First of all, I apologize for the long title. That said, let's get on with this very environmentally-friendly deal.
The Home Depot B&M stores currently have packages of 4 n:Vision Ultra Mini Spiral CFL Light Bulbs in Bright White or Soft White for $2.20 each (the regular price is $6.89, so this is quite the deal); each light bulb comes out to be $0.55 each. 14-watt for CLF bulbs are the equivalent of 60-watt incandescent light bulbs (incandescent bulbs are what some people call "regular" light bulbs). The SKU for the Bright White bulbs is #325-537 and the model number is EDXO-14. If you do a Google search with the model number and throw in the "n:Vision" name, you'll get a lot of pictures and great reviews.
What's really awesome about this is that it's a fraction of the size of regular CFL light bulbs, and after testing it for a few hours, it seems to be a lot brighter than a 60-watt incandescent bulb (it's actually brighter than 75-watt incandescent bulbs, from my testing). These light bulbs will easily fit the frames of desk lamps and won't protrude like some CFL bulbs will.
n:Vision is a leading brand and has really great reviews. Their Web site can be found at nvisioncfl.com. I bought a pack at The Home Depot last Monday, tested them thoroughly and used them heavily, and returned to The Home Depot yesterday to buy five more packages. Yes, I think they're that good.
I can't find the correct image of the boxes, but they come in small red or green cardboard boxes that may have the text "Be Green. See Green. Win Green. Find a CFL that lights up green, and you win $5,000." You can, however, find the product and information about it on this page of the site. Look at either 14 Watt Bright White(150-127) or 14 Watt Soft White(772-869).
ucsdgaspasser said: OP, where are you located? These are usually local deals due to local subsidies from local utilities. I live in San Jose, California, and went to The Home Depot at The Plant Shopping Center, located on Curtner Avenue. I did ask the customer service associate at the Services desk, and she said that this deal is nationwide. I tried to find out when it ends, as there's no listed end date to the sale (it's been going on for at least a week or two), but the associate didn't know either. She said her estimate is that it ends sometime before May, but probably not for another week, which didn't fully help.
mastavic said: That said, let's get on with this very environmentally-friendly deal. [snip] Hope this helps! Enjoy, and let's try to be green if possible, Funny. Check out google's thoughts on the matter. Everything from mercury content to the emitted light is not exactly environmentally friendly. Yes, they use less electricity, but they're anything but environmentally friendly.
I hate to TC, but don't just blindly buy cfl's thinking they are the best thing since mother's milk. Get LED bulbs if you want to be truly environmentally friendly.
Grizybaer
Senior Member
posted: May. 12, 2009 @ 11:52a
are these larger than a 60 watt (standard sized) incandescent bulb?
bakerzdosen said: mastavic said: That said, let's get on with this very environmentally-friendly deal. [snip] Hope this helps! Enjoy, and let's try to be green if possible, Funny. Check out google's thoughts on the matter. Everything from mercury content to the emitted light is not exactly environmentally friendly. Yes, they use less electricity, but they're anything but environmentally friendly.
I hate to TC, but don't just blindly buy cfl's thinking they are the best thing since mother's milk. Get LED bulbs if you want to be truly environmentally friendly.
LED bulbs are the future, but the quality/cost-effectiveness is not quite there yet.
The mercury content of a 14-watt CFL is much lower than the amount of mercury released into the environment by burning the coal to power an equivalent 60-watt incandescent bulb over the CFL lifetime, even if the CFL ends up in the landfill which not all do any more. They may not be environmentally-friendly, but they are less unfriendly than incandescent bulbs.
Edit: I've added a picture of this product to the first post of this thread.
bakerzdosen said: mastavic said: That said, let's get on with this very environmentally-friendly deal. [snip] Hope this helps! Enjoy, and let's try to be green if possible, Funny. Check out google's thoughts on the matter. Everything from mercury content to the emitted light is not exactly environmentally friendly. Yes, they use less electricity, but they're anything but environmentally friendly.
I hate to TC, but don't just blindly buy cfl's thinking they are the best thing since mother's milk. Get LED bulbs if you want to be truly environmentally friendly. Definitely not a threadcrap - it's good that more people know this. I know the CFLs aren't the best way to go, but for most people, it's what's available and is affordable at the moment. It's tough enough trying to get people to switch from incandescent bulbs to CFLs when they are around the same price, and it's just a lot harder to get most people to pay a lot more just to be environmentally friendly. Shouldn't keep trying, of course, but this deal will still help a lot of people become a bit more green.
rkirkpat
Member
posted: May. 12, 2009 @ 12:35p
I'm with bakerzdosen on this one - CFLs do not deserve the attention they have been getting as an environmentally friendly choice. They take significantly more energy to manufacture, they use mercury (which is going to be a huge problem once these bulbs start hitting the landfills in massive quantities in a few years), and they put out light in a spectrum which isn't particularly good for the human eye.
