I got home at night, went to turn on the lights to my ceiling fan, and the 2 light bulbs went out as I did so - leaving me to browse the Internet by only the light of my computer screen. ...Well, that's mostly true. One of the light bulbs had burned out months ago and I was too lazy to replace it then. Don't worry; my ceiling fan is bright again. However, my topic's intent is not to confuse you with flowery words - I don't need a topic to do that. Rather, it's to talk about the 2 main categories of light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs are the most common type of light bulb, and the one most people are familiar with - they have a spherical 'head', with a metal wire filament (usually tungsten) that electricity passes through, generating light and heat. Incandescent bulbs tend to be nearly ubiquitous, being relatively cheap and inexpensive, and give a sense of 'warmth' to a room. In terms of energy efficiency, it isn't that good, as most of the energy it outputs is radiated as heat instead of light, but it's still bright enough to see by. Also, none of the components of an incandescent bulb are particularly toxic, so it can be disposed of easily once it has expired. Fluorescent lamps are a more recent invention, having become more in vogue due to the pursuit of energy efficiency and 'green' business practises. Fluorescent lamps are fashioned into the shape of tubes, elongated if they need to cover a wider area, or coiled up if used in household devices. Rather than a filament, electricity is passed through a gas that fills the tube, which causes a material coating the inside of the tube to glow, thus producing light. Fluorescent lamps are a lot more varied in size, and typically see use in more professional or business applications - the most common ones are the very long tubes that are fitted as ceiling lights. They are also much more energy efficient with energy (being extremely bright), but the gas inside the lamp is mercury, which necessitates special disposal due to its high toxicity. You may have noticed I called one of them a 'bulb' and the other a 'lamp'. If you're asking me what the difference is, I honestly don't know. I asked a friend once over in the US (who had to replace a burned-out one inside of an XBox 360), and the answer he gave me was "about 300 dollars". So, what about yourselves? Do you have a preference for either type of bulb? Do you really not like one of the kinds? Which do you tend to use in your own daily lives? Any funny stories to share? :::: I've already shared my funny story about lamps versus bulbs, so that's out of the way. Speaking for myself, I much prefer incandescent bulbs. My household tried fluorescent lamps once, and we did not like them much at all. Never mind that even the smallest kinds were too large to fit into our house's light fixtures (it's an old house), they generated a lot of light, much more than one person would ever need (it hurt my eyes quite a bit), but even worse than that, fluorescent lamps generate this strange buzzing noise. It's so...bizarre, just hearing nothing but the steady unchanging zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound. That drove me mad faster than the actual light it generated. My garage uses fluorescent lamps, but of the long tubular variety, that can cover the largest area with light at once. They aren't quite as noisy, but it's probably because they're muffled by a cover - or that I'm standing nowhere near the lights when I'm trying to look for something. :::: So that's my experience. What's yours?
I just use the standard ones that go in normal lamps, we call them peertjes (Pears) due to the shape. I think they are incandescent? I don't really like Florescent anyway, the buzzing noise is often too annoying and they are too bright for my room.
I'm using up the last of my incandescent bulbs so right now I have a mix of fluorescent and incandescent bulbs around my house - mostly fluorescent but one of my fixtures still has two incandescent bulbs in it. Once the two incandescent bulbs are burnt out I'll only be using fluorescent. They're more efficient and I've also not noticed them making any more or less noise than the incandescent bulbs. I also found fluorescent bulbs in soft white/warm white so they're a little yellowish/creamy and not as harsh.
The kitchen in my house has fluorescent ones. The rest of the rooms have incandescent light bulbs. I prefer the latter. I do prefer white light over warm yellow light though.
I have a serious aversion to constant noise, especially of the high-pitched variety, and especially if it's sporadically interrupted by piercing cries. I'm looking at you, school assemblies. Because of this, I will not use fluorescent bulbs unless I absolutely need to. The sound worms into my head and I keep hearing it even after I have left. The light, as well, is very sharp and hospital-esque. Incandescent bulbs are far preferable, both in the light they cast and the general noiselessness. As a bonus, when I throw pillows around in a fir of rage because my clumsy fingers aren't making the art on the page look like the art in my head, I will not get poisoned by mercury. #MissingNo
So we have both types. In my study room I've fluorescent lamp because I like it plus I need to study late night and it gets really dark in my room at night so I need a lamp. We've fluorescent lamp outside our house but before the main gate. (Typical lol). All the other rooms of my house have incandescent bulbs. I like fluorescent better because of energy efficiency and light giving capacity. To be honest am pretty used to the noise so it doesn't matter to me now.
Truth be told, the noise from fluorescent lamps is something I can overcome to a degree, as whenever there's other noise going on, the low hum is drowned out by the other bits of noise - yes there's the constant buzz, but it's a quiet constant buzz. It's when the room is quiet and there's nothing going on is when it becomes a cause for frustration. The ones made for consumers are the worst offenders of this, but the ones I've seen used in businesses or schools or other places are darn close to silent (if they do make a buzz, I don't notice it). This is probably why I wouldn't want fluorescents in my own house, because the ones sold in stores will always have that annoying buzz.
My dad says he hates both types just because he can't read tiny text in them. He finds it easier to read in natural sunlight.
I prefer candle light I prefer Fluorescent because they're better for the environment, tend to be brighter, and last longer. Natural sunlight is always best though.
I like both for different reasons. I like incandescent for general house lighting (but we've been using energy saving LEDs recently) and I like florescent for when I do photography!
Our house has a mixture of all four major bulb technologies: Although most of the lamps are CFLs, we still have a few incandescents in use, and have a box full of 60 watt equivalent halogen bulbs (which look like the old fashioned kind, but use essentially the same technology as most car headlights), and I'm starting to buy daylight-temperature (5000K) LEDs to slowly replace the CFLs and other bulbs I just mentioned. We do have a few "traditional" 4ft fluorescent fixtures, with commonly-available tube style lamps (T8 and T12). Thought I'd throw that out there. Out of all those lighting technologies I mentioned, my favorite is the aforementioned daylight-temp LEDs. The whiter light of the "daylight" bulbs makes it easier for me to see things, and to read more comfortably.
Ah yeah, come to think of it, I had completely forgotten about LED lights being fairly commonplace (probably because I don't go to hardware stores very often and I haven't seen many bulbs of them), and I didn't think halogen bulbs were still in use - seems like they still are, although they aren't nearly as common as they used to be. And neither is kerosene I wonder how well LEDs might work in my house. I'm limited in what types of bulbs I can use, since most of the time, the light bulbs go towards the ceiling fans, and due to the covering that goes over them, they can only take smaller bulbs, and they don't make CFLs that small - we have to use incandescent bulbs about a third of the size of a CFL.
