How do you feel about the demise of incandescent light bulbs?

I, personally, don’t like the yellow light of incandescent bulbs; I never did, and I’ve always tried to find the “daylight” versions of bulbs with the bluish tint. I know many people don’t like the “cold” blue light from the newer bulbs, but I prefer the bluish light. Though I agree that they’re too bright sometimes. I’ve also always used 40W bulbs rather than the more common 60W (not to save energy, I just don’t like bright light), but all the newer bulbs seem to be equivalent to 60W or 100W bulbs in light intensity.

I was never a fan of that “warm glow”, but I have to say that I liked the fact that incandescent bulbs went to full brightness instantly while CFLs take a few minutes to warm up completely. Also, there are times where you need the heat of an incandescent; how will we use EZ-bake ovens?

@HungryGuy I have always been able to find 40W-equivalent CFLs, but it takes a little looking.

Go free market! Go!

I think people should have a choice.

@jerv – Can you find some online for me????

Also, I normally don’t care if they take a few moments to get to full brightness, but I have two outside fixtures (with CFL) outside floodlight bulbs, and I really need those to be instant-on when I come home from work in the winter and try to find the keyhole in the darkness. But the store I shop at sells only CFL bulbs. I have to go out of my way to Home Depot or somewhere to find incandescent outside bulbs.

@jerv I worried about that too, but Hasbro has it covered:

“Initially, news of the death of the 100-watt bulb prompted rumors that the Easy-Bake might be going the same way. Instead, the toy got its 11th redesign, at the heart of which is a new heating element much like that of a traditional oven.”

USA Today

@HungryGuy Perhaps you should search out the new LED bulbs?

I’m a bit amused that in the name of helping the enviroment we have repalced them with something full of toxic dangerous chemicals.

@marinelife – Those look like they’ll work for me! Thanks :-)

The incandescent lightbulb will still be around. The law says they will have to make them 30% more productive, which may be difficult, but the ban doesn’t outlaw 3 way lights. You would simply have to put a 3 way light in your lamp. It won’t work as a 3 way, but it will work, with the same warm glow you remember.
Personally, I hate florescents. They give me headaches

I hate the new lights, the cold look and feel. And apparently there is a huge market for the incandescent since there are always plenty of them in the grocery store.

And I especially hate the damn US Government telling me I can’t have them.

I think we have to start making changes to mitigate against the collapsing environment and this is one of the least painful ones we will have to face. Give up your car, anyone?

People are actually stockpiling “pre-ban” incandescent lightbulbs now.

I’m not fond of fluorescent bulbs at all, and like @XD, I really just want to say “go free market, go!”

I read an interesting article in Popular Science about this a few weeks ago that was actually rather critical of most fluorescent bulbs on the market. If I can dig it up, I’ll post a link.

@janbb, evidence that fluorescent bulbs are more eco-friendly than incandescents is starting to really be called into question by numerous sources.

Good riddance, I say.

I don’t care that much. First of all, not all fluorescent bulbs are blue and cold; there are ones out there that look very much like the “warm glow” of the incandescent bulb. Secondly, they use less energy and last longer, it’s part of the reason why there are no incandescent Christmas lights anymore; they’re all LED now. The only thing I’m going to miss is the way clear incandescent lights look like candles; there are a lot of lights in our house that look like that and fluorescent lights simply can’t replicate that, not yet, at least.

I’m not convinced the CFL’s really last longer than the incandescent ones, not by much. I sure have had to replace many of them so the difference is lost on me. If I want to go into a dark room to get something and leave the incandescent ones come on instantly and bright. No waiting. I wonder if turning CFL’s on for a quick second temporarily reduces their life expectancy. They don’t get any chance to “warm up” maybe stressing them more?

My objection is that CFLs are all made in China. If they are going to be mandated I want them to be American made bulbs. (I live in the US, obviously.)

i live in a cold climate with no need for air conditioning. A CFL does not save me money. All the supposedly wasted heat from an incandescent bulb is going to heat my house and it heats the room where I am sitting. In fact, per kWh or BTU, Electricity is cheaper than heating oil. So theoretically I save money by leaving the lights on. Actually I heat with wood and that is much cheaper. Also all the outside lights are CFL.

Ugh. I did not know about this, and now I am not ‘sad,’ I’m pissed. I hate the new bulbs, the light is horrid, in my opinion. I’m about to stock up.

I’ve stocked up already.

