Why are you phased by the light bulb phase out?

Thanks, Richard. When you test the spotlight CFLs it would be interesting to know how much light they put out compared with other CFLs. I suspect that they are less efficient. I have also heard that one brand is particularly unreliable, though I have no personal experience.

It would be interesting to have a preliminary report on dimmable CFLs which are becoming affordable in the UK. I have been discouraged from buying them from the limited information I have seen.

Oddly, Wavechange & Richard, CFL spotlights is one area I can offer a tiny bit of *all positive* news on.

I have a Crompton 30Watt CFL Par 38 spotlight bulb in a floor-standing uplighter behind the TV cabinet. The lamp in that has been in for over 7 years now and although I rarely use it in the summer months (roughly between Easter and October Half Term), it’s on for 6+ hours each day in the remaining months of the year.

It gives a very pleasingly bright, warm-white, light, very similar to an old Par 38 incandescent, but barely emits any discernible heat and uses only 20% of the energy of the 150W incandescent PAR 38’s I used to use in this fitting.

The only negative point I have about this particular lamp is that when it was new it used to take about 5 minutes to fully illuminate and now it’s quite old it takes about 10 mins for the first two of the 4 “U” tubes inside to light fully and the remaining two come on about an hour later, but as I use it for long periods this doesn’t unduly bother me.

As an aside, in my recent quest to find 30w CFL warm white lamps for ordinary fittings, I did discover that Crompton are one of a very few companies who fit internal fuses into their CFL’s (note that ALL incandescents ALWAYS had internal fuses). This means that Crompton CFL’s will be much less likely to blow plug and circuit fuses when they fail, unlike most cfl’s I’ve ever used.

Fuses are included in incandescent bulbs because a very large current can flow when the filament breaks. That will usually prevent the fuse in the consumer unit or plug blowing, but MCBs can still trip. I don’t believe that fuses are included in small incandescent bulbs such as candle and golf ball bulbs. What Dave D says about fuses being uncommon in CFLs is interesting because failure of the electronics is quite common. If I was designing the things they would have a conventional (overcurrent) fuse and a thermal fuse.

It’s like the Dragons’ in the Den say – 85% of not very much is still not very much. Richard goes on to explain why 85W heat isn’t a great deal. I tell you what does give a whole bunch of heat out – my PlayStation. I could happily heat my room with it, it’s just that I don’t want it on all of the time!

That’s a good point Rarrar.

I must say I wasn’t going to waste my time on this convo, given the attitude of Which? staff on the last one, but I have to say it is a bit of a laugh to see Richard contradicting himself like this.

Thanks to longley shopper for showing support for my previous comments.

I’m not going to get involved in this convo any more than as a casual observer though: I wasted enough time on the last one and, like longley shopper says, Which? just stick their fingers up at anyone who disagrees with them, so I’m not doing it all again.

ramar

Ask a neighbour or friend to take your used CFLs next time they visit a disposal point.

Perhaps we should ask councils if they will collect small items such as CFLs and batteries when they empty the bins.

Sorry, Richard, it’s not just less densely populated areas. I’m in Sheffield and it’s as good as impossible to dispose of them legally, and I work with a colleague from Manchester, who is an electrician and uses Manchester Electrical stores and wholesalers, and he tells me that it is almost as bad over there. Given that Sheffield and Manchester are two of the UK’s 10 largest cities (5th largest and 8th largest respectively), I don’t think you can say this is a ‘rural’ (less densely populated area) issue.

My best guess is that it is to do with which private refuse operator has won the contract for each area and how much they want to charge the council for recycling services. I know in Sheffield Veolia wanted to charge the council so much for waste paper recycling that we went from a wheelie bin per house to a small crate per house for waste paper, just to keep costs down. That hit the headlines when it was raised in the house of commons 2 years ago. I am guessing that recycling cfl’s is all about cost too.

It would be a good subject for a Which? investigation (or indeed Panorama or Watchdog if the BBC are reading this).

Look at the recycling situation in Cumbria – okay its rather rural but …..
I suspect most dead CFLs end up in the normal bin.
None of the shops which sell CFL will dispose of them for you due to cost.

re wasted heat:- I still say you cant go on about wasting 85 watts of energy in one paragraph and then dismiss the 85 watts as too little to worry about when talking about heating. It may not provide much heating but it is still 85Watts worth.
Either 85watts of energy is worth worrying about or it isnt worth worrying about.
I need far more than one 100watt bulb or equivalent to light a room up adequately for normal use – more like 200 watts , and for the dining kitchen I am using 100 watts of CFL spots = 400 watts halogen.

With regard to wavechanges suggestion regarding getting your neighbour to take them for you: as there all probably be a disposal charge I doubt that any neighbours of mine would like to pay a hundred quid to dispose of my lightbulbs (20 at £5 each).

As I said earlier I will put them in the bin due to;

a) Charges
b) distance

I live in Rural Gloucestershire BTW

I’m in East Yorkshire. I have not tried to dispose of CFLs for a few years but friends have told me that they have not been charged for disposal at recycling facilities. Recycling of CFLs needs to be free or people will put them in the bin. The price we pay should cover disposal. Some tyre companies show the disposal charge on invoices.

