43 Replies to “Y2Kyoto: We Don’t Need No Stinking Twisty Bulbs”

  1. I could suggest where they might stash those twisty bulbs though, because they’re useless for the purpose of seeing in the dark. I have one in my teeny kitchen and practically need a flashlight to see what I’m doing. ‘course, these old eyes are failing even with specs, so I demand that those over, say 60, be allowed to purchase flood lights if we so wish.

  2. We’ve been stockpiling incandescents as well but Tez has us beat by about 91.
    Time for another light bulb run.

  3. I have a stash of 40, 60 & 100 watt bulbs . . . way more than I’ll never need. Bought them in bulk real cheap from various stores
    My plan is to become the neighborhood light bulb bootlegger.
    Should at least pay or my beer & wings a the pub for a few years.

  6. Hmmm, I only bought up 40 bulbs.
    Maybe I should invest in a crate or two. Blackmarket anyone?
    🙂

  7. I’m convinced that corkscrew bulbs were specifically designed to burn out early! I have years of experience in automotive and electrical work, I’ve never seen anything that costs so much with such a short lifespan.
    The first one I bought was in 1990 when they first appeared. It leaked all over the carpet–insurance paid for some of the damage. I’ve yet to see one that lasts more than six months. Yet I have 48 inch fluorescent fixtures that are 30 years old and still running. the tubes last about two years of 12 hour days. .
    I don’t deny that they do save power. The cost however far overshadows the savings. I’m glad you addressed that problem–thanks.
    PS: Some lasted as little as 60 days.

  8. I’m going to become a lightbulb smuggler. I can’t morally justify drugs, guns or smokes, but lightbulbs I’m good with.
    Thank you for the nice business opportunity, Big Brother!

  9. Yeah, I’ve already started stockpiling.  Nothing like incandescents for “instant-on” area lighting outdoors when it’s -30 Celsius outside.
    And they don’t make everything look like sh!t, either…
    Garth

  10. My first job out of university was with General Electric in Oakville. As a young engineer in quality control I was taught and worked with the entire lamp making process. The bulb is the globe part and the finished product is called a lamp.
    Anyways, I’m considering putting a business plan in front of the natives south of Caledonia. My plan is to make bulb style lamps and sell them in native stores along with smokes.
    Light Up!

  11. Perhaps emblematic of the fruit-fly guy’s science–is that commercial showing the fool changing folk’s porch lights to twistys.
    In most of Canada, they only function for about 2-3 months during the summer…..and on some cooler summer nights they just glow (and hum).

  13. The best buy in bulbs is a 50 watt “rough service” bulb used in trouble lamps. They last forever! Another good buy is a 67, 69 or 115 watt traffic lamp bulb used in stop lights.

  14. I’ve stock piled 100-40 watts, 100- 60 watts and 100-100 watts. I have no intention of being forced to buy a product because the government zealots edicted it so. Frankly I would not be surprised if the Feds broke their own monopoly laws by forcing the consumer to buy a product without giving us a choice of products to choose from.

  15. We split our time between the southern U.S. and Barrie, ON … every time we come back from the south I bring a couple of dozen incandescent light bulbs and also a load of toxic pesticides. The dandelion is becoming Ontario’s official flower, but NOT at our house! … and white grubs glow in the dark by the time I’m finished ‘nuking’ the little buggers!

  18. Our local Home Depot had a sale last week on 60W “farm” lamps $1.69 for four (42 cents a piece!) these are great for any area that gets cool or vibrates (garage door openers), their thicker filaments ensure much longer life. Indoors they last a very long time.
    Only problem is they are clear glass, I can live with that rather than the fluorescent abominations.
    Don’t know if this offer is at all locations.

  19. And I still have a stash of vacumn tubes somewhere under the crawl space.
    Those 12AX7GT tubes are gonna be worth a fortune some day.

  20. I did a count on bulbs in use in the house. there are over a hundred ,about 80% edison lamps. I hope we never have a power surge when I have them all on.

  21. I actually have a few twisties in a couple of locations, mainly because it seemed like a good deal at the time and I wanted to check them out for myself.
    Nothing makes you feel more foolish than to walk in a room, turn on the “lights” and then wait patiently at the door for a minute before there is enough illumination for you to find what you went in there for in the first place. Did I mention that during that minute I sometimes forget what I was looking for in the first place?

