<p>Hate them for all the reasons mentioned, and especially because I need a lot of bright light to see. Yes, we have been/are stockpiling regular, good old lightbulbs and I feel happy about it.</p>
<p>I’m not thrilled with the burnout rate of those CFLs but I will say, our electric bill dropped about 20% when we replaced EVERY light in our house with them. DH says LED replacements are next…and this year we will replace the Christmas tree lights with LEDs too.</p>
<p>Guess I’m the contrarian…We replaced all the high-hats in our kitchen several years ago with CFLs and have noticed a big drop in our electric bill. There are 5-7 lights on this switch and it is on 8+ hours/day. We did pull out the dimmer switch and it was not an issues, as we realized we weren’t using the dimmer that much. In our bathrooms, we have replaced half of the conventional vanity globe lights with CFLs (not 100% to compensate for the slow illumination speed). </p>
<p>We replaced all the Christmas lights this year with LEDs. (we have a fake tree that we store with the lights on - it splits in 2 pieces for storage). We had done ~50% last Christmas. The LEDs seems to be less finicky than the old strings.</p>
<p>We sell lights for a living…and I can tell you LED is the wave of the future. Incandescent bulbs are history. Actually in CA you can no longer buy a 100 watt incandescent bulb.
LED lights are not bulbs, they are actually “light emitting diodes” that are run by a “driver” and made up of computer chip technology. The prices are coming down all the time, and decorative interior lighting using LED is on the horizon.
However, there is good quality LED product and CHEAP stuff…just like CFL’s. Cheap CFL’s burn out faster than better quality product. When looking at LED product, buy them that have CREE drivers. They are the best and should last a long time—20 years?</p>
<p>Also, look for the lumen output. The world will soon stop talking in watts, and start talking in lumens because that is the number that tells you how much light is actually being produced.
One more thing, to get an Energy Star rating for all products is difficult. They have just changed the rules for LED, making the ES rating even more difficult to get. IE- if an outdoor fixture uses frosted glass the manufacturer may up the lumen output to increase the light…but then does not get the ES rating. BUT do not worry…ALL LED product is so energy efficient that should just buy the design that appeals to you. It is still the wise, environmentally and pocket book friendly thing to do!</p>
<p>I can see where your perspective might be somewhat more positive on CFLs if you had a quantity of lights that were on 24-7, but I don’t have any like that.</p>
<p>I agree the LED’s will help solve our gripes. However, I would like it if they could make LED bulbs which could transmit the warmer color of the incandescent bulbs. Then I would shut up and be happy lol.</p>
<p>I haven’t purchased any CFLs. I have purchased several of the high-efficiency long-lasting incandescent bulbs. One of them died prematurely but the rest seem to last quite a long time. I would love to see LED lightbulbs at attractive prices too. I wouldn’t necessarily need bulbs either. An illuminated panel would be fine too. I was toying around with building a solar-cell array inside a large basement slideout window that we never use to power an array of LED lights until I found out how expensive solar-cells are.</p>
<p>If you have links to cheap LED bulbs, please post them!</p>
<p>I hate the long warmup times for the CFLs, and I haven’t found any that create a brilliant enough light to replace a halogen. And, like everyone else, I’ve had some fail prematurely.</p>
<p>LED bulbs are the future, IMO. The problem at the moment is cost (often $25 - $50), and trying to find a pleasing color temperature is difficult. I replaced three halogen spotlights in my kitchen with LEDs, but despite being called “soft white” in color they are still a little cooler/more blue than I’d like. I’d dearly love to change out 6 more halogen bulbs in ceiling cans, as they get a lot of use, but CFLs don’t provide the brilliant, specular light like the halogens and I haven’t yet found an LED that offers the right color and correct diffusion.</p>
<p>Attractive substitutes for specialty incandescent bulbs like clear bulbs, chandelier bulbs, etc., aren’t yet out there, and politicians who want to ban incandescents are morons, at least as far as lighting design goes. Instead of trying to legislate what people buy, why not slap a tax on incandescents so that use would be restricted to those places where they are really needed? I can certainly see why some people opt to buy a box of incandescents for a buck or two even when a more efficient (but much more expensive) bulb would be fine. If the incandescent bulbs were comparable in price to the low energy bulbs, most people would buy the more efficient one.</p>
<p>I did have good luck with CFLs in hanging fixtures that concealed the bulb. In one large fixture that took 9 bulbs, the drop in total wattage was huge. And, in a couple of heavily-used kitchen chandeliers with four and six bulbs each, I’m sure the CFLs paid for themselves fairly quickly. It seems like the “regular” CFL bulbs (twisty replacements for standard incandescents) don’t have the same warmup lag as the flood-style bulbs. The latter are almost unusable, IMO, due to their dim appearance when you first turn them on.</p>
<p>Up to a few years ago, I was replacing CFLs regularly, but the last few years have been much much better.</p>
<p>The LED lights I put in the kitchen (recessed lighting) comes in several color temperatures so it may be possible to get the type one likes. HD only carries one of the colors (of course) in the model I wanted (the 6" Halo), but I like it and I think it’s fine for the kitchen. They’re very bright and not harsh.</p>