With Wavechange on: “Recycling of CFLs needs to be free or people will put them in the bin. The price we pay should cover disposal. Some tyre companies show the disposal charge on invoices.” and it occurs to me that a Which? convo a while ago was called something like “Are CFL’s too cheap?”. I seem to think that convo was out around the time 100w bulbs went off sale and CFL prices started to rocket, and if my memory serves me, Which? pointed out that up to that point the cost of making and disposing of CFL’s had been hugely subsidised by the EU and that the price rise reflected the cost of disposal now the subsidy had ended.

With that in mind, how can ANY organisation, be it a council, retailer, or whatever, justify charging for disposal or refusal to accept duds for disposal, given that the purchase price of the CFL is supposed to include the disposal cost?

Again, I make a call on Which? to do a major investigation into the disposal situation.

Patio heaters, whether gas or electric, annoy me too. But they are just one example of our profligate use of energy and natural resources in modern society. Bottled water and free plastic bags are other examples that have featured in Which? Conversations.

I disagree with you on the energy savings to be made by using CFLs. Manufacturers often claim that they produce five times the light for the same amount of light as incandescent bulbs for the same amount of electricity. Even if you use a figure of four times or three times, it is still a worthwhile saving, especially when so many of us are faced with escalating electricity bills.

The best way to encourage recycling is to make it easy and free. Many CFLs are very fragile, so they are likely to break if put in collection boxes (e.g. in shops) , which is obviously undesirable.

I do think this needs to be thought about and for everyone to be provided with the same waste disposal services.

Until a few years ago, it was normal for fluorescent tubes to be put in normal waste and they contain a lot more mercury and phosphor coating. A mercury thermometer contains vastly more mercury than any CFL and though they are no longer sold, they are still in many homes. I think the mercury (methyl mercury and other organo-mercury compounds) in fish is far more dangerous because we eat it, which is why there is a recommendation not to eat oily fish more than twice a week. Mercury (or mercury amalgam) in CFLs does not readily get into the body. I am not going to worry that some people put old CFLs in the bin until our government or local authorities make their recycling easy and free for everyone.

Actually as the devices include electronic components then they probably come under the WEE directive and thus you should give them to the retailer from whom you buy the replacements.

I must try that with Tesco, I will enjoy that!

Please do – and report back.

New houses must comply with regulations on energy efficiency, so why does this not extend to lighting? I am planning to move soon and will regard rooms with ceiling mounted halogen lamps as a negative feature.

I agree with you about the energy wasted in lighting stores but there are vast number of other examples of waste. The building in which I used to work had many lights left on overnight and the local Lidl seems to leave all the lights on long after it closes at 8pm. Window displays are often lit throughout the night and as Dave D mentioned recently, patio heaters waste a lot of energy.

For domestic use, perhaps the answer is to have a low price for up to a certain number of kWh and to charge a higher rate for use above this. It could help focus minds on energy efficiency.

Wavechange is bang on right re reversing the current, perverse, unit pricing structure for electricity, which gives a massive incentive to use more not less.
Of course, this is in place to benefit the suppliers and, through taxes, the government.
I have asked in previous convo’s on various related topics for Which? to take this up as a campaign too, but there has been a deafening silence from Which? on this too.

The “perverse unit pricing structure” mentioned I assume refers to the first ### units being cheaper than the rest.
This is just an alternative to charging a fixed rate per unit but with a “standing charge” to cover the fixed cost of providing electricity (or gas) to a house.
It was introduced so that households who use very little power dont get penalised by the standing charge .

I didn’t realise that was the origin of the charging structure, but I have to say that in all my adult lifetime, which is effectively since 1984 as far as paying my own bills goes, Electricity has always cost more for the first XXX units than the remainder AND in the 80’s and early 90’s there was a standing charge on top of this.

Either way, given the obscene profits of the energy companies (now under investigation at government level so we can be sure they really are profiteering in a big way), I’m pretty confident that we could charge a lower unit rate for the initial units and a higher one for heavy users and still not need a standing charge to cover the supply costs.

I don’t actually expect to get it though! Especially as Osborne tried to hide the continued failing economy behind reduced profits from energy companies only 3 months ago, blaming the “warm spring” for prolonging the economic downturn. Hardly seems likely that any energy company or government will accept Wavechange and my suggestion in these circumstances.

🙁

Recolight provide CFL collection boxes for Sainsburys and Homebase stores and provide search facilities to locate these and council run disposal points. I looked this up when this Conversation was launched. I don’t see that it matters that Recolight isn’t dealing directly with the public.

Now if Tesco had collection boxes that would be great. Unfortunately it’s very little help rather than every little helps in this case.

LOL!
Like Wavechange’s comment about tesco!
@Wavechange: if Recolight are providing collection boxes that’ll be why they are listed as only for commercial users – commercial as in collecting cfl’s on a grand scale. I agree that if they are providing a location service for places their boxes are located then it matters not that they don’t deal direct with the public.