The demise of incandescent lightbulbs probably means the demise of dimmers (triacs) and “mood lighting.” And it’s probably another nail in the coffin of the X-10 automated home lighting controls, which are centered around dimmer modules (though they have on-off functions for CFLs as well). They make “dimmable” CFLs but I’m not convinced they work very well. Anybody have much experience using CFLs with dimmers?

But I like CFLs. They don’t take as long these days to reach full brightness when switched on, and their reputation for harsh, flickering, blue-tinged light is based mostly on the older technology. I have an old house with old wiring (some of it knob & tube) so I try to limit wattage. I like bright lighting, however, so the dilemma is solved with CFLs or LEDs.

@woodcutter In my old place in NH, we burnt out half a dozen light bulbs in under two years. After switching to CFL, we burnt out three over the course of six years, and knocked a notable chunk off of our electric bill to boot.
Also, what causes incandescent bulbs to fail is thermal stress on the filament; CFLs have no filament. Not in the conventional sense anyways. They do take a couple of minutes to teach full brightness, but they are generally around 75% the instant you hit the switch.

I would prefer the blue-tinged light to the weird, orange like glow that the new ones give off. It makes everything look discoloured and strange. I really have a thing against these lightbulbs.

I am stocking up on the incandescent bubs. The CFLs give a a headache and eye disturbances. I usually welcome the heat that old fashioned bulbs give off. I don’t use many lights in the warm summer months so that isn’t much of a problem. My antique light fixtures will look silly with squiggly blueish bulbs.

I should say that I do use CFLs in a few places where they don’t bother me. I am experimenting with them. I am not convinced that they are saving me any money or that they are better for the environment.

I think the older a person is, the more they appreciate incandescent bulbs. We need all the help we can get in the dark.

One time I was working at a clients house who was legally blind and he about had a fit when we swapped out his bulbs with CFL’s. So we put his old bulbs back and was a happy camper again. No biggie, I just take them home and put them where I need them. They seem brighter if they’re free ;p

Each of the light fixtures in my current apartment takes 2–3 bulbs. I pair an incandescent bulb with a CFL, so that I still get instant, warm light, but at lower wattage. I detest the light from fluorescents. Not looking forward to the ban.

Like @filmfann, I get headaches from florescents. (Actually, they are a strong migraine trigger for me)...I much prefer a warm glow in my home.

For me, it’ll be a matter of stocking up on the types I like (low-wattage, warm), just as @wilma is doing.

Personally I think the whole “getting rid of incandescents” is silly.

@janbb We have one car, a hybrid. We don’t water our lawn. We have xeriscaped our yard and utilized our rain water better. There are other ways of “fixing” the enviroment without the use of toxins (which all CFLs have).

@woodcutter your statement here about them not lasting is true and someone at Home Depot told me why. In older houses where the electrical current is more intermittent the fluorescents don’t last. So people with old wiring will have no advantage.

According to Wikipedia:
The L Prize (aka the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize) is a competition run by the United States Department of Energy aimed to “spur lighting manufacturers to develop high-quality, high-efficiency solid-state lighting products to replace the common light bulb”[1]...The competition offers two prizes for the replacement of two types of bulb, a 60-watt incandescent light bulb and a PAR 38 halogen incandescent bulb. The prize fund for the 60 W replacement is up to a maximum of US$10 million and for the PAR 38 up to US$5 million.[3]...

So it ain’t over yet. Probably the phase-out of incandescents is just an early evolutionary stage of development. I think by the 22nd Century incandescent lamps will seem as quaint as oil lanterns to us today, and by then nobody will recognize our helical CFLs, either.

“In the U.S., incandescent bulbs will be phased out by 2014 under the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007. Energy Independence and Security Act, set energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs that will come fully into effect in 2012. The law will require light bulbs to use 25–30 percent less power than incandescents use today.”

Source

Well, there will always be the black market.

@woodcutter Haha, yeah people will be bringing them in from Mexico along with antibiotics. Or, Canada with their Coffee Crisp. I wonder if it will actually be illegal to buy them? I can’t imagine it. What do you think?

Ha! It would be hilarious for someone to be busted at customs with a case of bulbs, and they will be searching everywhere until they find all of them.

@woodcutter Right?! Too funny.

Very glad. This process started in the EU some time ago already. The more countries the better. It will bring down LED bulb prices faster.

OTOH, people who use 100 watt bulbs generally have no taste.

While CFL’s do contain mercury and incandescents don’t coal also contains mercury and coal powerstations are a major source of electricity. So even though the incandescent doesn’t contain mercury it is responsible for the release of more mercury into the enviroment than a CFL because it takes more power to light it for the same amount of time.