|
My co-workers and I learned a surprising lesson: Some of those energy-efficient bulbs can be a fire hazzard. A few months ago, the office manager installed new energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs. Last week, at about mid morning, we started to smell smoke. And lo - one of the bulbs was burning a hole an overhanging light! Here's a picture of the bulb, after we cut the power and removed it: 
The bulb pictured above is a 120V 60Hz "n:vision" bulb. (SKU #: 423-599, Model EDXO-14) An electrician came to inspect the wireing later in the day, and said the transformers in bulbs can't handle dimmer switches. He suggested we either
switch out all the bulbs of the same model, and in the meantime - don't use the dimmers. I should be clear - I don't know if this could happen with all energy-efficient fluorescent bubs. This could be a manufacturer's flaw. Feel free to educate me in the comments of this post. Still, this is something people should be aware of. If you use energy efficient florecent blubs, and have dimmers - keep in mind what could happen. ON EDIT: The packageing does warn against dimmer switches. So this is clearly a case of RTFM. Tags: fluorescent, bulb, energy saver, light, fire hazard |
