OMG - I just got THE best bargain...

...on flourescent replacement bulbs - the swirly shaped ones.

I went to my local Shaw's for a salad for lunch, and as I was headed to the cat treats aisle I walked by a display for Sylvania flourescent replacement bulbs. Regular prices: $6.99 for a two-pack of 60 watt (only uses 13 watts per bulb) output or $5.99 for a single 75 watt output (again, tiny energy pull for the output.)

I have been wanting to get some to change out my regular incandescents at home, but the cost has been prohibitive.

The sale prices were: $1.98 for the two-pack and $0.99 for the single bulb!!!

I got $45 dollars worth (reg. retail) for just $10!!!

Supposedly, these will last me the next 14 years AND cut down on my electric bill AND help the environment due to a smaller electricity consumption!!!

If you have a Shaw's near you, RUN, don't walk, and buy some for yourself - these prices are INSANE!!!

Wow, that is a deal! Good for you. We were thinking of replacing our bulbs with flourescent BUT, always a BUT, what do you use for lamp shades?

My lamp shades won't fit over the twirly bulb.

Originally Posted by ddcats

Wow, that is a deal! Good for you. We were thinking of replacing our bulbs with flourescent BUT, always a BUT, what do you use for lamp shades?

My lamp shades won't fit over the twirly bulb.

Click to expand...

Well, I can't use them in the one living room - it's a three-way, and they don't make three-way flourescents. However, the lamp shade attaches to the top of a frame built into the lamp, not onto the bulb itself - so I could use them in that lamp if I want to.

So these are for use in the overhead ceiling lights in all the rooms, and the kitchen light fixture and the bathroom cabinet light fixture, etc.

I already use a full-spectrum lamp in my bedroom, have had it for several years. The bulbs are like $15 each to replace, but it has been worth it, especially getting that good light in the winter time to help with the blues.

Sounds like a good bargin to me.

Wow! That's awesome! I want to get some of those too. Watch out though, I was just reading in our local paper a couple of weeks ago about those kind of bulbs. They contain mercury, so if they break be very very careful cleaning it up. Also, you aren't supposed to just throw them away in the garbage. They are setting up something in my area eventually to recycle them. If they last as long as they say they do, we won't need it for a while! In 14 years, when one goes out, maybe you will have a recycling place near you!!

Originally Posted by Samantha1979

Wow! That's awesome! I want to get some of those too. Watch out though, I was just reading in our local paper a couple of weeks ago about those kind of bulbs. They contain mercury, so if they break be very very careful cleaning it up. Also, you aren't supposed to just throw them away in the garbage. They are setting up something in my area eventually to recycle them. If they last as long as they say they do, we won't need it for a while! In 14 years, when one goes out, maybe you will have a recycling place near you!!

Click to expand...

You know, I just read that on the package and was like, duh, mercury isn't good for the environment either!

But I guess as long as I dispose of it properly and don't break any that it'll still be better than the incandescent.

Funny - my birthday is the same as Thomas Edison's. I never thought I'd see the day when the incandescent was phased out. What a great man he was - we owe so much of our modern comfort and enjoyment to him

Here's to you, Tom Edison!

Oh gosh... I hate to bring negativity to your very upbeat and honorable thread about energy conservation. But I just can't let the popular fiction we've all been taught about Thomas Edison go unchallenged. The fact is that he was a liar, a thief, and an abuser of animals.

Without going into a lot of detail (it's easy to find more information online if you're interested), let me just say this:

Edison was all about Direct Current, DC... and Nikola Tesla (the real genius behind some major "American" inventions, uncredited because he was an immigrant) was the developer of Alternating Current, AC, which was a much safer form of electrical power.

George Westinghouse was promoting the use of Tesla's AC technology, and Edison did battle against him by way of a technique that's extremely popular among certain politicians these days: accusing your innocent opponent of the very thing you yourself are actually guilty of. Edison traveled around the country, putting on flashy "demonstrations" to persuade the public that it was Westinghouse's AC that was dangerous, not Edison's DC. Here's a quote from one encyclopedia entry:

"In an attempt to discredit AC power Edison stooped to some low tricks. He paid schoolboys a quarter for each dog or cat they delivered to him and then he electrocuted the animals in deliberately gruesome public experiments."

That's the thing that makes me most sick -- but Edison seems to have been a man without a conscience in every aspect of business, constantly spreading destructive lies and taking credit for the work of others. I humbly submit that he does not deserve your toast... nor does he deserve the place of honor he holds in American schoolbooks.

Edison was A MAN OF HIS TIME.

Back then, there was no such thing as political correctness. There were no animal shelters. People did not have the same views THEN as they do NOW.

I refuse to look at the man with the perceptions of 2007.

I still toast to him - I happen to think he IS worthy. You are entitled to your own opinion, of course, but I have the right to disagree with you.

I'm still proud to share his birthday.

That is great! We replaced the majority of our bulbs about 2 years ago - they are great.

I just went out and bought another 12 of the 60 watt output bulbs.

Total cost: $11.88, total value: $39.96.



Somebody STOP ME!

Well... I recognize that most people didn't "get it" back then about animal cruelty... but the difference between truth and lies, between fundamental right and fundamental wrong... those things are timeless.

If any part of your reaction arises from a perception that I was "lecturing," I apologize -- that wasn't my intention. I just learned the truth about Edison a couple of years ago myself, and it's still a pretty passionate issue for me... so if that made me come across as too intense, I am sorry.

Originally Posted by ddcats

Wow, that is a deal! Good for you. We were thinking of replacing our bulbs with flourescent BUT, always a BUT, what do you use for lamp shades?

My lamp shades won't fit over the twirly bulb.

Click to expand...

What do you use now? Just regular-sized incandescent bulbs? If so, I've noticed that they're now starting to come out with "ultra-compact" fluorescent bulbs that look just like their twirly predecessors, but instead are now about the same size as the regular incandescents. They're pretty much the same price too.