CFLs not lasting anywhere near rated life, anyone else experience this?

[mdocod]

We've tinkered with CFLs in a variety of fixtures around the house and are having a hard time justifying their implementation. We have 6 Par30 15W style CFLs in the "main" room of the house for about 9 months now, operating 6-12 hours daily depending on how late we stay up at night. 4 of 6 are dead, I estimate at the high end they might have 3000 hours on them, nowhere near the 6000-10000 hour ratings I see on packages. These are non-dimming bulbs in non-dimming circuits. We had some 13W standard CFLs installed in a non-dimming overhead fan upstairs, all 3 CFLs were gone in 6 months with what I estimate to be less than 2000 hours on them. We've got many other examples of poor life performance over the years...So... while they may be saving electricity, they seem to be costing us more in bulb replacement, lol... Only thing I can think of is that we do get "brownouts" about once a week here on average, more frequently in the winter when power-lines get knocked out from snow/ice/wind.

Anyone else experiencing poor life performance form CFLs? I'm wondering if buying dim-able bulbs might improve life performance as they would probably tolerate the brownouts better?! Any thoughts?

 

[turbodog]

I've got about a hundred cf bulbs in all sorts of locations. They don't like heat. It seems to kill the ballast. I have had failure upon failure in fixtures that don't vent well.

I did swap from the home depot/wal-mart/etc brand (crap) bulbs to some I got from lightbulbsdirect.com and had MUCH better results. I could buy in cases, with the color temp of my choice. Their bulbs also don't have to warm up either.

But even with the better brand...... I still had problems with dead bulbs. So.... I inverted my bath fixtures so the bulbs point upward. That fixed their problem. Then I swapped my hall fixtures (globes, non vented) for some dangly things that allow the heat out. No problems anymore.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

There's a thread on CPF where someone discovered that older light sockets that have small intermittents in them from contact oxidation can kill the electronic ballasts in CFLs. I placed one in a marginal socket once and it lasted less than a week! I turned it on one day when the socket became seriously intermittent and the ballast went BZZZZ...POOF!

 

[abvidledUK]

I've had quite a few older ones die after a few hours <100, but to date no problems recently.

Our local electricity supplier occasionally gives them out for free, and they can be less than £1 in UK shops now, so CBA over a period is OK, ie averaged cost of all CFL's.

(Cost Benefit Analysis)

 

[nerdgineer]

I was told that the hours rating on CFLs was based on it being left on the whole time. Each turn on-off cycle degrades the circuit so the effective lifetime is shortened to the much shorter times we all experience.

More technically true but mis-representative marketing hype.

 

[made in china]

There's a thread on CPF where someone discovered that older light sockets that have small intermittents in them from contact oxidation can kill the electronic ballasts in CFLs. I placed one in a marginal socket once and it lasted less than a week! I turned it on one day when the socket became seriously intermittent and the ballast went BZZZZ...POOF!

I had that happened to me also. 2 CFL's died in my fixture before I figured out that the socket was faulty. 1st one almost caught on fire, 2nd one tripped the main breaker!


To the OP: I bought a case (24) of dimming CFL's a while ago. All but 4 of them died within a few days after being installed. Then I used some dimmable CFL's from ACE Hardware and they all failed right away also. But, those 4 survivors are still going strong after 2 years!

 

[WildChild]

I'm running CFLs in almost all lamps in my appartment (all dimmers but 1 use incan) and no problem other than 2 CFL sthat died within the 1st hour of use. They all have been replaced for free under warranty.