CFL Lamps to avoid

CFL or Compact Fluorescent Lamps are becoming more and more popular these days. Partly because they are suppose to last a lot longer but also because they use a lot less electricity for a given amount of light they put out.

I believe in them and when I built my new home office about 5 years ago I installed 6 of them in the ceiling. I do a lot of graphics work so I needed good lighting and the color temperature matters. You can't get a real good color temperature with standard incandescent bulbs but you can with CFL's.

Anyway I have been happily using them in my office for 5 years now. I have had to replace 2 bulbs in that time. When I had to replace a third one I ordered 2 so I would have one spare. Well the brand I got was called Overdrive.

So I installed one Overdrive lamp in the place of the 5 year old one that burned out. It burned out in about 4 hours. Things happen and I figured I just got a bad one so I installed the second one, well it lasted all of a week before burning out.

Wanting to make sure it was the lamps fault and not the fixture, I purchased another brand and it has now been working for more than a month with no problems.

I have to say that this tells me there is an inherent flaw in the Overdrive brand lamps. I for one will not be purchasing this brand in the future and I suggest if you do, save the receipt so you can return them (I did not).

If you have had good or bad luck with this brand let me know. If it's a major issue we need to spread the word, and if my case is a fluke then I would like to know that as well.