Personally, I'm waiting until the new energy-efficient incandescents come out.
Have been running CLF's (23 bulbs) in house for past 4 years (have 37x new spares in closet). Have one dinning room fixture which uses 5x small base type bulbs which is not. Waiting / watching for a sale on small base CFL's.
mantalcore said: How do these lightbulbs compare to LED strips that you can stick to your ceiling's edges?They are less energy efficient, but they are brighter and cheaper.
True LED bulbs need to come down in price a bit before I'd even consider them, and they hopefully will as OLED bulbs start to come out. Once OLEDs can be mass-produced quickly and without their sensitivity to their environments (mostly humidity), CFL's will be considered an inefficient, dangerous pollutant instead of a green option. If you have small kids, DO NOT even CONSIDER putting these CFLs in lamps. If the kid knocks it over and starts crawling around, even the small amount of mercury in those things is enough to do great amounts of harm.
bluechipwi said: Have been running CLF's (23 bulbs) in house for past 4 years (have 37x new spares in closet). Have one dinning room fixture which uses 5x small base type bulbs which is not. Waiting / watching for a sale on small base CFL's.
Same here. Candle base bulbs I think. They're out there, but pricey. I saw "Tiny-Sized" in the title and wondered if this might be the candle based bulbs, but I guess I'll have to wait longer for a deal on those.
I tweaked my first post slightly, added more information to the title and added more information to the post above: The SKU for the Bright White bulbs is #325-537 and the model number is EDXO-14. If you do a Google search with the model number and throw in the "n:Vision" name, you'll get a lot of pictures and great reviews.
rkirkpat said: I'm with bakerzdosen on this one - CFLs do not deserve the attention they have been getting as an environmentally friendly choice. They take significantly more energy to manufacture, they use mercury (which is going to be a huge problem once these bulbs start hitting the landfills in massive quantities in a few years), and they put out light in a spectrum which isn't particularly good for the human eye.
Personally, I'm waiting until the new energy-efficient incandescents come out.
CFL is only efficient in some cases, if CFL or any flourescent in that matter is placed in a location where lights tends to be on and off, such as restroom, the light will die faster than incandescent, so if you have to replace two or more CFL before you replace one incandescent in the same situation, is that still consider "green"?
mantalcore said: How do these lightbulbs compare to LED strips that you can stick to your ceiling's edges? These are more difficult to stick to your ceilings edges.
stlite
Broke Member
posted: May. 12, 2009 @ 7:30p
I bought two pkgs of the soft white today at the North Seattle Home Depot for only $1.85 each. The bright white was about $4.50 each.
(Glad I didn't go down to the store that's just south of downtown in the SODO area. Some lunatic was hitting pedestrians and cars with his car including running over the foot of an off-duty State Police officer. Then took off from the parking lot hitting more cars on the road. He finally ended by running head-on into a semi.)
rkirkpat said: they put out light in a spectrum which isn't particularly good for the human eye. Actually, they can put out light which is better for the human eye than standard incandescents -- people just seem to really like yellow light with crappy color rendition. Just because Edison couldn't figure it out, people now condemn fluorescents.
High-CRI incandescents are more expensive than the regular yellow-orange ones, without any other particular advantage. Sometimes, they even have shorter lives, due to special filaments or glass coatings.
Choose daylight CFLs. Depending on the time of year, they're practically indistinguishable from the light of the sun at noon. If that's not good for the human eye, who knows what is.
bopgun
Member
posted: May. 13, 2009 @ 7:41a
GnatGoSplat said: bluechipwi said: Have been running CLF's (23 bulbs) in house for past 4 years (have 37x new spares in closet). Have one dinning room fixture which uses 5x small base type bulbs which is not. Waiting / watching for a sale on small base CFL's.
Same here. Candle base bulbs I think. They're out there, but pricey. I saw "Tiny-Sized" in the title and wondered if this might be the candle based bulbs, but I guess I'll have to wait longer for a deal on those.
You can buy adaptors that'll let you fit them in the candle-size bases. Pretty simple, bought them for around $2 each.
GnatGoSplat said: bluechipwi said: Have been running CLF's (23 bulbs) in house for past 4 years (have 37x new spares in closet). Have one dinning room fixture which uses 5x small base type bulbs which is not. Waiting / watching for a sale on small base CFL's.
