Well I was at Lowes today with my dad buying gardening stuff as he is much more knowledgeable about gardeining than i and i enjoy working on them with him,and he talked me into doing it finally.  I switched 46  60 watt Sylvania incandescents I have at home over to 46 Sylvania 13 watt 60 watt equivalent Micro-Mini CFL's. And I am having regrets and mixed feelings LoL.  I figured this was the place to talk about it.  When I bought the house undecided to rebel and do my favorite lighting of all sylvania incandescents and I was even prepared to purchase tons of them and order to stock up should the ban have taken effect… I'm glad I didn't as now I would've been screwed LOL. anyway I have a notorious habit of leaving lights on, when the wife leaves for work (i twork 2nd shift and she works 3rds)I turn all the lights on in the house as I am a night owl and I do most of my stuff at night between the hours of midnight and 6 AM while she is gone as it gives me time to have a clear head and get house stuff and electronics projects done LOL! My electric bill is always outrageous due to this I am sure. Maybe this will help? I am really happy to have been able to stick with Sylvania my favorite brand, and have such a neat looking lamp as the micro mini, it truly is a work of art, although I do not believe the Kelvin rating it appears much cooler white 2700K. However if anything is crisper as I am used to from my reef aquarium days with my dad. It really looks more like 65K or 10K. overall is very pleasant, and they are extremely bright once they warm-up, however when you turn them on for example in my basement it is almost eerily dim for the first minute, something I will have to get used to. I'm actually quite sad looking at a shoebox full of 46 incandescent bulbs… at least I can go back to them if I wish, although I will try to adapt! LoL. It is just past 2 AM in the morning and I am sitting here eating a late dinner and having a brew sulking about my switch LOL of course this is the place that I would come too! LOL :-) my dad has a mixture of Sylvania's, generics, and GE's throughout his house and ERs only have one failure of a generic in the past two years. What worries me though is will these lights continue to drag on like my T12's in the garage and get dimmer and dimmer, whereas an incandescent will simply blow and I replace it… We'll see… I put these in my outside lights also, I probably won't even be able to see when it's 8° outside here in the winter and I just turn them on LOL…

From my experience with CFLs, the better (and guess which ? older generic ones from China) indeed keep going for years and just get dimmer. Newer ones tend to blow at once but thir life is shorter than the old ones

But why CFLs ? Could not replace the lights to proper MH or PL due to fixture size ?

And hile we are about saving power, a CFL saves 75% of the energy, but a switch in OFF saves 100% of energy

CFLs saves energy only for the short-terms. For the long-terms, CFL consume more energy than the incandescent lamps, which is expressed by larger emission of greenhouse and toxic gasses and more disposal of waste, which includes mercury and electronic waste, which itself is more damaging than metal waste. Metal can be recycled easily and environment friendly, unlike electronics which are hard to recycle and produces toxic and greenhouse gasses.

CFLs are generally much greener than incandescents, under 2 conditions :

The energy source is not green by itself (in which case the pollution from the energy source is more significant than from the lamps). If the energy source is green, then pollution from lamps is more important, so better use non-toxic or long life lamps than efficient lamps

The CFLs are not blowing after very short life as result of bad CFLs or inappropriate use conditions, in which case the pollution from the CFLs (and transporting them etc) will be more than from the energy source

You did just fine.  Sylvania makes a great CFL product and has been for many years.  That being said, every brand out there will have failures from time to time so don't let it get to you.  Don't think twice about it and yes you will see an improvement on your electrical bill.  Who gives a rats butt about the environmental crap.  Lowes and Home Depot both have recycle boxes where you can deposit EOL CFLs and you can walk out knowing the responsibility is now on someone else.  Cheers and enjoy. 

I think given the cost of energy these days it's a sensible step to take.

It's worth remembering that in the summer (depending where you are of course) the amount of power they will save you will be more than just the difference in the lighting bill.  CFLs produce a heck of a lot less heat - so through the house that will be several hundred watts worth of heat that the AC won't have to extract.  Of course it takes more than 1W to shift 1W of heat due to loses within the system, so that could actually be a surprisingly big difference.

Granted, the converse is true in the winter when you'll need to provide that extra heat to offset the fact that the lights will produce that much less heat too...

I tend to prefer using linear fluorescents or fixed compact fluorescents with remote ballasts where possible rather than "plug in" compact fluorescents as they tend to have far longer lifetimes I've found.  

