Let’s take an example. A 23 watt cfl replaces a 100watt incandescent and costs $1.90 (US) at Walmart. (4 bulb pack for $7.58) The bulb is rated at 10,000 hours with a 3 hour cycle time. That means it has at least 10000/3 starts. (In reality, if you cycle it more frequently you would get more starts than that. But we can take 3333 as a worst possible case.)

This means that each start costs you a maximum of 0.057 cents, or about an 18th of a penny. At 10 cents per kwh, 0.057 cents represents 0.0057 kwh or 5.7 watt hours. While on, the bulb is using 77 watts less than a 100 watt incandescent, and at the 77 watt savings would make that up in 4.4 minutes. Keep in mind that 3333 starts was a worst case scenario. It would not surprise me if the actual break even point were more like 2 minutes.

And, of course, at a 3 hour cycle time, it would take 13.3 standard GE 100 watt 750 hours bulbs, which would cost $3.43 at Walmart, or almost double what the cfl costs. So you could actually afford to cut the life of the cfl in half and still come out ahead of the incandescent on bulb costs alone, even without considering the energy savings.

Thanks for the info, it pretty much proves what I was saying in that most of silver’s “warnings” about CFLs were dated.

I have also seen people complain about CFLs causing headaches. But this also is dated as the newer bulbs no longer have the flicker that the old bulbs have (probably back when they caused overheating).

Older generation CFL’s used to overheat in enclosed fixtures.

In later versions, that’s rarely an issue – just read the back of the packages.

If your cfl’s are burning out in a couple of months, I strongly suggest having your electrician check out the wiring in your home. It sounds like there’s some kind of short or surge problem in the wiring — if so, it could be a fire hazard.

Our home is 107 years old – We have yet to have a cfl burn out.

Since lighting is “usually” about 20% of your electric bill, they can give you a substantial savings.

If you want to keep track of your energy savings, cost savings etc. check out http://onebillionbulbs.com/
they have user reviews and a bunch of other stuff as well.

Recessed lighting fixtures have used Flurescent lights for years (though not CFL’s obviously), so I am at a loss as to why this may be.

Some other warnings like not on a timer, or only when lit for 15 minutes or more applied to older generation CFLs, but I don’t believe thanks to the improved ballasts that this is the case any longer (obviously that probably varies from manufacturer to manufacturer).

To answer your question Heather, I believe that there is much hope going forward that by 2012, that Light Emitting Diode (LED) light fixtures will be in place at an affordable level to solve many of the current issues with CFLs. The lights are already there, but they are currently to expensive (outside of Xmas lights) for widespread use.