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I bought a new energy efficient furnace, LED lights for Christmas, and fluorescent lights for both in and outside the house, and putting that 3M brand shrink plastic on some windows.
The one thing I'm not sure is actually saving energy is the fluorescent lights, because most of them are failing within the first year, and some did not even last 6 months. The energy costs for manufacturing, transporting and recycling of the fluorescent lights may end up costing more energy in the end, then if I had stayed with regular lights.
That's indicative of a power supply problem. If it were me I'd check all the lugs and screw in the breaker panel. Make sure they're tight and the power supply coming in is within tolerance. Of course if you do this make sure you cut power to the break panel or have an electrician do it.
Another thing to check is the power supply on each leg in the breaker panel. If one side is higher than the other or you're getting higher than normal voltage (for example 130 volts) in the outlets. The would be indicative of a bad neutral bar. Other symptoms of a bad neutral bar or ground is flashing, dimming or lights that get brighter when other loads are used. For example you have the lights on in your kitchen and when you use the garbage disposal the lights get brighter, dimmer or flicker.
I say this because I've had almost no problems with these CFL's. I've literally changed out thousands of incandescents with CFL's and I've literally only had a hand full that didn't come real close to their average lifespan and only 4 that didn't work right out of the box. In some cases I've had numerous bulbs in my home, that I've taken with me on several moves, that are still going over 6 years later. It's true that they're the ones used least but they're still used. Over time they do get weaker as the "exciting" factor of the mercury and phosphorous in them weakens.
Something to add. In my area, which may be true in others too, the local energy company has Partnered with the big box stores to make these bulbs at or below the cost of incandescents.
Another good idea if you have the money up front to do it is to have a blower door test done on your home. It exaggerates your homes leakage so that it's easily found so that you can provide remedies.
What am I doing to conserve energy? Not a darned thing... and why should I? just because the tree huggers blocked the building of nuclear plants? The eco-terrorists don't like to build dams for hydro electric power?
~ I turn my thermostat up to 71 in the summer......
~ I own two Hummers
~ I leave all my lights on all the time
~ I make sure every window has some openings to let the fresh air in during the summer months
~ I don't have any insulation in my house because I want all my furry and winged friends to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer
Al Gore is my hero ~ Global warming is real ~ Wind turbines beautify the landscape!
Oh BTW, I know everyone here disposes of their defective CFL light bulbs in the proper way to avoid mercury contamination of the soil, right??
Yes, they should be disposed of properly and surely you know how much 5 milligrams of mercury is.
As far as saving energy. I do it because it's easy and I don't particularly like throwing money out of the window. It has a side benefit of lower consumption. Some might call it conserving or being conservative.
All the manufacturing in China is because we're not willing to pay to keep it here or pay to keep US jobs. We all want it cheap and now and everything is disposable. We could easily have manufacturing here but choose not to and out source were paying for it either way now or in the future. What I am doing to conserve, using CFL's which will be changing out for LED's due to research has shown the CFL's are not really saving money as we thought as well as the mercury thing I am not too fond of. There's enough bad stuff in the water and ground already Switching switches to put lights on when enter room and switch off when leave to conserve Timers and solar combos for outdoors.
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