Another light out.

[vakkotaur]

One thing I will not be doing again is buying any Hy-Vee branded CFLs, at least not for in the office. When we switched away from incandescent to CFL, the office was switched first thing as its lights were the ones we used the most. All four were Hy-Vee branded. In the last few months, all four have failed. The last one started failing this morning. I've pulled a Sylvania from a little-used lamp to replace it. Now I have four dud CFLs to deal with.

This just happened quietly. The ceiling fan was not on and it's an open fixture. It's no "7 years" or whatever the life was advertised as. It has been almost three years, which while an improvement over filament lifespan, it's still disappointing. So far this is the only place where the bulbs are failing regularly, so it might be that they just don't last as long as said or that we have them on much more than the ratings figure.

I don't know for sure it's mainly the CFLs that the chain got their name put on, or if it's CFLs in general, but so far aside from immediate failures, all the burnouts seem to have been those. I think I'll be looking for other brands, nationally known ones, until and unless there is reason to suspect it's a more general issue.

Comments

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Is your line voltage stable or does it surge and flicker?

Is your line voltage within spec or does it run high?

Either of these has a negative effect on the service life of all sorts of bulbs.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

The line seems to be stable, aside from the odd blink-out in a storm and such. While the office lights are on the most, I'd have expect that to have affected other lights by now.

[pharwarner.livejournal.com]

Ezra was over on Thursday night and he ate his words about my large stock of incandescent globes. He's missing them now, as I told him he would. All I could do was repeat what I said to him a few months back.. "From my cold, dead hands!"