How to Best Use Cfl Bulbs When Updating Your Home Lighting

One of the best ways to reduce your homes energy footprint and overall electrical cost, is to start using fluorescent lighting in place of the standard incandescent. Fluorescent lights use much less energy than incandescent sources because they can produce more light for the same amount of energy. In addition, because this style of lighting is more efficient, it produced less heat and last much longer.

You might be thinking of the harsh large tube lighting completed with humming, flickering, and "corporate" feel. However, compared to these old fluorescent lamps, the new ones have much better qualities such as better color, smaller size, more cost efficient, and much more reliable.

You have two options when deciding to convert your lighting to fluorescents. You can either replace the existing incandescent light fixtures, or you can simply retrofit the existing fixtures by using a Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL). As you might have guessed, replacing your fixtures requires much more work, but is generally the "most efficient" option. This entails updating each of your standard fixtures to be dedicated to fluorescents. The second option is far easier and now-a-days has many different associated niceties. The CFL option allows you to simply screw in a new fluorescent bulb that has a ballast attached to the base of the lamp. For instance, you can simply remove an incandescent bulb from a lamp or other light fixture and screw in the new CFL bulb.

Converting to CFL bulbs poses some different challenges. You'll probably want to maintain the same amount of lighting that you had before the conversion. As a general rule of thumb, a CFL bulb produces 3 to 4 times as much light per watt as an incandescent. Most CFL packaging will tell you what the conversion is, for instance, 13 Watt CFL = 60 Watt fluorescent. Another thing to keep in mind is how a CFL will work with a dimmer switch. If you have a dimmer switch on the lamps circuit, be aware that a fluorescent light needs a special dimmer along with a special ballast that permits dimming. However, there are a few companies that are making CFL bulbs that can operate on standard dimmers. It should be marked on the packaging. Make sure to get these when using a standard dimmer.

The best place to start your conversion is a place where you always have lights on. Maybe this is an office, kitchen, or recreational room. You may even want to consider other areas where a large number of bulbs are used at once, such as a ceiling fan or chandelier. In my house, our kitchen table has a chandelier over it with five light bulbs. This light is always on as a main source of lighting in the kitchen. This was the first place I looked at applying CFL bulbs. Other areas that should be high on the priority list are those annoying light bulbs that are hard to get to since the bulbs will last much longer, thus requiring less attention from you.

If you are interested in trying to figure out what your home's cost savings will be, you can follow these simple calculations:

Annual Energy Cost = (W x H) x 365/1000 x $.05*
where W = watts, and H = hours used per day

Annual Lamp Cost = (H x 365) / RRL x LC
where H = hours used per day, RRL = rated lamp life, and LC = lamp cost

Reducing your homes electrical consumption is not only good for your wallet; it's good for our planet. CFL bulbs reduce carbon emissions by requiring far less energy from our energy grid. Help yourself and our planet at the same time by switching to CFL wherever possible.

* $.05 is an average; use your actual electric rate.

This article has been provided by MyTableLamp.com, a leader in offering discount table lamps. They provide a wide range of lighting styles such as Holiday Lighting. MyTableLamp.com hopes you'll keep the planet in mind when lighting your home. Only together can we save our planet!