When you look at what goes into a good quality electronic fluorescent ballast for T8 lamps, and what it costs, you can understand why a $2 integrated bulb and ballast has reliability problems. The design of these cheap CFs is cut to the bare minimum to make the light work without catching fire. The components used are the cheapest possible. The labor is from people working in the most abysmal conditions for pay that most of us would consider starvation wages. It's no surprise that these folks might not be as careful as they should when assembling the CFs. Fifteen years ago, the CFs I was buying were made in the US, Germany, Mexico, and Poland. They cost $15-20 each. Ten years ago, similar CFs were around $10-15 each. When you look at the electricity they saved, and the hours of service they gave, these costs were reasonable. In fact, many of those units lasted for years. I just recently replaced one of the Philips Earth Lights that I bought in 1994, and a Philips Marathon tri-tube from 1999. Other than a couple of Lights of America products, I never had a CF fail in under a year until I bought a few cheap Chinese-made CFs for one of my rental properties in 2005. (One of them died within minutes of first use.) I'm glad I stocked up on these older CFs when they were still available. I probably have a lifetime supply. For years I recommended the Mexican-made tri-tube Philips Marathon CFs (mentioned above). These cost around $10 as recently as 2006, and IMO were worth it for their reliability. There was a dimmable version which worked passably well (I have a few here). Now they're nearly impossible to find. I'm afraid they're out of production. Though I probably won't ever need to buy any more CFs, I would like to hear from others who have had good experiences with newer CFs. Please be specific about brands and models.

The way I see it is: the LED bulb manufacturers are pumping out the LED bulbs like there's no tomorrow, thinking everyone is going to run out and spend the high price they have put on their product. But, the buying public is smarter than that, (thanks to the internet). Soooo, the warehouses are filling up with LED bulbs that aren't selling. Eventually, the manufacurer has to drop the price to a point that the customer is going to realize a savings in energy use, compared to the cost of the bulb, "IN A REASONABLE TIME PERIOD". I mean HEY, if the bulb costs me $46, and I won't recoup that money, in energy savings for 72 years, then I'm not going to buy them. That's the way I see it. We just need to relax, and eventually the price of LED lighting will drop to a logical/sensible price. And the manufacurers realize they will only make a 50% profit, instead of a 2,000% profit. It's just the old law of: 'Supply and Demand'. But, if people are willing to go out and spend $46 for an LED bulb that is the equivalent of a 100 watt incandecent bulb, then things will go on as they have.

Go with LEDs. They now have a range of color and can be ordered as warm white, similar to an incandescent. The incandescent bulbs will have limited availability and then disappear. From a Fox New article of 12/13/2013, incandescents are limited to stock on hand after 1/1/2014 "It’s lights out for the light bulb. On Jan. 1 [2014] it will become illegal to manufacture or import traditional 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent bulbs, thanks to a 2007 bill that set strict minimum efficiency standards – and effectively outlawed the ordinary bulb." A caveat: LED bulbs have short lives in totally enclosed fixtures. Heat greatly shortens the life of the LED. You may know LEDs work on 1.5 to 3V, so it needs circuitry to drop the house 120V to that voltage. LED bulbs styled to replace incandescents have the circuitry concealed in the base of the bulb. Both the circuit and the LED create heat. That 10 or 20 watts in a totally enclosed fixture can really raise the temp. LED dies in less than a year. This does NOT happen in table lamps with open shades because there is free air flow. It happens less in open cup fixtures that face either up or down. It does not happen in enclosed fixtures designed with integral LEDs because the circuitry is outside the glass enclosure.

If it is 75 watts, I'm confident it isn't LED. Plus 10 years ago, LEDs were still new and very expensive. How many ceiling lights do you have? You might be better off replacing all of them at once. If two of them have failed, the rest probably aren't far behind. If you are willing to do that, you don't need to worry about matching the color temperature and CRI of the existing lamps exactly, as long as you get the characteristics you are going for. Unless you have some inherent bias against LEDs, you should switch over. They use so much less energy, and they last 10 times longer than an incandescent so you may never need to change them again. If you do go LED, you will need to know what light output to get (measured in lumens). A 75 watt incandescent is equivalent to 1100 lumens of light output. If it is halogen, it's probably closer to 1600 lumens. Here's some useful info about floodlight bulb types from https://www.conservationmart.com/blog/index.php/understanding-the-difference-between-a-par-30-and-br-30-bulb/ ------------------------------- BR (for bulged reflector) bulbs are lamps with “wide flood” beam angles, which means that they provide more than a 45 degree angle when lighting an area. PAR (short for Parabolic Aluminized Reflector) bulbs are available in these angles: Narrow spot, 5-15 degrees Spot, 16-22 degrees Narrow flood, 23-32 degrees Flood, 33-45 degrees Wide flood beam, over 45 degrees The numbers after PAR and BR, like 30, stand for 1/8th of an inch. To find the diameter of the lamp, just divide the number after it by 8: e.g., the diameter of a BR 30 bulb is 30/8ths of an inch, or 3.75 inches in diameter. -------------------------------------- So Oakley, measure the diameter of your bulb and figure out how many 8th of an inch it is. It seems like BR30s are pretty common for recessed cans, Amazon has crappy filters for buying light bulbs because it offers thousands of them but doesn't let you filter by anything useful, like wattage or lumens or technology or type of floodlight. I suggest you try either one of the specialty lighting vendors online (100Bulbs.com, Lightbulbs.com) or someplace like Home Depot (their website is pretty good; light bulbs are under electrical rather than lighting). Or take your lamp to a Home Depot and find someone with an orange apron.