If you or a friend are still waffling about CFLs, there's an excellent article over at our new favorite publication, Mother Earth News. Earlier this week, Steph blogged her sense of deja vu upon finding a stash of these magazines from the 1970's.
"Bright Ideas for Home Lighting" clearly explains why it's important to switch to CFLs, tackles the mercury issue head-on, explores LED lighting, and, amidst all this talk of artificial light, reminds us of the benefits of natural lighting.
The article answers a few tough questions, too.
For example: if you're leaving a room for ten minutes, is it better to leave your fluorescent lights on, or to turn them off?
The answer: if your goal is to save money, leave the lights on... provided you'll be back in less than 15 minutes. Every time you turn a fluorescent light on and off, you shorten its life, and fluorescent lights are fairly costly to replace. However, if your goal is to save energy, flip the switch.
When energy gets more expensive, these questions will be more clear cut. If you're ready to make the switch to CFLs, check out our tips before you go shopping.
An aside about LEDs: it seems they need a bit more time to be a practical and affordable source of light. According to this chart, which was published with the article, LEDs use 19% of the energy of a CFL... and produce 14% of the light. However, they do last a lot longer, which brings the overall cost down.
images via Mother Earth News article, as linked above
My problem with CFL is that they do not work for dimming. The majority of my lights dim and I've tried to use CFLs, however they flicker something awful. Any suggestions to deal with that issue?
view madteaparty's profile
hey madteaparty: they make dimming cfls. They are new on the market and don't work too well, but they exist. If you are having flickering CFLs, you either 1: used really old cfls, from a year ago (the newer ones dont flicker anywhere near as much as those old strobelights!) or two, your wiring in your house is having trouble with the CFLs. I have old house wiring that caused "strobing" in my CFLs a year ago, the new CFLs on the market do not cause me the same problems. However, I have one really old picky chandelier that will only take 3 cfls and 2 incandecents and will not strobe. Any more cfls than that, and it will. But as each month passes, I am able to get rid of one of the incans and replace it with a cfl.
view Amphetamine's profile
We chose to use as many LED lights as possible in an apartment building we are building because while they are costly, the sheer number of them and the length they last (especially when you are required to have them on 24/7 as per code) quickly equals out for an apartment complex.
view midnightskyfibers's profile
Where can one find dimming cfls? We've looked and come up empty. Most cfl packaging seems to specifically mention that it won't work in dimmers.
view CMcB's profile
A note about dimmer switches- dimmers are more prone to shorting out and waste electricity as well.
I suggest using lower wattage bulbs instead of dimmers
view michael d bailey's profile
That's not a solution for people who love dimmers! The whole point of a dimmer is being able to change the level of light. Having it at a low level constantly isn't likely to work in place of a much-used dimmer.
view Monkeyme's profile
We haven't used it, but Danny Seo claims to love this dimmable CFL. We trust his opinion... and plan to do a real-world test. Stay tuned.
http://hometech.apartmenttherapy.com/hometech/lighting/best-cfl-024950
view jonathanb - co-editor, AT/re-nest's profile