The efficiency of A/C is about 300%. It takes 1W to shift about 3W of heat. So the amount of power saved when you count in the A/C is about 1.33x the obvious amount of power

I agree with the fluorescents are better than CFLs thing (where they can fit etc). CFLs are makeshift product, and if changing fixtures anyway, then why not look for a fixture that uses proper lamps like T8 / PL / 2D

Thank you very much guys I really appreciate the advice, information, and encouragement! It makes me feel much better about the decision! i totally agree with you about standard florescence being the preference. I lit my garage with old-school T12 and magnetic ballast just because that is what I grew up with my dad having as a kid and was part of the things that nurtured my fascination with lighting. it is kind of funny because my parents in their new house, my dad in his basement more specifically, just got a set fixture of four T8 bulbs with an electronic ballast that he put over a work bench I just helped him finnIsh and it cost five times the cost of my T12 magnetic fixtures. however where I flip the switch and my T12 pulse and flicker and sometimes don't come on, which by the way I have figured out a way to remedy that as simply swapping bulbs left or right in the 2 Bulbfixtures, his T8 instantly fire with no issues. I have not had an experience in the long run with this electronically fired T8's as he just got the fixture last week but I know my T12 are just over a year old and every week I have to swap one around or reverse the polarity so to speak, if one begins to flicker I simply take the bulb out and turn around and put it back in and it seems to remedy it permanently… What would explain this?  It leaves me kind of puzzled? LOL. The fixtures i used are Utilitech magnetic $9.99 fixtures what the bulbs in themare T12 40 W 10,000 Kelvin Sylvainias which I would think would be a pretty decent bulb. I just bought a set of GE vanity globe shaped compact fluorescent bulbs, you know the ones that have the deco globe around them, as the last part of the house needed them in the bathroom and Sylvaina globe encased cfl were not carried at Lowe's. They blend in with my regular micro mini Sylvania is perfectly and I am very happy. I actually noticed that Isenile less heati from running CFL's. This is kind of funny that you guys mention about the AC I thought about that, but even more unusual is I sense less heat. I guess running 40 something odd incandescent would make perceptible me increase of heat. I have shut the AC down, which are window units, as the weather has been in the 60s here for the past few days. There is no way in heck I can afford a central air system although I wish I could. When I lived at home my parents always had central air, well actually not through the whole time I was in school we only air-conditioned the bedrooms, but for a couple years after since I had graduated high school I had central air and I became spoiled because of it so now I'm using window units throughout the house. It is a very old house that I bought built in 1949. Some of the things I do like about this such as the 1990s rewired main circuit box, but the garage is still on old-style fuse panel which I love! So the benefit of these compact fluorescence may really help me out as I know the window units are less efficient. If I did not have a weird sleeping habits and stay up all night which requires lighting the entire house in order for me to not have to be flipping switches every two minutes I suppose I would save money also LOL so maybe in this situation I did make the best move LOL :-) thanks a time and again guys, I will definitely let you know how my electric bill next month compares to my current one!

In Israel, window A/Cs are banned because of their inefficient COP which is 2.5 average, and all of the household air conditioners in Israel are split air conditioners. All A/Cs that sold and made in Israel, have heat pump capabilities to heat the room (A heat pump is actually a mechine that heats by the same manner as an air conditioner cools, but calling an air conditioners with heating capabilities by the cooling ciruit itself such, is wrong and is like calling fluorescent lamps "Neon" or automotive metal halide lamps "Xenon" or LED backlit LCD display "LED"). Most of them are upper A/C, and the old ones are floor A/C.
Central air conditioners aren't popular in homes, and usually used in offices, shops, and commercial areas. Industrial areas, supermarket and hotels, uses chillers and fan coils.
The air conditioner is the most popular heat source in Israel, as it is much more efficient in the climate of Israel for heating than a resistive heating (Most of the local made air conditioners in Israel, have an average COP of 3.5 vs less than 1 for resistive heating [Indeed, heaters are loosing popularity in Israel in the recent years, as most people moves from the heaters to the air conditioners to heat the rooms, as the do the job better, and indeed most of the heaters that sold in Israel, are no all of generic brands]).
Most of the schools in Israel also have air conditioners that replaced the old gas and the electric heaters.

If it is Preheat :

1. Try replacing the starters

2. Try different lamps. If you have T8 lamps of the same size they will most likely start ok on T12 Preheat ballast, though some T8s might overload the ballast and damage it if left in for long time (several hours or days)



If it is Rapid Start :

1. Leave the lamps unlit and leave the fixture powered for a while, but without the lamps eventually starting. Touch the ends of the unlit lamps. Are both ends hot ?



