Instant ON CFL bulbs

All the CFL bulbs that I have bought (Ikea, Home Depot, Walmart) usually take a minute or so to get to it's full brightness. Are all CFLs like that? It's not too bad for my rooms, but I want to replace my old bulbs in my bathroom with CFLs, but I don't want to wait a minute for them to warm up. So I'm looking for CFLs that are instantly on (if they exist) and ones with a rounded cover (instead of the bare spiral).

Originally Posted by spaceman spiff

All the CFL bulbs that I have bought (Ikea, Home Depot, Walmart) usually take a minute or so to get to it's full brightness. Are all CFLs like that? It's not too bad for my rooms, but I want to replace my old bulbs in my bathroom with CFLs, but I don't want to wait a minute for them to warm up. So I'm looking for CFLs that are instantly on (if they exist) and ones with a rounded cover (instead of the bare spiral).

Unfotunately I still haven't experienced any that are instantly at full brightness, especially when its cool.
I use a pair of CFL's on my porch, and in the wintertime, the're aweful. It takes a couple of minutes to get decent light out of them. My porch light is on a motion detector with a 2 minute timer, so they just start getting bright when they switch off...

this bulb is instant on.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007...ulb_replac.php

higher end cfls are virtually instant on. Primarily avaliable from commercial distrubuters

ahh..that sucks. I guess you have to spend money to save money (in the long run).

thanks everyone.

All my CFL lights are from Dollarama and they seem to only take 2 seconds to light up enough for me.

Philips and Luminous CFL's are virtually instant on. I have bought Globe and Silvania CFL's that have a long delay. Now I put one of each in my fixtures so that I get some light instantly and the rest later (better than throwing the slow ones out). I hated walking halfway into a room before the light would turn on...

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Originally Posted by Spliffy

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Ikea has recycling bins.

I have two CFLs in my fridge, generic 13W units from HD... They seem to come on instantly even in the cold. But I also have other CFLs that are a lot slower to reach full brightness.

Originally Posted by Spliffy

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Here in Mississauga, Ontario we have waste and recycling centres. One would bring them here for proper disposal because of the small amount of mercury in the CFL bulbs.
Try checking your local recycling centres.

We should have a thread or list of CFL's that are instant on. I replaced mine with instant one ones a while back. I posted the few models I had tried a while back, I don't remember which one was instant on ... probably Philips.

I found that the ones that are the slowest to come to full brightness are the ones that I bought at IKEA. They were pretty cheap at the time (a couple of years ago I think).

Originally Posted by Spliffy

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Some Rona stores have bins for old CFLs

Originally Posted by l69norm

Some Rona stores have bins for old CFLs

+1

Also check home depot, IKEA, and your local HHW Disposal site