  22. ya time for another incandescent run. I laid down $200 the last time. some places dont have the regular bulbs anymore. home despot for instance. just the specialty incandescent and lots of the mare in Chirer curly fries.

  23. Do not undestimate the effectiveness of these twisty bulbs.
    Install just one and you have the right to claim that you have saved the world and to harass your neighbours!

  24. Make sure you stock up on CRT monitors too – you don’t wanna be stuck with those LCD abominations!
    Oh, and that reminds me … anyone know where I can buy some vacuum tubes to replace my CPU?

  25. I’ve bought maybe a dozen 100’s and 60’s and I thought I was paranoid until I saw a guy buy 48. I use both types of bulbs just different locations for different uses. I have a few bulbs that are over 25 years old that came with the house. I can’t picture using a trouble light with a twisty and I don’t think one will last 25 years under any usage.

  27. From what I hear you practically have to phone environmental control when they break, because of the Mercury content. There is a whole list of things to do so your not poisoned. So now we put children in harms way for a made up crisis.
    JMO

  28. CFs work great for me as I’m off the grid, and they indeed use much less power. However, CFs work like s*** in my garage or outside when it’s cold. For that reason I have stashed over 500 incandescent lamps and will keep buying them until I have 1,000.

  29. Red Queen Arch:
    “no-one has said sorry”.
    Lights out everybody. Light up your tallowfat candles, hold hands, and sing a Te-DiumDumb for the Arch.
    The Arch is singing flom Mao (Hi. I’m Bob … Mo.) Stlong’s hymnbook.
    Look at this: “The Archbishop of Canterbury attacked the City.”
    Mo says, “He has attacked belief in market forces as ‘idolatry’; praised the contempt of Marxists for ‘unbridled capitalism’, and, last month, condemned the City because no-one has said sorry for the excesses that ended in recession.”
    Oops, sorry, Arch.
    …-
    “The Archbishop of Canterbury calls for an end to economic growth to save the planet”
    urlm.in/dfjd

  30. I’ve got about 40 or so. The ban isn’t until 2012, so I still have time to stock up as long as the stores keep carrying them. They may have cheaper LED’s available by then. I refuse to use compact florescent bulbs.

  31. Might as well go back to good, old-fashioned gas lamps…
    Re. the LEDs- I recently discovered, by accident, that they’re very bad if used near plants. Causes the leaves to wilt. It’s as if LED light is poison for plants.

  32. The purpose in outlawing “heat” lamps is to speed up the transition to mercury vapour twisties. Once the newly patented high output “photonic” lamps are ready for mass production at a price ten times the old Edison lamps, it will be time to ban the energy saving “twistie” and its dangerous polluting elements.
    It is interesting that as the patent on Freon 12 refrigerant ran out it was suddenly found to be responsible for ruining the earth and banned. Fortunately there was a less efficient, more expensive replacement standing by ready to fill the gap. Plus ca change……..

  33. Indeed …. been stockpiling standard lamps for over a year.
    Purchase one box each of 40/60/100 every time I go to the store.
    My house has dimmers everywhere and I can turn the lights down to 10% when I don’t need full power. Ican also turn the effin things off when I’m not using them.
    BTW – LEDs are narrow spectrum light and of no value to plants, Flourescents have less spectrum than incandescents and are UV emitters. The coating on the inside is a UV filter to keep you from gettting cataracts besides being spiked with mercury.
    There is nothing in the cost/benefit or the risk/reward analysis of flourescent lamps to justify their use let alone the imposition of regulations mandating their use. Nor is it in any way reasonable to ban incandescents.
    The people who promote the widespread use of these toxic products are ignoramuses … period.
    My quixotic conspiracy theory is that GE and MaoStrong have a nice deal set up with China… you wont see any made in North America.
    Send an email to PM Harper and ‘esplain it to him.

  34. Ironically, twisty bulbs make more sense in Australia. All the old-fashioned “wasted” energy turns into heat. Usually this is welcome in Canada. What’s more the extra heat shows up where and when you want it, allowing you to keep the termostat lower elsewhere.
    In Ontario there is the side benefit that most electricity comes from nuclear power while the heater uses oil or gas.
    150W bulbs, the energy saving, low-carbon option!

