Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs Dangerous? Is there a fire hazard? My experience with an Osram Sylvania compact fluoresncent light bulb overheating and burning.

In the Fall of 2003 I had an incident with a Sylvania compact fluorescent light bulb that caused me to doubt their safety, or at least their quality. The bulb, which had been installed for under a year, had been used infrequently and was installed in an ordinary open, indoor fixture as suggested by the manufacturer.

The first inkling I had of a problem was the smell of burning plastic that suddenly pervaded my house, leading me to worry about an electrical fire in the wiring someplace. After following my nose, however, I came to the Sylvania compact fluorescent light bulb pictured above. It was scorched and blackened around the base of one of the tubes, and was emitting strong fumes of burnt plastic.

I immediately contacted OSRAM SYLVANIA LTD. who put me in touch with one of their Application Engineering Specialists. He assured me that the behaviour of the lamp was unusual, and he wanted to examine the affected lamp. He also offered a selection of sample lamps as compensation for the failure of this one.

When I had no further replies regarding how they wanted the lamp returned, I inquired again. The Application Engineering Specialist I'd been speaking to was no longer working at OSRAM SYLVANIA, but someone else issued me with an RMA # to return the lamp, so I sent it in to OSRAM SYLVANIA by Purolator courier.

About three months later, I had heard nothing more about the defective product, so I inquired again. In reply, another Application Engineering Specialist told me that:

"Yes we did receive the lamp you sent to our lab. After inspection and tests I can tell you that the lamp looks like reaching the end of it's life. This is proved by the date code printed on the lamp and the collour of the lamp base that changed in time from white to brown/yellow. The burned base, arround the tube, could be a result of a long use of the lamp, near or over it's rated life. I want to add that the life of this type of lamp is reduced by frequent on/off operations."

"Does this mean that I will not receive a replacement? I don't know when the lamp was manufactured, but it was only in use for less than a year after I purchased it, and only for a few minutes per day. For a light bulb that cost $10 - $15, and was supposed to last many times as long as a conventional incandescent bulb, this is a completely unacceptable life span. Frankly, I also find it hard to believe that it could be a normal part of a light fixture's operation to overheat, burn, and fill my house with enough fumes to require opening the windows to clear them out. If it is, then Sylvania needs to seriously re-engineer its products, because I don't think many of its customers will be very happy about spending a lot extra on lighting simply to risk burning down their houses, and then be told their lights were "getting old"."

I'm inclined to think the colour change in the plastic could be from the overheating, or from the bulb emitting excess UV light. Eventually, I complained to the Director of Consumer Sales, who said

"The product we received was an older technology product that expired early in its life cycle but appeared not to be defective. Product life is an average rated life which means some lamps burn out earlier and some later. This is measured on a bell curve for benchmarking and unfortunately you appeared to have a lamp that fell into the early part of the curve."

On the brighter side, he was nice enough to send a couple of samples of their latest models of compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are supposed to last six to seven years. Hopefully the latest models are superior to my initial purchase, and will last for their rated lifetimes.

I recently had an e-mail from someone who had a Pricemark compact fluorescent bulb melt. Apparently Pricemark is a cheaper brand offered by Sylvania, manufactured off-shore to keep costs down. In 2003 a warning was issued regarding Pricemark fluorescent lamps, which said that they pose a fire and shock hazard, and that they bear an unauthorized Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) safety mark despite their failure to comply with Underwriters Laboratories safety requirements. There's also a recall on some Globe Mini-Spiral bulbs. See here for a recall notice.

Another visitor wrote to say "I had a very similar failure yesterday. The lamp was made by Commercial Electric and sold by Home Depot. The electronic guts of the lamp are badly charred."

Buyer Beware!