Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) Bulbs: Brighter and More Improved Than Ever

Sometimes it isn't so easy being green - you have make sacrifices, right? That is a common belief about green living that is sometimes a bum rap. The fact is that there are many things we can do to save energy, lower our environmental impact, etc. with little or no sacrifice. The technology options available to help us be greener change all the time and this can lead to confusion. A good example of this can be seen in what has happened with compact fluorescent lighting (CFL). Fluorescent lights have been around for a long time, but early versions of this technology had a number of problems and limitations: the pale white color, noticeable flickering, limited choice of bulb shapes and sizes, and the need for an external "ballast" circuit are but a few. Even though they used much less electricity (about one-third of the amount used by similar brightness incandescent bulbs) they were not very popular.

Then along came versions of these bulbs that came to be known as CFLs which overcame many of these problems. CFLs were available in sizes that could replace ordinary incandescent bulbs and could be screwed into normal lamp sockets. They were widely recommended for their energy savings and long lifetimes. However those early CFLs also had poor color (pale light instead of the "warm" tones of incandescent bulbs), and they suffered from other problems that were not so well documented. For example, the fact that they had a delayed "startup" time was one annoying problem that I encountered when I first tried them. Even though a given CFL bulb may be advertised as having the same brightness as a 65-watt incandescent bulb (but use only 13 watts of electricity), it may take as long as a minute or two to reach that "full brightness" and in the meantime is noticeably dimmer. Another problem for some people was that the CFLs only came in that tell-tale curly spiral-shaped bulb, which true environmentalists might be proud to have in their exposed light fixtures but which most people just find goofy-looking. And when you replace a "reflector flood" type of bulb in a recessed ceiling fixture with one of those spirals, you not only get the goofy look but you also lose the beam concentration which makes the light appear even dimmer than it is.

Well I'm happy to report that all of these problems seem to have been addressed in the latest round of improved CFL designs. First, there are a variety of color options available: you can get all manner of "warm" or "cool" CFLs which do a good job of approximating the incandescent spectrum or even improving on it. Secondly, CFLs are now available in closed-in designs that are almost indistinguishable from their incandescent counterparts. And they are also available in reflector flood formats that duplicate the concentrated beam patterns of those bulbs. The startup delay times have been reduced, but can still be significant. However here's a good tip that people surprisingly overlook: there's no rule that says you have to replace a given incandescent bulb with the "equivalent" wattage CFL. No, you can get a higher wattage CFL that gives out more light than the bulb you are replacing, yet still uses much less electricity! You might be afraid to do that because your light fixture may say something like "75 watts maximum". Well if you replace that with a "100 watt equivalent" CFL are you creating a fire hazard? Not at all-- the CFL will only use about 20 watts of electricity and actually run at a cooler temperature than the 75-watt incandescent.

These new options make selecting your CFL model more complicated. A good web site that I have found for helping with the choices is from the environmental defense fund.