Same here. Candle base bulbs I think. They're out there, but pricey. I saw "Tiny-Sized" in the title and wondered if this might be the candle based bulbs, but I guess I'll have to wait longer for a deal on those. Sorry for the misleading title. I did not know what to call them, but have since changed part of the title to "Ultra Mini Sprial CFL Light Bulbs," which is what they are called by the manufacturer. I hope that's a bit clearer.
bopgun said: You can buy adaptors that'll let you fit them in the candle-size bases. Pretty simple, bought them for around $2 each. They're called candelabra bulbs, and the CFL versions are usually more expensive because they're smaller -- nothing to do with the size of the base.
If you can fit a standard-sized CFL into your fixture, then, over the long run, an adapter may be a good choice.
I wonder why the CFL uses more energy in USA..Those made by Philips and sold in Europe uses 1/5th of a regulara light bulb. But in USA the rate is around 1/4
eturkan said: I wonder why the CFL uses more energy in USA..Those made by Philips and sold in Europe uses 1/5th of a regulara light bulb. But in USA the rate is around 1/4 It's probably just tougher standards on what they are allowed to claim.
eturkan said: I wonder why the CFL uses more energy in USA..Those made by Philips and sold in Europe uses 1/5th of a regulara light bulb. But in USA the rate is around 1/4
This is just my guess, but EU uses 220 V 50 Hz, we use 120V 60 Hz electric.
Same wattage, let's say 23W would require 0.19 amp at 120V, but only 0.10 Amps at 220 V.
I think it is just due to the difference in voltage and frenquency of the supplied power.
note on earlier posts: avoid lights of america. Google them and see all the problems. Burn out fast, etc. i've personally had terrible luck with them as well.
eturkan said: I wonder why the CFL uses more energy in USA..Those made by Philips and sold in Europe uses 1/5th of a regulara light bulb. But in USA the rate is around 1/4
Lumens are a measure light. What people probably needs to know is the color of the light, its dispersion, ists speed to full output, how efficiently the 'bulb' uses electricity for that purpose, etc, etc.
A watt is one joule of energy per second -- e.g a 100 watt light bulb on an hour will use 100 watt-hours of energy, equal to 0.1 kwh.
Watts have been a convenient way of approximating light output on incandescent and other bulbs in the past, but not really an accurate measure of what (pun?) was of interest.
I actually have to get the 9w (40w equivalent) as the 14w were too bright. Using soft white for now, at under $3 for a four pack.
I had purchased a pack of 'bright white' ones that I have in my bedroom closet, but during the winter (the closet has a big drop in temp as its above the garage), they take a few secs to get to full power.
What I don't get is the PAR ones - I have one, and gosh it takes 25-30 seconds at least to get to a decent brightness. That's the biggest drawback for PAR or R type CFLs.
Funny story - I called my local Home Depot today - IF the CSR I spoke to can be believed, these were on sale here for "2 to 3 months(!)" at the $2.20 price, but are unfortunately now back to (approximately) the "regular" price of $6.xx. And yes, he said the sale price had been subsidized by (our local utility).
Has anyone else heard of these being at the sale ($2.20 price) STARTING THAT LONG AGO? Kind of a surprise to me considering the date of OP's thread, together with the fact that normally this kind of info gets posted to FW quickly.....
beandana
New Member
posted: May. 13, 2009 @ 8:42p
(Glad I didn't go down to the store that's just south of downtown in the SODO area. Some lunatic was hitting pedestrians and cars with his car including running over the foot of an off-duty State Police officer. Then took off from the parking lot hitting more cars on the road. He finally ended by running head-on into a semi.)
Yeah, he broke one of the cfl's in his car and was overcome by the poison chemical dust that was released into his car. The mercury went right to his brain and made him crazy.
rsuaver said: What I don't get is the PAR ones - I have one, and gosh it takes 25-30 seconds at least to get to a decent brightness. That's the biggest drawback for PAR or R type CFLs.I've noticed that too on the cheaper PAR CFLs. The Philips (Sylvania?) and GE versions are a bit faster to warm up.
One case these PAR CFLs are great for is people who leave their outdoor lights on from dusk til dawn (presumably for security). The 30-second warmup is nothing for a light that stays on all night, and the energy savings is huge.
Disclaimer: By providing links to other sites, FatWallet.com does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to FatWallet.com.
Members of our community may attach files to a post in accordance with the User Agreement. FatWallet is not responsible for the content, accuracy, completeness or validity of any information contained in any attached file. Files have *not* been scanned for viruses. Be especially wary of Excel files which may contain malicious content.
