Do you like low energy bulbs?

[Millymollymandy]

Peggy Sue - here's a hint. Go outside with a mirror and have a look!

[Peggy Sue]

Way too scarry..... I like the mirrors in the dark!

[DominicJ]

I use energy savers, but thats because I'm tight and lazy.

I usualy always find forcing someone to behave as someone else dictates repellant, so I'm against banning incadescants.

In reply to a previous comment regarding heating.

Although lights do release heat, they release it at the top of a room, where you dont want it to be heated, they do so all the time, even in summer, when its already hot and most importantly, at much higher cost than gas, coal, oil ect.

[Brod]

My sister - who does alot of sewing, knitting, etc - hates energy saving ones, she can't focus under the energy saving light, and gets headaches.

I think it's a matter of getting used to the tones that they emit.

IIRC its due to the fact that low energy bulbs are compact flourescent tubes. For reasons I dont understand these "strobe" (flick on and off very very quickly 100s of times a second) For the majority of people it isn't noticable but some people can find it uncormfortable.
As an illustration in factories using lathes it used to be customary to use flouresent tubes for area lighting but incadesent bulbs over moving and spinning machinery. It was found (the hard way i suspect) that using tubes over a spinning lathe if the frequency of the tube and the RPM of the lathe coincide the strobe effect of the tube caused the lathe to appear stationary, enter hand of the unwary....

[AXJ]

I use energy savers, but thats because I'm tight and lazy.

I usualy always find forcing someone to behave as someone else dictates repellant, so I'm against banning incadescants.

You're absolutely right, low energy bulbs are the only way to go to save the planet. I completely agree with you that dictating what other people should do is repellant. Some times though for the good of public health banning something has to be done, take asbestos as an example.

Now one might ask how can I connect asbestos with a light bulb. Well, climate change cased by carbon emmissions is going to at the very least wipe out millions of people, plants and animals. The humble light bulb, as is well documented, is a mass consumer of cabon generated electricity.

The difference between asbestos and an incandensent light bulb is that the asbestos may kill one ... i.e. have an effect in one's lifetime. An incandesent light bulb will affect the next generation, not in one's own life time, and therefore does not seem as pressing or immediate an issue to be dealt with.

It would make more sense to use asbestos, and ban incandesant light bulbs, if one had to make a choice. Of course it makes more sense for both to be banned.

[AXJ]

It was found (the hard way i suspect) that using tubes over a spinning lathe if the frequency of the tube and the RPM of the lathe coincide the strobe effect of the tube caused the lathe to appear stationary, enter hand of the unwary....

clearly there will be situations where energy saving light bulbs of the 'tube' style are not suitable, for medical or industrial uses. There is an alternative though, LEDs (Light Emitting Diaodes). As far as I know they don't flicker, can be very bright if required, and the colour spectrum could be adjusted to just about any situation.

[DominicJ]

I'm going to get slated for this, but I think asbestos is the most overblown "crisis" ever.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

People have worked with asbestos there entire working lives and not died from it.
Its clearly dangerous, there was a story in the paper not too long ago where a woman had died and her husband attributed it to washing his asbestos covered work clothes, but that the husband, who by any measure I can think of must have come into contact with an order of magnitude more of the stuff was alive to make the complaint makes me wonder if the breathing gear and tent is really required so I can demolish my old outhouse.
Dont get me wrong, theres definatly a case for not using it as much as we did, or even banning its use altogether, but hasnt it got slightly out of hand?

Theres probably even less chance of injecting sense into a climate change debate

[The Riff-Raff Element]

The only use I have found where lo-energy bulbs are going to be a problem are in my incubator and broody box, both of which use light bulbs as the heat source. I suspect some specialist bulbs will remain for these and the few other applications that need them.

Otherwise, I really, really like low energy bulbs

[ina]

I'm going to get slated for this, but I think asbestos is the most overblown "crisis" ever.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

People have worked with asbestos there entire working lives and not died from it.

They have. Not all, of course - but we had an asbestos factory in the town where I grew up, and there was more than one case of - sometimes quite late onset - severe respiratory suffering.

[ina]

My sister - who does alot of sewing, knitting, etc - hates energy saving ones, she can't focus under the energy saving light, and gets headaches.

I know this a a rather late reaction - but I didn't see it before. Ann, tell her to get a daylight bulb; they use a little more than the normal savers bulbs (about a quarter instead of a fifth), and they cost a lot more, but they are brilliant. I bought one exactly for that purpose, as I couldn't see my navy blue knitting under normal light.

[AXJ]

My sister - who does alot of sewing, knitting, etc - hates energy saving ones, she can't focus under the energy saving light, and gets headaches.

I know this a a rather late reaction - but I didn't see it before. Ann, tell her to get a daylight bulb; they use a little more than the normal savers bulbs (about a quarter instead of a fifth), and they cost a lot more, but they are brilliant. I bought one exactly for that purpose, as I couldn't see my navy blue knitting under normal light.

That is an excellent suggestion, when working as a graphic designer we always has a daylight 'box' which was a drawing board cased in on three sides and a ceiling, which has just daylight fluroecent ligthing so we could always check printers proofs under guarenteed 'daylight' so the colours were correct, no nasty surprises when the books were in the shop window. Indoor plants might like it too