Fluorescent light bulb burned out and stunk up my whole apartment. What is that smell? Am I contaminated with

Question

deadly carcinogens and toxins now?

It happened early this morning, i left the bulb on all night and i woke up to this acrid, almost smoky smell, but there was no smoke. It turned out to simply be a burned out flurescent bulb. I replaced it with a new fluorescent bulb and everything is fine.

But that smell was so gross, i had a dream that i was inside a fire, even though I wasn't.

I hear that those things are full of mercury, arsenic, lead, and cadmium. I guess now my lungs are too :(

When should I start making arrangements for my own funeral??

:((

Answer 1

It was probably the smell of plastic burning.  Fluorescent bulbs need a brief high voltage current to start up but then run on lower voltage.  The bulb may have burned out but the ballast might have continued to try to light the bulb, and melted some plastic.

As long as the glass was not broken, the small amount of mercury inside is safely contained.

Compact fluorescent bulbs have more than a few problems that are glossed over.  Like the one you found.  I don't have any in my home, and I don't know why anyone would install them.

Electricity for incandescent bulbs is not a significant part of the overall cost of owning and maintaining a home.  Unless your home is lit up like a christmas tree 24/7.

The mortgage, taxes, insurance, air-conditioning, etc. are higher, much higher, up the list of expenses.

Answer 2

The burning smell is almost certainly from the plastic enclosing the electronics in the base of the CFL melting. The mercury in the sealed glass tube probably didn't escape and it wouldn't smell like that even if it did.

Answer 3

Stay with Incandescent or LED in the future....then... Or just don't keep a flourescent on all night.

Answer 4

Shut the power off and take the cover off of the fixture. Inside you will find a transformer (usually black in color). I believe you will find that something has leaked out of the transformer because the transformer got too hot. It may have to be replaced. It is sometime cheaper to replace the whole fixture. If that proves to be the case, you can replace it with a fixture with an electronic ballast (transformer) and it will cost less to operate than the old one.

Unless you really know what you are doing, I'd hire it done.