CFLs that flicker and flash not a safety risk Good news for those who have safety concerns energy saving lampabout compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs): Underwriters Laboratories (UL) has just released its findings on CFLs and concludes the bulbs are safe. Issues like flickering, flashing or unusual noises don't indicate fire or shock hazards. Those foibles are the result of using CFLs with fixtures and lighting controls (switches, sensors and dimmers) that were designed for incandescent bulbs. CFLs used in incandescent fixtures burn at considerably lower temperatures and UL notes that those annoyances are just that, and not indicative of any safety risks.

Since these performance issues could make consumers reluctant to use the energy-saving bulbs, UL suggests that manufacturers work swiftly to find viable fixes. Consumer Reports plans on testing two dimmer switches designed specifically for CFL bulbs and hopes to publish our findings in the fall.

Some of our readers have reported seeing smoke coming from compact fluorescent lamps. Consumer Reports’ John Galeotafiore, associate director of Home Improvement, says the smoke is probably coming from the electronics and plastic housing instead. Even if the bulb can no longer ignite due to the lack of available mercury in the tube or other failure, the electronics still keep trying to ignite it. That can overheat the electronics and plastic housing, which causes the smoke. The newest Energy Star qualifications address this issue and require manufacturers to install “end-of-life” circuitry that prevents overheating and the resulting smoke. So while this was a rare event with the older bulbs (we never had one occurrence in more than a million hours of life-testing bulbs in our labs), it should be eliminated completely as the older bulbs are replaced.

For our 2009 tests of CFLs, we worked with a lab to determine how much available mercury is in each new bulb. This is the amount of mercury that would be released if the bulb were broken. There's currently no industry standard for measuring the amount of mercury. Our tests found that all of the 60-watt equivalent compact fluorescent lamp we tested had significantly less than the 5mg allowed by Energy Star, and energy saving lampsome had less than 1mg.