Lights Out

Let me start this post by saying that in no way am I being paid to endorse the following product. I would if they offered but they haven't so....

Eight years ago next week Dave and I moved into our very first apartment. It was a cheap one bedroom economy apartment. We had a living room and kitchen on the bottom floor and a bathroom and bedroom upstairs. Of course Dave being the law enforcement junkie that he is wanted to make our apartment as safe as possible both day and night and that included using one of the oldest tricks in the book. Keep a light on in the living room over night to make it harder for criminals to sneak around unnoticed.

After two weeks of keeping our living room lamp on over night we had gone through a four pack of cheap light bulbs. While at Walmart doing our weekly grocery shopping we were in the isle with all the light bulbs and we noticed these really weird looking bulbs. It was a new product that General Electrics had come out with. The package stated that these light bulbs would last longer, up to five years, and save money on electricity. Doing the math in our head we decided that spending the extra money and buying that bulb would be a heck of a lot cheaper than buying hundreds of the regular kind over a five year period.



We went home that evening and placed this new light bulb in our living room lamp and it stayed there burning overnight every single night and a few hours each evening, even sometimes during the days when it's been cold and dark out for the past 8 years.

Yesterday evening around 6pm I turned the lamp on as the kids and I were leaving to go to Emma's gymnastics class. It wasn't dark out yet but I knew by the time we got home it would be and I didn't want to walk into a dark house. It stayed on the entire evening and was on when Dave and I went to bed around 11pm. When I got up this morning the living room was pitch dark. At first I thought that maybe Dave got up and turned the light off in the middle of the night. I came into the living room and turned the switch but nothing happen. I checked the plug but it was plugged in so again i tried the switch before I realized that our first GE Smartbulb had finally burnt out.

After eight years and what Dave and I have figured to be over 35,000 hours of burn time our light bulb finally died. It's kind of silly but I was a little sad this morning because that bulb has moved with us twice now and been around for everything. It even got a new home (lamp) this past spring which is much nicer than it's last one and now it's gone.

I was curious about how long these bulbs were really supposed to last so I did some research before I started writing this post and from what I have found the type of bulb we had should last between 6,000 and 12,000 hours. The longest lasting bulb they have only goes up to 15,000 so ours burned far more hours than these. If I can find a contact email address I think I may just have to email them to let them know just how long their bulb really lasted.

When Dave and I moved into this house we started replacing the light bulbs that burnt out with these energy saving bulbs. Our front porch light was the first one to be changed and it has been burning every night for almost 3 years now. We still have about three bulbs all of which are can lights that have not been replaced but we don't see a reason to take them out when they still work.

So if you don't own any of these bulbs go to the store and buy them so the next time your light burns out you can replace it with one of these awesome bulbs. I'm serious about this just based on how long they last you will save money but then you have to add it the fact that they don't use as much energy to use and they are better for the environment. So why not buy them!?!