WOW I wish I was your neighbor, I'd take them. I would even pay you for them. I absolutely hate the new bulbs. They do NOT show true color in a room. Don't dare break one of those things either. I am stock piling the old fashion bulbs!

Yeah, I hate that too. Just like the smog of a coal-fired power plant obscures the true color of sunlight.

We have 101 CFL's in our house, and 10 incandescents, 8 where we are waiting for true dimmable CFL's to replace (I buy and try out every dimmable I see, and they just don't dim enough for standard use in our dining room), 2 where we just want the color and functionality of incandescent. But those will probably be replaced with better LED bulbs when the time comes. Some LED's have great CRI's (color rendering indices), and they are getting better and better.

So Debbie, I agree with you about color quality of light, but I still think there are places in your house (basement, closets, etc.) where you can still put CFL's. Save the incandescents for where it counts. And the cfl's in our kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and bathrooms look great; perhaps it's just that bulbs have gotten better since you tried them. Try the ones in the green packages, not blue or red.

i think that is why i like the LED's better..but they do have the natural light cfls..available now..and they are really nice..we have them in our bathrooms..i have led's in the china cabinet and the entertainment center..and they make wonderful night lights too (with a hubby with head injury we have to have some light at night..he is injury prone).

i also found some nice outside coachlight led's last week for $6 each..they work quite well..where even coldstart cfls may fail to work.

The mercury in the cfl bulbs is definitely a problem, especially if not recycled but thrown in the trash. Some people also believe the light emitted causes health problems as well, see article below.

I personally am stockpiling incandescents until such time that LED bulbs are cheaper. I would only use cfl's in areas where I don't have to spend much time or read.

Here is a link that might be useful: health problems?

People have been using fluorescent blubs for decades. Now suddenly they are dangerous?

And people need to learn how to dispose of hazardous waste instead of being lazy and tossing it into the landfill.

Is anyone else old enough to remember kids playing with balls of mercury from when the thermometers broke?

Yup, played with Hg as a child. I could be wrong but I still seem to be alive. ;-)

To the OP, I'm curious what you're paying for electricity and what your payback will be on the LED lamps. We have some cans in the kitchen that use a PAR20 lamp. I noticed a LED replacement but one I read package I realized it put out something like 80 lumens vs. the 550 or so of the halogen lamp. Obviously that wouldn't work. So what does a true replacement cost?

well our electric went from $40 to $50 a month to $120 or slightly less this winter..so it was a matter of "having to" reduce the costs..we weren't using more elec..the rates were just going up.

so we unplugged a lot of things and got rid of nearly all the incandescent bulbs..all should be gone by the end of the month except for a few appliance bulbs that don't have replacements for them yet..

we hope to hae a reduction this month but won't probably notice it ALL until next month...i'll let you know when we get our bill

I get such a chuckle out of people so paranoid over light bulbs! Incandescent bulbs aren't a true color rendition either so it's just that you want your color to be off like they're off with your warm whites. This silliness over breaking a bulb makes me laugh. People live around coal fired power plants and don't say a word. And one plant puts out more mercury INTO THE AIR than all the CFLs in the world. How much fish do you eat? Have you checked the mercury content of fish lately? Get over it. You luddite tendencies should be admitted not irrationally rationalized. I can accept someone admitting they don't like change. But people making silly excuses are comical.

And yes I touched mercury before. In fact, I have 2 or 3 mercury thermometers around here too. And no, I'm not paranoid that the world will come to an end from them.

One thing you could do with incandescent light bulbs is donate them to you nearest Lupus center or rheumatoid office. People with Lupus can not be under florescent lights of any kind. They are effected by the uv rays. Which also means they can't be under sunlight either. When they have this type of exposure the lupus becomes active and can attack skin, joints, and vital organs such as heart lungs and brain.Which can result in death. The kidneys are most vulnerable. Which also makes me wonder what skin cancer rates are going to be in years to come from these new bulbs.
How do i know all this...I live with this threat every day I have Lupus

Unfortunately you can count on the mercury being spread through our communities, as probably more than half of the people will not make a special effort to recycle the CFL bulbs properly. They may not clean up properly after the ones that DO break, but I guess that's their children's problem more so than the community at large.

Do not toss out your incandescent light bulbs until you are sure your eyes will adjust to the new bulbs. I had to go back to incandescent bulbs in the sewing room in order to see.

wow. i'm shocked. yes folks, mercury is poison. it won't kill you as quickly as a bus but you will develop health problems with long term exposure. and it's great to say that people should learn to "properly" dispose of things but i think we can count on that not happening in every household. CFLs are a bad idea and i won't have them in my home. ever.

"People have been using fluorescent blubs for decades. Now suddenly they are dangerous?"
Actually there were a number of concerns about the health effects of fluorescent lighting. Very old fluoro tubes contained PCB's in the ballast, I think they started phasing that out in the early 80's. But the fluoro's themselves were also suspected to be unhealthy. I guess people didn't get too concerned though as exposure was usually only during the work day and was diluted (not sure if that's the right word) because office buildings usually have high ceilings and large windows.
CFL's are said to wear out quicker in situations where they are turned on and off frequently so it's fine to use incandescents in toilets for example, the energy usage isn't significant and there's no point wasting money on CFL's. But I think the best idea might be to donate them to a lupus centre as suggested above.

How are all the little kids with EZ-Bake Ovens going to make their cakes when the incandescents go away???? I had that terrorizing realization when I was putting together my daughter's brand-new EZ Bake from Santa last x-mas.
Gayle

If it were me, I would use them until they burned out. That seems much more sane and energy efficient. If you don't want to do that, then perhaps your church, social group, or shelter has someone that can use them.

And here I bought a case of incandescent because the florescent are so dangerous. I do use the florescent out side.

We just freecycled 20 incandescent bulbs last week. Our brand new home came with lots of 60w clear incandescent bulbs that we swapped with CFLs. I don't know what the energy savings will be because we hadn't received our first electric bill before we switched them all. So, we packed them in newsprint (had lots of that to share on freecycle, too!) and offered them for free to whomever could use them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Freecycle

Incandescent bulbs generate heat. I use them in the winter time.