If you don't live in a cave, then you've heard how inefficient standard incandescent & halogen lights are, which mean they use a lot of energy and produce a lot of heat, which you then have to spend more energy to remove that extra heat from your house. These types of light bulbs have been deemed so bad that some countries (like Australia) have already banned their sale to force the population to use more efficient bulbs, mainly fluorescent that are commonly called Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs). These are the bulbs that often have a twisty spiral shape but with a standard light bulb socket. While CFLs tend to use about 1/3 or 1/4 the power of a comparably bright incandescent bulb, they have the disadvantage of: 1) taking a bit of time to "warm up" to full brightness (I've experienced anywhere from 20-90 secs depending on type), 2) typically a cooler light output (think more white/blue compared to the slightly yellow light of an incandescent), 3) shortened lifespan if cycled on-off often (though still a much longer life than average incandescents), and 4) contain small amounts of mercury, which is a nasty chemical and thus must be disposed of as toxic material in an approval recycling center. As such, I do not recommend using CFLs absolutely everywhere.
Side note: the ultimate light bulb is the LED bulb instead of CFLs, which have all the advantages of incandescents without any of the disadvantages. But those suckers are rather expensive, and they're not yet capable of the light output we have become used to receiving from incandescents or CFLs. I have no doubt that time will address this, but I would guess we're still 1-2 years out from them being a reasonable replacement for CFLs. We seem to be getting there, but you're still talking $17 for a standard bulb or $45 for a flood light bulb. I actually took the plunge and tried some of these in my house and am quite happy with them. You can check out my blog for a review on the Home Depot EcoSmart LED bulbs coming soon!
In my house, I have a mixture of both CFLs and incandescent bulbs, along with usage of motion sensing, automatic light switches and dimmers to further reduce cost while maintaining a wife approval factor (she hates how long the CFLs take to warm up and become fully bright) and longevity of the bulb life. Here's how I have it setup:
CFLs: these go in any location that tends to leave the lights on for 10 minutes or longer at a time. CFLs are not used in the hallways, bathrooms or closets where the lights tend to only be on for 1-2 minutes before being cycled off, or where immediate full brightness is needed to serve its purpose. They are used in my kitchen, living room, bedrooms, kids' playroom, garage, and exterior light at the front door. These are all placed where my wife can live with the slow warm up time, and the bulbs tend to last a while because they are not undergoing a lot of on-off cycles in a day. For extra bonus, you can install a "manual on, automatic off" light switch in these rooms using CFLs, so that the light will automatically turn off after a pre-determined time that you can adjust. I put one of these in my kids' playroom, because kids tend to not be disciplined about turning off lights when they leave a room.
Here's an example of a Manual on, auto off occupancy light switch.
I have also replaced all the bulbs in my lamps (like those ceiling facing "torch" style floor lamps) with CFL bulbs as well, and am very satisfied. You can get CFLs that are super bright and they tend to actually turn very bright upon getting first turned on, and reach full brightness rather quickly.
For recessed lights, you can replace those PAR30 type flood light bulbs with equivalent CFLs that are the same PAR style, or you can just screw in a standard twisty in there. Personally, I would prefer to use the twisty because they 1) come in a wide variety of wattages, like up to 30 watts (compared to PAR style CFLs that tend to max out around 18 watts), 2) are cheaper, and 3) start off quite bright when first turned on and reach full brightness quickly (so much that one does not really think they have a "warm up" problem. However, my wife thinks they twisties look ugly, so I ended up with the PAR style which are not as bright and do have a more compromised warm up cycle.
Incandescents: as mentioned above, the hallways, bathrooms and closets still use these bulbs. In the hallways, we're pretty good about simply turning them off when we don't need them (usually only needed for about 1 minute while we look for a jacket in the hallway closet). But in the bathrooms and closets, I use an automatic on/automatic off light switch.I got this idea from my office which has these kinds of switches in all the stairways and offices, since the company where I work is known to be a leader in green energy and environmental leadership (our buildings are LEED Platinum certified, even the cleaning chemicals are all low VOC and biodegradable). The deal is that the lights automatically turn on as soon as someone walks in, and automatically turn off about 1 minute after the person leaves. It has a very sensitive infrared sensor that looks for anything with heat that is moving. In addition, they have the ability to not keep the lights off even when motion is detected if it senses that there is a relatively large amount of ambient light (i.e. sunlight). This works brilliantly in one of my bathrooms that gets lot of morning sun- I walk in, and the light switch keeps the lights off because there's enough sunlight to do my thin. These vacancy light switches are highly adjustable to your liking. You can adjust: how long it stays on after it last detects motion (I set mine rather short, around 1 minute), what level of ambient light will cause it to override and keep the lights off. Of course, these switches have manual override controls as well, so they can hit a switch to force it off, force it always on, or go into automatic mode. These switches are not cheap (about $20-30 each), but I'd like to think they'll pay for themselves. Even if not, it's not a terribly high price to pay to save energy and even make your trips to the bathroom completely switchless.
A few important shortcomings regarding these automatic vacancy light switches:
- They cannot see through glass shower stalls or shower curtains, since these materials (including clear glass) filter out the infrared light spectrum. As a result, they will turn off if you're taking a shower and you set them to a fairly short auto off time like me. Personally, this does not bug me because I have a dedicated light in the shower area. But if this bothers you, you will need to remember to put the light into a manual on mode during your shower.
- They tend to only detect relatively significant motion. These things are not exactly military grade security motion trackers. This means that if you set it up to turn off after a relatively short period, it may turn off while you're sitting on the can doing #2 unless you tend to be fairly animated while doing your business. For me, this means that I'll have to wave my hand to bring the light back on, and I've learned to live with that. Your other options are to: 1) put it into manual on mode while you're doing your thing, or 2) give it a longer auto off time. But if you're one of those people who like to read a few chapters while sitting on the can, maybe you should actually use CFL bulbs. May I also recommend keeping a healthy stock of Preparation H?
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