Do dead CFL or LED light bulbs consume power and is it safe to leave them mounted?

Question

Do burned-out CFL or LED light bulbs consume power when the switch is on?
Is it safer to keep them in their sockets, removed or slightly unscrewed so the bottom center contact isn't touching?

I replaced some dead CFLs with brighter LEDs with roughly the same wattage and thought keeping the other old bulbs in their chandeliers will provide coverage preventing short circuit if a grasshopper or a nail choose to go inside one of these roof facing sockets and the chandeliers look better when not missing some bulbs.

Answer 1

There's different way these things can fail, and in most, they might still be using power.

I've seen all three:

• failure modes where the bulb "shut down" and used totally insignificant amount of powers,
• failed bulbs that used way less power, since they had no emitter to drive, and
• failed bulbs where the built-in supply was constantly trying to drive a shorted, failed emitter (array) and got hot and probably used more power than when it used to work.

They should be pretty safe to leave mounted, otherwise they not generally safe to begin with.

Typically, countries have electronic product regulations that say something like "user-exchangeable devices mustn't pose a risk at the end of their life", but it's usually a bit more complicated and depends on the country.