LOCALDEV (alonovolabs)

Compact Fluorescent Bulbs contain mercury 2009-02-21

Reviewer: nomercuryformethankyou

Compact Fluorescent Bulbs contain mercury. I am concerned about mercury contamination due to glass breakage and also eventual disposal problems. What about groundwater contamination? What is going to happen when these bulbs are discarded in vast quantities and it is discovered that they are not truly "green" but are a biohazard? Is it going to be worth the small amount of pocket change that you save annually?

Worthless Guarantee 2009-01-15

Reviewer: Lee B. Shell

[ASIN:B000GBBUDE Globe 4860201 13-Watt Ultra-Mini Compact Fluorescent Spiral Bulb (60-Watt Incandescent Equivalent), Soft White, 4-Pack]]
I installed the four bulbs soon after purchasing them in May. The first burned out in November. Checking the "five year guarantee", I found that the replacement requires sending the burned-out bulb to Montreal, Quebec, making the replacement as costly as buying a replacement. Anyone buying this product should disregard the guarantee completely.

OVER Priced 2009-01-04

Reviewer: W. Hendrshott

This item is over-priced. One can get this product at big box stores such as CostCo for about half this price. Less on bargain days. Shop around. Don't settle for high prices.

A mixed bag of results 2008-12-07

Reviewer: Jerry Wiggins

We have had mixed results using CFLs. We primarily use them in a recessed kitchen lighting fixture. Most of the CFLs we've tried did not come anywhere close to meeting the long life expectancy quoted by the manufacture. A few months ago we purchased the equivelent a 200 watt CFL that used 40 watts at lowes for around [...] The bulbs life expectency was quoted as 5 years. After about 1 month, the light output had dimmed to the equivelent of about a 60 Watt bulb. At 2 months the bulb died completely. We returned the burned out bulb to lowes and received a refund with no hassle. Consumers Reports did a study on this and found that how long a bulb lasts is related to the manufacturer of the bulb. Some bulbs fail VERY early. Others actually meet the stated life expectency numbers. The study noted GE and a few others as having good life expectency results. More recently, we purchased a 200 watt equivelent CFL bulb that uses 42 Watts from a ONLINE company called PowerCFL.com. That one has been working for over 3 months now (quoted life expectency is 5 years) and continues to put out 200 watts of light as when it was new. So the jury is out on that bulb. One thing to note is that the long time quoted by a bulbs manufacturer is for a limited numbers of hours use per day. In the case of these bulbs from PowerCFL.com they are rated for a 5 year life at 3 hours use per day. However, our kitchen is dark and my guess is that our kitchen light is ON closer to 8 hours per day. Thus, if we get 2 years use out of the bulb I'll consider it to have lived up to it's stated life expectency. However, getting 200 watts of light from a bulb that you only pay for 42 watts, running it 8 hours a day for 2 years amounts to a sizeable saving.

Light bulbs 2008-10-28

Reviewer: D. Moore

Delivery was fast. The 13-watt is a little dim, but will get the 23-watt the next time.