  35. The purpose in outlawing “heat” lamps is to speed up the transition to mercury vapour twisties. Once the newly patented high output “photonic” lamps are ready for mass production at a price ten times the old Edison lamps, it will be time to ban the energy saving “twistie” and its dangerous polluting elements.
    It is interesting that as the patent on Freon 12 refrigerant ran out it was suddenly found to be responsible for ruining the earth and banned. Fortunately there was a less efficient, more expensive replacement standing by ready to fill the gap. Plus ca change……..

    well said!!

  36. Doogy’s love snow.
    “Snowfall: Two mongrels enjoy today’s fresh snow in Austria – the earliest snow since records began”
    >>> MSM says: “climate change theory”? They ain’t no such thing as “climate change theory”.
    “But then something went wrong. Rather then continuing to soar, the Earth’s temperature appeared to stabilise, smashing all conventional predictions.”
    …-
    “Whatever happened to global warming? How freezing temperatures are starting to shatter climate change theory
    In the freezing foothills of Montana, a distinctly bitter blast of revolution hangs in the air.
    And while the residents of the icy city of Missoula can stave off the -10C chill with thermals and fires, there may be no easy remedy for the wintry snap’s repercussions.
    The temperature has shattered a 36-year record. Further into the heartlands of America, the city of Billings registered -12C on Sunday, breaking the 1959 barrier of -5C.
    Closer to home, Austria is today seeing its earliest snowfall in history with 30 to 40 centimetres already predicted in the mountains.
    Such dramatic falls in temperatures provide superficial evidence for those who doubt that the world is threatened by climate change.
    But most pertinent of all, of course, are the growing volume of statistics.
    According to the National Climatic Data Centre, Earth’s hottest recorded year was 1998.
    If you put the same question to NASA, scientists will say it was 1934, followed by 1998. The next three runner-ups are 1921, 2006 and 1931.”
    urlm.in/dfji (Daily Mail UK)

  37. During the winter I make it a habit to buy about 8-12 incandescent bulbs every time I’m in a store that sells light bulbs. During the summer I tend to forget about how long it takes for a fluorescent bulb to come on when it is cold.
    My workshop is unheated and is lighted by a couple of 48″ fluorescents (I like this type of lighting). There have been many winter nights when I’ve gone in there and found there was no light when the temperature is 1000 by 2012. I’m not sure if CF’s save power because every place that I put a CF it is left on all of the time as this is the only way that I find they come even close to their advertised lifetime. I like fluorescent lighting and have a lot of 48″ tubes which are also left on most of the day. Any place where light is needed only for short intervals has an incandescent bulb as they are unequalled in their ability to survive being powered on and off a large number of times. For outside lighting I’ve got some 1W LED’s which are also left on all of the time and I’ve been surprised how much light they produce when it’s totally dark.
    Just remembered the numerous motion sensitive lights in my yard which all use 150 W quartz bulbs and those need to have spares for the next few decades. Looks like a big shopping trip is in my future.

  38. “It is interesting that as the patent on Freon 12 refrigerant ran out it was suddenly found to be responsible for ruining the earth and banned. Fortunately there was a less efficient, more expensive replacement standing by ready to fill the gap. Plus ca change……..”
    Funny thing is that propane has always been used as a refrigerant, is less expensive, less corrosive, and more efficient(upto 30%) than both R12 & R134. A good question is why isn’t it hasn’t been used by the North American auto industry all along.

  39. Google “CFL power factor” and you will encounter the debate about how CFLs actually consume more power than they claim to. Precise amounts are difficult to quantify. Heavy reading, but interesting.

  40. Forgot that one can’t use “less than” symbol in these comments. The second paragraph should read:
    There have been many winter nights when I’ve gone in there and found there was no light when the temperature is less than -10 C. It has been interesting chopping kindling in almost complete darkness and thus far I haven’t lost any fingers in the process. In a few hours, when the shop gets warm enough, the fluorescent lights come one but until then the only source of light I have is my wood stove. I’ve recently acquired a 3 light pole lamp that uses incandescent lights and this winter should be a bit brighter. Incidentally, winter has already started here in S central BC with the temperatures going down to -8 C with significant damage to part of my irrigation system.

  42. “A pile with that many new bulbs would contain enough mercury to poison a small country.
    Posted by: Doowleb at October 14, 2009 10:15 AM ”
    Of course you are referring to CFLs,right,Doowlip? You know incandescents don’t contain mercury,right?

  43. I live in Guelph, and have written to my MP and my MPP. Neither has any knowlege of any upcomming ban. Does anyone have a link to the proposed legislation?
    (btw, they are both liberals, so that may explain it)

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