If Megaman stuff is failing that quickly it doesn't bode well for the cheap brands.
I replaced some GU10 halogen lights in the kitchen with Megaman low energy jobs and I think one failed pretty early on. The rest have lasted for probably 5 or 6 years, although I've noticed they now take an age to reach full brightness. I have some B&Q "own brands" alongside them, so we'll see how they compare.
There seems to be a bit of a bathtub curve with these. You get quite a lot of early failures, and those which survive seem to do well if they are a known brand.
I've got an outside light on a dawn-to-dusk switch with a 9W low energy bulb in, again a Megaman, I believe. I've only just had to change the bulb, and I reckon it'd been in there 8 years or so. It's on all night, so probably averages around 10-12 hours a day. That's a lot of hours.
When used within the house, though, I reckon they don't last any better than normal light bulbs.
I guess the answer is to leave them on (which makes them less energy saving, but probably not a bad idea given how long some of them take to reach a decent brightness).
The other thing that might be a factor is that the electronics is built down to a price, and gets really hot, especially in a light fitting. Most seem to fail at startup, although I've had a few that get slow to start and then start flickering. I wouldn't mind betting that on most the electronics gives up the ghost before the tube has reached the end of its' life.
Hopefully, these daft things will turn out to be a temporary measure before LED lighting gets more usable, but the latter has got some way to go before I'll be using it as I find the quality of light from LED devices about on a par with candles at the moment.
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Topic: Failure of low energy light-bulb ......... (Read 3526 times)