So back to typing and reading I went, when I started to smell something burning. Something electrical or plastic. "Oh, good grief, Charlie Brown! What could it be?" The smell was getting stronger and beginning to burn my eyes, so I hurried to turn things OFF. The computer, the power strips, everything.
I STILL smelled plastic burning. So I opened the office window and walked to the hallway to make sure it wasn't coming from somewhere else in the house. Then to the barn alleyway to make sure it wasn't coming from out there. Nope... seems to be strongest in the office. Called Jim, but he was in a meeting. "Great!" I sighed and plopped back into my chair and told myself, "I DO NOT want to call the FIRE DEPT!"
Looking up, as I'd already dug all around under the desk, I decided to turn on the ceiling fan to blow some of the fumes out...and that was my light bulb "Aha" moment. Right there, IN the ceiling fan was a smoldering and smoking fluorescent bulb! Here was the culprit. You can see the burned black plastic.
I wondered how common this was - as this bulb was supposed to last 7-10 times longer than the old bulbs...AND how safe they really are. As you can imagine there is a plethora of info on the net. Suffice it to say, environmental wise no one is really sure what outweighs what. Everyone agrees that the mercury is definitely not good. And if they don't last any longer, are they really better in the long-run? Many articles warmed not to use them around kids. Well, guess the jury is still out. I for one, am sure I don't want to have another one burn out while I'm gone, let alone be here to smell those fumes.
1 comment:
Yikes...it's a good thing you were home! Nick and I have been replacing all our bulbs with those in effort to 'go green' and we also believed that they lasted a lot longer. However, in our experience, these have been burning out faster than the old bulbs we replaced them with! What gives????
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