shrubs, The 34w lamps are a U.S. innovation which appeared during the energy "crisis" of the '70s. They were supposed to reduce power consumption and operate on existing 40w ballasts. Unfortunately, they reduced light levels even more than they reduced power consumption, and they often did not work on existing ballasts. The engineers had such a difficult time even getting them to start that they had to add a coating of tin to the lamp to increase the capacitance enough to encourage the initial arc. They also need to be close to the metallic reflector for the same reason. After they appeared on the market, ballasts were designed to accomodate them. Ballasts would state that they operated 34w lamps, if they could do so. Still, they were a poor idea. The 25w 48" T12 lamps sold here in the U.S were created solely because of a 28w limit. When the F40T12 lamps were being legislated to be more efficient, the government allowed lamps below 28w to still be manufactures and sold. Lighting manufacturers came out with a 25w lamp design to be put in 25w shoplights as a result of the legislation. They, too, are really, really lousy - too dim to be useful. I have seen you say that the T12's are old, inefficient and dying technology, in different words however. In reality, the F40T12, when using the SAME phosphors and manufacturing techniques as the current triphosphors, are slightly MORE efficient than the F32T8 lamps. I could go into great detail here (and quote the lamp deigners themselves), but basically the T8s are currently preferred for 2 reasons. Mainly, the lamps have much less surface area to coat with the better, expensive phosphors(cost), and second, the luminaires and reflectors have improved illumation possibilities with the narrower tubes(design). There definitely are very good, expensive, T12's on the market with as good efficiency as the T8's. And, more T12's are showing up as they improve their efficiency to meet government standards. To see exactly what I mean go to http://groups.google.com/group/sci.engr.lighting and in the "Search this group" enter the search term "10 watts per foot". You will learn a lot from the results. Victor Roberts is a PHD Lighting Engineer who designed many GE lighting products. Jeff Waymouth is a PHD Senior Lighting Engineer for Sylvania, his father was also very well known in the field. Terry McGowan is the Manager for Worldwide Application Development for GE Lighting and Director of the Engineering & Technology for American Lighting Association. There are others in this newsgroup who also design the products you buy. These discussion are untainted by any Marketing or Third Party Resellers. You might even search for "Zink" in this newsgroup. Zink

Based on their advertised useful life - I've recently seen a unit which claims a "design life" of 50,000 hours to 70% of rated light output - LEDs are still more expensive per hour of use than CFs. A typical good CF will provide 10,000 - 12,000 hours of service with 10-20% loss of output. The best linear fluorescents will provide 20,000 - 30,000 hours of service. (Instant start is toward the low end of this range and programmed rapid start toward the high end.) More to the point, LED units available for real world use are still less efficient than good CFs. In fact, some are barely any more efficient than incandescent lamps. Many don't achieve California Title 24 requirements. They also are dim. You'll see LED downlights advertised that can supposedly replace 100 watt incandescents. However, when you really dig into the published specs, you find that these "100 Watt equivalents" barely provide as much light as a 40 watt bulb. LEDs are improving, however. In another 5 years I think they're apt to match or even exceed the efficacy of CFs. They might even beat the best linear fluorescents, which would be quite an accomplishment. I expect it will take yet another 5 years beyond that to get LEDs' price down to where they will become cost effective for residential use. If researchers can stretch LEDs' service life further, the break-even point may happen somewhat sooner for commercial settings where relamping labor is an issue.

I tried some of the very expensive dimmable cfl bulbs (I borrowed them from a fixture in another room). They still flickered, whch probably means that the remote receiver modulates too slowly (ie cheap defective design). It would also be prohibitively expensive (approx $160) to fully populate the four-socket fixtures on both fans with this problem. The ceiling fan is independent of the remote control receiver, which fits inline at the ceiling wiring connection. I'd buy another remote receiver in a heartbeat if I could find one with no dimmer on the lights. Unfortunately all of the receivers have this "feature" which makes them unusable with cfl bulbs. Very frustrating. I'm paying someone $100 to come out and remove the remote receivers this weekend. I can't reach them myself because they are on a 15 foot cathedral ceiling. Arrgh!

many, maybe most, manufacturers exagerate the performance of there products. It's gotten to the point where it's self defeating and self perpetuating. If the manufacturer was honest and said it only put out 900 lumens, you would assume it really only put out 700 lumens, you would buy the competitors bulb who advertised 1100 lumens, (assuming correctly that it would put out 900 lumens). most manufacturers lie, most consumers know they are lying, The government appoints committees to study the problem. The merry go round is going too fast nobody can get off.