Personally, I've had no practical problem using the standard lighted switches with CFL bulbs but I am willing to put up with the flicker as the switches are in an unimportant area. The reason why they flicker is each CFL bulb has an electronic circuit in the ceramic base so you don't have to install a balast circuit in every lamp and fixture in your home. This is also why they cost more. You are basically throwing away a complete flouresent light fixture when you change these bulbs. Anyway, the reason the switches flicker is that there is a capasitor in the circuit that keeps charging and discharging through the little neon bulb in the switch. I had a CFL bug light on my back porch and when I was outside looking at the stars at night, I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye. I stared at the bug light for a while and it was flashing every few minutes as the high voltage circuit in the bulb would charge to it's ignition threshold then fire the bulb and start the cycle all over again.
Good luck.
Jeff

You cannot use standard electronic dimmer switches with CFL bulbs, only incandesant bulbs! That is why you are getting the flickering.

With CFL's bulbs installed in a light fixture that has a non-flouresant rated dimmer switch on that circuit, you will cause the standard dimmer to fail.

You have to look at the dimmer package (sometimes printed on the back of the dimmer itself too) to see if it can be used with CFL bulbs,as many are not rated for use with anything other than standard incandesant bulbs.


Hope you found this very helpful and best regards!

I had the same issue the Switch was blinking not the CFL lights and I can say that it is because of the CFL bulbs. When I replaced the bulbs with regular bulbs it stopped flickering. I can live with the slight flickering just wanted to make sure I did not connect some wire wrongly..

I had this problem and this site helped (I just changed the bulb to "old style" ) http://willnicholes.com/cflswitches.htm

I would say the switches are bad.
I have replaced several switches that have gone into the flicker mode. Problem being the neon gas escaped from the bulb over time because of a bad seal around the electrodes. Some are "bad" from the factory.

Test this by using a regular type incandescent bulb. If the switch flickers, then it's bad. Try the CFL, compact florescent bulb in another area where you have a switch like that installed and it was working properly.
It may be the electronics of the CFL do not pass enough power to the neon lamp in the switch.