The blog at ranchrevival

Yes, we’ve got the glow, again.

The original love affair I had with compact fluorescent lighting was short-lived, years ago, as I discovered I couldn’t stand the flickering, especially in my reading lamps. I felt guilty, environmentally speaking, but I ditched ‘em, and it took me a long time to even consider coming back. But it’s time. Compact flourescent lighting (known as CFL) technology has come a long way in the last decade, and of course, my original reasons for switching are even more compelling now: energy savings, environmental benefits, and a little more left in the wallet each month.

The three bulbs we installed today are the GE “energy smart,” brand, Energy Star rated 13 watt CFLs, the equivalent of 60 watts, incandescent. Each bulb is supposed to save about $38 in energy costs over the life of the bulb which GE projects should be about 5 years (8,000 hours, or 8 to 10 times longer than a regular incandescent) if burned an average of four hours a day at an electric rate of 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Because these bulbs last longer, meaning we’ll need to change them less frequently, we’ve started our conversion by switching out places that are either hard to reach or have long burning times: the hallway ceiling fixture and the front and back porch fixtures. The hall ceiling fixture is inconvenient to reach, and the porch lights usually burn all night.

These CFLs aren’t cheap, but we figure if we’re replacing incandescents all the time, which we’ve had to do with the porch fixtures, that’s not cheap, either, so if these little babies work as advertised, we’ll save a bit on the electric bill each month and won’t have to buy new bulbs for a while (just for grins, I’m recording the install date on my calendar so I can track exactly how long they last), and while we’re at it, I guess we’ll even get to reduce the size of our carbon footprint by a tiny bit. A good feeling all the way around.