Monday, June 9, 2008

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs


If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.--From the Energy Star Website

This is my first run on these. I only bought them for my office. I burn up a lot of bulbs in there mainly because the light is on about 10-16 hours each day (my husband I work alternating hours) and the main light source uses 3 bulbs.

I found "natural white" bulbs. I usually get headaches from the big long fluorescent ones if they don't have a shield of some kind so I have to play this one by ear.

It was a bit of homework to find which kind to use for my particular fixture. Don't just go shopping!! Read up on them first. I found that you should handle the bulb by the base and not touch the bulbs. And also, these should only be used in lights that will be on for a minimum of 15 mins. because switching them on and off makes them wear out faster.

The 3 pack I got was $7.99 at Meijer and the box says that each bulb will last 10,000 hours (at 10 hours a day they would last 1,000 days or 2 1/2 years!!! But for the average user (3 hrs per day) they'd last 9 YEARS). My sockets are for 60watt bulbs so the equivalent was a 13 watt fluorescent.

Ever tried them, how do they work as far as the light emitted? Could you tell the difference?

CHALLENGES: I don't like fluorescent light.
SUSTAINABILITY: Will be determined by my reaction to the light source.

1 comment:

Don said...

i've never tried 'em. i think i did walk into someone's home once, and saw a bulb similiar to the one in the picture. but i didn't think anything of it.

i too get headaches from the long fluorescent bulbs. whih also made my head ache.