Wednesday, November 18, 2009

CFL light bulb BURNS out


literally.....
I came in from doing Abbey, switched the light on in my bedroom and went for a quick bath as I was going out for dinner.
When I came out of the bath my bedroom was full of smoke and it was coming from the long life lightbulb!!! I took it out of the socket using a cloth and put it out onto the doorstep. At first I thought it might have been a fault in the light socket, but no, it was fine. I checked the bulb again and the plasitc is blackened slightly around the glass.
This frightened me more than a bit, if I had come in, quickly changed my clothes and gone out I may have been out for hours and left that light on.......which would not have been good!!!!!!
There is very little on the internet about this, a couple of stories, one from NZ, and some interesting press releases saying that CFL light bulbs are not a fire hazard? There is 'no smoke without fire' so why go to the bother of these press releases unless they are having problems they are covering up?
I have never heard of this and thought that these energy saving light bulbs were meant to be safer and better.
hmmmmm.....now I'm just plain worried about every single light bulb in the house, they are all energy saving. and I often go out and leave them on.

5 comments:

Flat Creek Farm said...

Oh, that's scary! Makes me wonder about these 'energy efficient' bulbs.

You have a lovely blog. I found you by hitting 'next blog' while on my blog. I was delighted to find a nice blog this time! In the past when I've done that, they've not always been 'nice' :) -Tammy in Rural USA

clairesgarden said...

thanks Tammy!

Kerri said...

Hi Claire,
That's very scary. I'd be worried about those lightbulbs too. Thank heavens you were home to take care of the problem and that it didn't become a full blown fire.

Alice (in BC Canada) said...

Claire, I sure am glad it all worked out well. I just had 3 of these burn out... but not with smoke. 1 just went out. The other 2 kept making sparking sounds, so did worry me. At first I wasn't sure if it was some short in the electric ceiling fan these 2 were in, or if it was the bulbs, but when turned off the lights while leaving on the fan it stopped. Still could be the unit rather than the bulbs, tho time showed it was the bulbs. Now I too am not so sure about the safety of them. I thank God they didn't smoke like yours did.

Sometimes I have fun reading the Word Verification, haha... and thinking about a definition for the word that comes of this letter jumble. Today it is "matedism". That could be a fun definition.

clairesgarden said...

Kerri, yes i was glad i was here...
Alice, antoher thing to worry about, not what we need..