Comments on: ecosmart Dimmable Flourescent R30 Flood

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:30:34 +0000

Bought 10 Ecosmart 25 watt equivalent dimmable CFL bulbs with the candlelabera (small) base yesterday. (5 twin packs for just under $14 per pack, about $7.00 per bulb.) One bulb did not work at all. A second one burned out after about an hour. Initially, they have very low light output and they take an extremely long time (several minutes, not exaggerating) to “warm up” to full light output. I am not throwing away the incandescents I removed. They have the usual limitations for dimmable CFLs which was expected so I am ok with that. Not impressed with the failure rate for a $7.00 bulb though!

By: Bill Ford

Bill Ford — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 11:33:21 +0000

These bulbs ARE a big scam. At first Home Depot sold them under the Commercial Electric brand, but tens of thousands of them were coming back and the sales dropped off. So the manufacturer started branding them TCPi and selling them through Home Depot and tens of thousands of them started coming back, with more and more complaints about reliability and lifespan. Now, the SAME manufacturer is selling the bulbs under the brand name Ecosmart. Same crappy product, same results, same lifespan.

To top it off, here in Tennessee the government is subsidizing the purchase of ONLY these bulbs in Home Depot by consumers in a 4 pack for 1 cent if you fill out a form. The price on the bulbs for a 4 pack is supposed to be $6.99.

With a little digging, you can find a 4 pack of GE CFC bulbs in the store for the same price of $6.99, but those bulbs are not offered on the deal at Home Depot.
Want to know why? The reason is that the Ecosmart bulbs are manufactured in China (as are the other two brands) and distributed exclusively via Home Depot. As such, Home Depot makes about 3 times as much money on the Ecosmart bulbs than on the sale of the GE bulbs.

Put all these factors together….Home Depot is using a federal program designed to spur use of CFC’s to make huge profits by selling their proven crappy Chinese bulbs instead of promoting US jobs by including (or, better yet selling exclusively) the sale of the GE bulbs under the federally subsidized program.

Bottom line for Home Depot: it’s ALL about the profit and keeping the stock price up. Sell the sheep the crap Chinese stuff and don’t worry about US manufacturing jobs.

12/31/2011

By: Tony B

Tony B — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:11:23 +0000

Just bought Utilitech dimmable CFL soft white 1100 lumen spiral bulbs at Lowes. Using them with a Lutron dimmer designed for CFL’s (Dival C-L DVWCL-153P), 2 bulbs in once enclosed ceiling fixture. So for after 1 week they are working pretty well — nice soft white light, turn on at about 80% light strength, dim down to about 40%.. They cost $5.46 each.

Note they were not listed on Lutron’s website as one of their recommended bulbs but the Sylvania CF14EL/TWIST/DIM bulb is and it was total CRAP.

Hope this helps.

By: Lighbulbman

Lighbulbman — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:43:44 +0000

I hope this will help some of you out there. CFL bulbs are not meant to be dimmed and doing so greatly reduces their lamp life. There have been several “dimmable” CFLs on the market over the years and they are normally garbage. The lamps you buy @ Home Depot and Wal Mart are residential grade bulbs and not necessarily made with the best materials thus they extinguish before the average life printed on the box however they are much cheaper than the commercial grade bulbs. I sell commercial grade spring lamps for around $6 dollars apiece not 4 for 9.99 such as the retail stores and I do not have the amount of complaints that I see on here. Find yourself a good lighting store that has employees that know their product and you should find a happy medium with the CFL lamps. Some people will generally hate them no matter what as they are considerably higher than incandescent, take too long to warm up etc etc. Good Luck

By: Igor

Igor — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:29:21 +0000

I’ve had two of the EcoSmart CFLs’ outter envelope EXPLODE! And one came unglued and fell off. Good quality, huh?

By: Hormone Replacement :

Hormone Replacement : — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:31:25 +0000

light bulbs these days are getting replaced by compact fluorescents and LED based ones, original incandescent bulbs are power h “

By: DoNot Contact

DoNot Contact — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:06:14 +0000

Bought five GE R30 CFLs, model 47478. Will be taking them back. They take EIGHT MINUTES to reach full brightness, and put out no usable light for at least the first 90 seconds. Ninety seconds! Until then nothing in the room is really illuminated, you just see the slowly increasing glow of the bulbs themselves. And yet they have the “energy star” label on them. These things are absolute garbage.

By: arnold wong

arnold wong — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:32:40 +0000

I purchased 15 of these dimmable bulbs for my newly remodeled kitchen and family room. I was surprised that these bulbs do not last and they dim very little. I purchased the best fluorescent dimmers by Levitron but they simply do not dim. I’m really dissatified with these bulbs.

By: Jack Garner

Jack Garner — Sat, 22 May 2010 04:05:07 +0000

Bought 2 soft white R30 flood(15 watt- 65 watt equivalent) bulbs today. Supposed to be dimmer compatible.
After approximately 10 minutes on dim, the bulbs go out.
Replaced with old bulbs with no problems with dimmer switch.

By: Larry

Larry — Sat, 15 May 2010 17:35:58 +0000

I am so sick of these light bulbs. I haven’t had one last longer than six months so far. I tried to call the 800 number on the bulb today and it’s disconnected. I’m starting to feel like this is nothing but a big scam.