If yes, this is a striking issue :

1. Try brushing against the lamp with you hand

2. Release the reflector of the fixture so that it is laying on the lamps. Does it start well now ? It may not be a good thing to leave the fixturelike that for long, but if it helps you can try substituting it with a strip of aluminum foil attached along each lamp and connected to the fixture metal

3. Check that the fixture is connected to earth

4. If nothing else it may be a bad ballast



If at least 1 of them is cold, it is a bad connection in the fixture (may also be bad sockets or ballast)

1. Try to find the fault visually

2. disconnect the fixture from the supply completely, remove all lamps, and measure resistance with a multimeter between the 2 contacts in the socket where the end of the lamp was cold. Trace it into the fixture, for example if this socket is connected to the red wires from the ballast then measure directly between the 2 red wires coming from the ballast in the wire nuts. Compare it to the resistance you find between the 2 blue and 2 yellow. (it may not be the same, especially with the yellow wires which are common to 2 lamps, but i dont think it should be different by more than say 4x, and if there is a problem i would expect to see "no connection" and not readable resistance

I'm seeing that rapidstart is much more complicated than preheat (Earthing required for starting, a grounded reflector for the fixture for starting [In short terms: A rapidstart ballast can't operate in all types of fluorescent fixtures]).
So why rapidstart is the general ballast in the US, while in the rest world, it is preheat (And in the UK it was SRS and quickstart in the past, and these don't requires earthing and reflector for the fixture in order to operate).
In the rest of the world, rapidstart considered an antique ballast. In the US it is considered a newer type of magnetic ballast (According to what I readed in "fluorescent lamp" article in wikipedia.
Why?

The US are 120V. This voltage is not enought to power fluorescent lamps above about 20W. So they need a transformer to step up the voltage

If a transformer is needed, there is no more point in builbing a separate ballast, but the transformer can be built as part of the ballast

Now the ballast allready contains a coil that is connected across the input (Live and Neutral), this means that the ballast is allready magnetized before the lamp started. It is possible then, and very easy to do, to add 2 secondary coils to complete the ballast to a Rapid Start, and eliminate the starter

For 240V the SRS ballast uses a second coil and capacitor in a resonance circuit. This is not too complex either, but it is not such small difference vs simple Switch Start

For 240V Perfect Start ballasts (the thermal relay ones) there is only small secondary coil which does not complicate the ballast much, but they need a thermal switch in addition

Ash: SRS, like rapidstart, can't start T8, because like rapidstart, no HV produced during starting.

At the time (up to late 80's) nobody considered the T8s to take over in the future

Rapid Start (but not SRS) can be made to work with T8, but there are other ways to start T8 that took over, mainly Instant Start and electronic ballasts - in the US

For 240V, there is Perfect Start which can work with both T12 and T8, but back at the time was pushed out by cheaper Switch Start, and now is pushed out by electronic ballasts

You guys really know your stuff! Super interesting, thanks for the trouble shooting info also, the next time one of the T12 fixtures act up I will go through those steps and see what I find (seem to be rapid start, there is no separate starter can and the ballasts thump when first energized and the lamps flash bright then ignite.  Being the garage has a 240 volt feeder cominnunderground from the 1940's and enters a fuse box with two 30 amp screw in fuses where my friend who's dad is an electrician tapped off and added receptacles to garage for tool use and lighting there is a chance I have a grounding issue I would bet.  I have 14 of these double bulb 40 watt 48" T12 fixtures, affordability at $10 apiece without bulbs and wanting to do a stupid amount of them was why I choose them LoL. It really isn't that crazy as 8 hang equally spaced from celing and the last 6 are placed hanging from the 3 non- garage door walls above work areas.  It was a very old dul cementl block garage and i did not want to paint it so chose a lot of light to brighten the atmosphere (it had a few incandesents and was spooky to be in at night when alone LoL.  The Israeli AC situation is pretty neat with the climate and all!! Smart!  Yes i wish I had a more economical climate control system, I have to use the old oil burner in winter which is even worse on the finances.  Oh that reminds me, speaking of winter, the T12 fixtures seem to act up (flicker and buzz, always only one bulb, sometimes each time it is turned on a different lamp has issue other times one becomes the problem child) is when it is cold (below 40F or hot above 80F). When temperate they behave and for the first 8 months they really had no issue.  I would be hard pressed to switch to electronics due to cost and I love flipping one switch and hearing 14 magnetics energize! LoL. Sometimes playing musical chairs with the bulbs fixes the issues and other times it doesn't and I have returned and exchanges 3 fixtures so far.  Probably the cheap ballasts inside maybe (generic made in china).