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| Thread ID: 125174 | 2012-06-11 08:44:00 | Energy saver bulbs | lakewoodlady (103) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1281125 | 2012-06-19 00:25:00 | Well I advocate them, but not for any delusion of them being any "greener". I do it because it saves me money in the long run. I replaced all my incandescent bulbs with CFL's back in the late 90's and in my personal experience they have mostly lived up to the advertising hype. 1. Yes they do last noticeably longer than incandescents, it gets so replacing a bulb is a rarity. (I always kept spare bulbs in the old days because they blew so frequently). Some of the CFL bulbs in my house were installed in 1999 2. The power bill does drop a noticable amount, up to about $10-$20 a month in my case depending on what time of year The older ones took quite a long time to reach full brightness, these newer ones don't. What they don't tell you is that for the first minute or two that 20W bulb actually draws at least as much current as the 100W bulb it replaced and only gets efficient after that. For a room like the toilet there is probably no power savings at all. They also seem to have a percentage of bulbs that fail very quickly probably due to manufacturing defects. I believe the motivation for banning incandescents is less to do with enviromental impact and more to do with the reduction in power generation capacity needed. The drive for more efficient use of electricity seems to come from the very people who would profit from us using more of it. It seems contradictory at first until you realise that in order to keep up with the increasing demand the power companies could end up having to invest billions of dollars in new power plants. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1281126 | 2012-06-19 02:41:00 | They won't have to ban the incandesent bulbs as more and more people move to the CFLs it will become uneconomic to make them so you incandesent bulb lovers you had better stock up your supplies. :) |
Trev (427) | ||
| 1281127 | 2012-06-19 02:43:00 | Actually paulw the Fire Service concern is from the same concern that advises you to check your smoke alarms. Faulty electrical goods are sadly to common and bulbs are mass marketed so a few bad batches get through. The quicker an advisory notice gets issued the less risk of fire. Guess who attends a fire? The only thing I could find on the Fire Service web site was "24 August 2008 Energy Safety has said it has no concerns over the safety of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs are subject to a New Zealand Standard that includes fire safety performance requirements that exceed international guidelines. There are about 13 million bulbs in use in New Zealand and Energy Safety has received no significant complaints. The Fire Service's manager of fire investigation and arson reduction, Peter Wilding, says there have been no confirmed structure fires involving them. 'We've added CFLs to our incident reporting system simply to get a better understanding of any issues around them.' Blackening of the bulb had been questioned, but the Lighting Council Chief Executive Richard Ponting says discolouration in any type of fluorescent lamp is normal at the end of its life. 'The plastic at the base of a CFL also contains fire-retardant plastic so if it does char for any reason, it may produce smoke but should not burn.' Mr Ponting says people need to take care not to over-tighten the bulbs, as it's a common cause of bulb failure. " www.fire.org.nz Have they found anything significant in the last 4 years? |
PaulD (232) | ||
| 1281128 | 2012-06-19 11:21:00 | Yeah they have mercury in them which is very toxic . If you break one you are supposed to do as Jen said . Don't vacuum it either, it just spreads the fine particles into the air . I'm not so sure about the relative toxicity of trace levels of Mercury, at least not in the miniscule amounts contained in a CFL . Old flourescent tubes contained more than a whole box of CFLs and for years they were broken left right and centre, but with no consequent documented history of mercury poisoning . When at Intermediate School we were asked to bring a copper coin to school (penny or halfpenny) and we were give mercury to rub on them so that they turned silver . At College the mercury was out again in the Labs and thousands of students handled it, spilled it etc; we chased globules around the floor and collected them together so that they formed a larger globule, then got that onto paper (using our fingers) and returned it to the bottle . This scenario would have been repeated in schools all over NZ, and for many years, but again there doesn't seem to have been any epidemic of mercury related problems . On top of that, generations had amalgam dental fillings (a stable alloy of silver, tin, copper, zinc and elemental mercury) and there has been no epidemic of mercury-related diseases . It is fair to say though, that some people have been affected by dental amalgam, but that may relate to deficiencies on the amalgam making process which could have led to an elevated release rate of elemental mercury . Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter character was based on the known effect of constant exposure to mercury in the hat making trade, but if the worst exposure we get today is from the odd CFL lamp being dropped, and the residual environmental levels from previous excesses, I don't think we have too much to worry about, just don't eat seafood! Cheers Billy 8-{) :stare: |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 1281129 | 2012-06-19 11:55:00 | The only thing I could find on the Fire Service web site was "24 August 2008 Energy Safety has said it has no concerns over the safety of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs are subject to a New Zealand Standard that includes fire safety performance requirements that exceed international guidelines. There are about 13 million bulbs in use in New Zealand and Energy Safety has received no significant complaints. The Fire Service's manager of fire investigation and arson reduction, Peter Wilding, says there have been no confirmed structure fires involving them. 'We've added CFLs to our incident reporting system simply to get a better understanding of any issues around them.' Blackening of the bulb had been questioned, but the Lighting Council Chief Executive Richard Ponting says discolouration in any type of fluorescent lamp is normal at the end of its life. 'The plastic at the base of a CFL also contains fire-retardant plastic so if it does char for any reason, it may produce smoke but should not burn.' Mr Ponting says people need to take care not to over-tighten the bulbs, as it's a common cause of bulb failure. " www.fire.org.nz Have they found anything significant in the last 4 years? Advice still stands 4 years on from that report and for your information the Fire Service Public website is a bit out of date on what the public sees. Try this link instead https://portal.fire.org.nz more up to date information given |
coldfront (15814) | ||
| 1281130 | 2012-06-19 18:52:00 | I'm not so sure about the relative toxicity of trace levels of Mercury, at least not in the miniscule amounts contained in a CFL. Old flourescent tubes contained more than a whole box of CFLs and for years they were broken left right and centre, but with no consequent documented history of mercury poisoning. When at Intermediate School we were asked to bring a copper coin to school (penny or halfpenny) and we were give mercury to rub on them so that they turned silver. At College the mercury was out again in the Labs and thousands of students handled it, spilled it etc; we chased globules around the floor and collected them together so that they formed a larger globule, then got that onto paper (using our fingers) and returned it to the bottle. This scenario would have been repeated in schools all over NZ, and for many years, but again there doesn't seem to have been any epidemic of mercury related problems. On top of that, generations had amalgam dental fillings (a stable alloy of silver, tin, copper, zinc and elemental mercury) and there has been no epidemic of mercury-related diseases. It is fair to say though, that some people have been affected by dental amalgam, but that may relate to deficiencies on the amalgam making process which could have led to an elevated release rate of elemental mercury. Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter character was based on the known effect of constant exposure to mercury in the hat making trade, but if the worst exposure we get today is from the odd CFL lamp being dropped, and the residual environmental levels from previous excesses, I don't think we have too much to worry about, just don't eat seafood! Cheers Billy 8-{) :stare: And how many thermometers were dropped in hospitals and broke spelling there mercury content which was picked up by a nurse. :) |
Trev (427) | ||
| 1281131 | 2012-06-19 21:39:00 | Yes how many people actually spilled some mercury then bent down and licked it up ? If the Greens had their way they would set up an agency to come round to your house and dispose of the bulb in a "safe" way which would cost ten times more than the cost of the bulb and 100 times more than the saving in electricity. Mine will be going into the rubbish bin. |
Digby (677) | ||
| 1281132 | 2012-06-19 23:07:00 | Mercury! :drool | KarameaDave (15222) | ||
| 1281133 | 2012-06-20 02:37:00 | Advice still stands 4 years on from that report and for your information the Fire Service Public website is a bit out of date on what the public sees. Try this link instead https://portal.fire.org.nz more up to date information given Your link wants log on details. |
PaulD (232) | ||
| 1281134 | 2012-06-20 03:19:00 | Mercury, closest plant to the sun. | Gobe1 (6290) | ||
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