this week! Don't know if I can replace the bulbs in the track lighting in our art gallery with CFCs, need to do some research there.

Can't say about the energy savings as our utility company has gone crazy and sends everyone bills that have nothing to do with anything!

[mikebw]

[quote davemchine]I calculated the savings once and realized it was negligible. It's the big appliances that suck the juice.
True, but on a larger scale if everybody switches the bulk of their bulbs to CFL, the energy savings would be quite significant. Glad you did your own research though, and the convenience factor is important to understand too.

[M A V I C]

[quote mikebw][quote davemchine]I calculated the savings once and realized it was negligible. It's the big appliances that suck the juice.
True, but on a larger scale if everybody switches the bulk of their bulbs to CFL, the energy savings would be quite significant. Glad you did your own research though, and the convenience factor is important to understand too.
Plus is power is green to begin with (I think.)

My biggest complaints about CFLs are:
- The base is generally larger than a regular bulb so it will not fit in many fixtures
- The bulbs are often not the standard dimensions for their size. For example, the bulbs in my kitchen (R30?) stick down an extra half inch which makes the recessed lighting no longer recessed.
- The bulbs are often brighter than their rating suggests
- They don't handle cold temps very well. If I don't leave my exterior lights on all the time, for ~4 months out of the year they will not turn on at night.
- They don't last anywhere near as long as advertised. I've tried a few different brands.
- Some of them buzz. In my kitchen I had ten lights and when each one buzzed it was rather loud.
- There's a delay when turning them on. Three-way CF bulbs have a delay in between levels.

Sure I've returned many brands and models, but it gets old continually trying to search for a bulb that doesn't have a ton of problems.