Secret Squirrel Comments On Using CFL Bulbs.

I,Secret Squirrel,say to you,so what are we all learning and experiencing with the new,forced on us,Curly Bulbs,known as CFL's?Well we have learned their lives are notoriously short compared with a stated,and most definite lie, of having a 5 year
life....By no means is this anywhere near the actual truth.They also depend on being turned on continuously or at least for 4 hours at a time to meet an 8 month life. If they are on for only 1 hour you get a further 20% to 50% reduction in lamp life. If the CFL is used with 5 to 30 minute use cycles like most incandescents, the life is reduced 70% to 85%. That means your 6,000 hour bulb is now lasting 900 hours,far ,far less than many incandescent bulbs........need I mention that in use, in the LAST THREE YEARS, I have not changed a single incandescent bulb.

Second, the lifetime quoted on a CFL is just an average, meaning that 50% of the lamps can and do fail before the stated hours and can still be considered a valid rating.Average life, perhaps 8 months..I say again,MY INCANDESCENTS? I HAVEN"T CHANGED A BURNED OUT BULB THREE,COUT'EM,THREE,ONE,TWO,THREE.......THREE YEARS.The CFL's gave up the ghost in between 6-8 months in our normal,and yours, house, use.(I get 4 Incandescents for $1, CFL's cheap rate,for 4 CFL's for $7).

When an incandescent light bulb burns out you throw it in the trash. Simple enough. When a CFL or Compact Fluorescent Lamp burns out, you just throw it in the trash too, right? Wrong!CFL's contaion highly toxic,highly poisonous,highly dangerous MERCURY.Yes,CFL's contain mercury and mercury has no place in our landfills. Most spent commercial fluorescent lamps used in business are carefully controlled and recycled by law under the EPA's Universal Waste Rule.Why all the fuss? CFL's contain about 5 milligrams of a neurotoxin called mercury. MSNBC reports that data interpolated from Stanford University research shows the
amount of mercury in one CFL "is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels." An EPA funded study found that one gram of mercury deposited in a 20 acre lake is enough to contaminate the fish and make them unfit to eat.The recycling industry estimates that in 2007 about 400 million CFL's were purchased in the USA but only 2% were recycled. That's 320 million CFL's in the trash....going in to the earth,to the water supply as well.

What if the bulb breaks? Well.....there is the vapour/dust problem......Elemental (metallic) mercury primarily causes health effects when it is breathed as a vapor where it can be absorbed through the lungs. These exposures can occur when elemental mercury is spilled or products that contain elemental mercury break and expose mercury to the air, particularly in warm or poorly-ventilated indoor spaces.Symptoms include these: tremors; emotional changes (e.g., mood swings, irritability, nervousness, excessive shyness); insomnia; neuromuscular changes (such as weakness, muscle atrophy, twitching); headaches; disturbances in sensations; changes in nerve responses; performance deficits on tests of cognitive function."Mad as a hatter" is a colloquial phrase used in conversation to refer to a crazy person. In 18th and 19th century England mercury was used in the
production of felt, which was used in the manufacturing of hats common of the time. People who worked in these hat factories were exposed daily to trace amounts of the metal, which accumulated within their bodies over time, causing some workers to develop dementia caused by mercury poisoning. Thus the phrase "Mad as a Hatter" became popular as a way to refer to someone who was perceived as insane.Nowadays, this is no doubt going to affect those chinese workers who are manufacturing these bulbs.


We are also learing, through our experiences, and from internet mentionings of, the fact that CFL's are in fact a dangerous FIRE HAZARD.CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) don't burn out the way incandescent light bulbs do. Instead, as they near the ends of their lives, they grow dimmer. While some CFL bulbs merely stop emitting light when they finally quit working, others kick the bucket with a dramatic "pop"! sound and then vent a distinct odor. A few even release a bit of smoke at their termination. Sometimes the bases of the bulbs turn black. This seemingly cataclysmic reaction has to do with the breakdown of the bulb's ballast, which is contained in the part of the bulb that is screwed into the socket. As the bulb ages and degrades, so does its ballast. Yet as scary as odors, smoke, and even blackening of the base of the bulb.Bulbs burn out when the ballast overheats and
an electronic component, the Voltage Dependent Resistor (VDR), opens up like a fuse in your home's fuse box, shutting off the circuit and generating heat and possibly a small amount of smoke.However, flames shooting out the side of a bulb is not the way things should be,and yet,MANY times, at the end of their life,or rather as they end their early and small lives,they tend to do this and virtually all manufacturers of bulbs are evidenced on the internet of doing exactly this. It needs be kept in mind that any electrical device can malfunction,through manufacturing defects,and sadly, worse yet, in normal ordinary uses.It must
also be kept in mind that lampshades of 99.9% of all table lamps, are...flammable. We also keep in mind that these CFL's do not like being in upside down fixtures, shortening their lives further to like 4 months, and they also don't like being in
enclosed(entirely),fixtures.

So, we have a very short lifed,expensive,highly toxic,fire hazard..........in place of a docile lightbulb,so far. We also have one which up here in Canada,won't work parts of the year due to temperatures. Wonderfully they have developed CFL's which are supposed to work, but not well, to 0 (zero) degrees fahrenheit..well that's about say - (negative) 16 (Sixteen), Centigrade.Sadly here in lower Ontario,Canada, the temperature is for a few weeks minus twenty Centigrade,and up in Montreal, when its negative twenty here, it's negative 30 there,Centigrade, most definitely below working temperatures of the CFL's,so no outdoor lighting from the CFL's making things such as spotlamps,security lamps, outdoor porch lights,door lights etc NOT workable....we're left in the dark.Yes, this is the reality of what the politicians have forced on us all,"FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE,CURLY CFL BULB."