Over a year ago, in late February or early March, jmaynard and I switched almost all the lights in the house to compact fluorescent. Now that it's been over a year with them, I've realized that the reliability claims seem to be true.

In the past year we've replaced two CFLs. One was a case of "infant mortality" where the circuitry failed immediately when first switched on. This was covered under warranty, almost. A replacement bulb was sent, but not in the same style. When we informed the company of that issue they sent another bulb, but it was the same style as they had sent and not the one we wanted. So that was the one bulb we bought a replacement for.

Another bulb failed a month or two later, and was replaced with one of the bulbs that had been sent. Since then we've had no problems.

Had we still been using incandescents I expect I would have replaced two or three bulbs in the office light fixture in the last year.

I don't expect incandescent lights to ever completely disappear as there are places that I really wouldn't want a fluorescent light, such as in an oven. But the idea of using incandescents for general lighting seems a rather quaint notion to me now.

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