Earlier this week, I was at a Sierra Green Building Association meeting at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences-A LEED Platinum building in Incline Village, NV.  Wow!  That's a blog in itself.   We had a green panel that answered questions from the docents and staff at TCES.  When there was a question about compact fluorescent lights, I realized there was a lot of outdated information amongst the panelists.

Having recently helped with a CFL giveaway in Truckee, sponsored by Truckee Climate Action Network, I've learned more about light bulbs than I ever imagined!  They provided the local community with 2100 CFL's.  There is a CFL for most light fixtures and lamps. 

There are round light bulbs that replace the vanity bulbs that are found in a lot of bathrooms.  Imagine how many watts you are using when you turn on a fixture that has 3 or more incandescent bulbs!  One of my remodel projects had so many bulbs at the vanity, I didn't even have to turn on the heat to warm it up...just turn on the lights and in a few minutes the bathroom was warm!

There are floodlights for can lighting applications and also those for outdoor and moist area use.  They are even making dimmable bulbs, candelabra style and three-way bulbs.  Some can only be found in specialty lighting stores, but many are on the shelves of places you may normally shop.  The light quality ranges from bluish to yellowish to whitish.  I'm told those that are 2800 Kelvin are closest to incandescent light.  Some flicker when they are first turned on, but the ones that I've installed don't, they do seem to get brighter the first minute or two they are on.

CFL's are expected to last up to 12,000 hours, that's approximately 10 times longer than your incandescent bulbs.  Costs appear to vary widely.  In some of the big chains, I've seen amazing prices because one of the utility districts or the chain provided a rebate that made the cost less than incandescent.  They use 75% less electricity (so a 100W CFL actually uses 25W).  My utility district has done a spreadsheet based on their rates that show $$$ saved per month if you change out as few as 2 bulbs.  It's substantial!

It was encouraging to have so many people that came thru the store where we were doing the giveaway to say they'd already changed to CFL's and no thank you, they didn't need to take any more because they lasted so long!  One of the women that came thru the giveaway said she moved her bulbs from rental to rental.  They'd moved every time she did in the last 5 years!

One thing to keep in mind with CFL's is that there is a small amount of mercury in them so they need to be recycled properly and not just thrown away.  I'm told it's about 1/100 the mercury that used to be in thermometers.  Remember the kind we used to break open and "play" with the mercury inside?  I seem to remember our science teachers actually promoting the concept.... Am I dating myself?  On the bright side (pun intended), with them lasting so much longer, we shouldn't have to worry about the recycling aspect very often. 

And if you break one???  The EPA recommends these clean-up and disposal steps if you should break a CFL.

1.  Open a window and leave the room for at least 15 minutes.

2.  Remove all materials you can without using a vacuum cleaner. 
   -  Wear disposable rubber gloves, if available (do not use
        your bare hands).
   -  Carefully scoop up the fragments and powder with cardboard. 
   -  Wipe the area clean with a damp paper towel or disposable
        wet wipe. 
   -  Sticky tape (such as duct tape) can be used to pick up small
        pieces and powder.
 
3.  Place all cleanup materials in a plastic bag and seal it. 
   -  Deliver the broken bulb to a recycling station.

4.  The first time you vacuum the area where the bulb was broken,
   remove the vacuum bag once done cleaning the area (or empty
   and wipe the canister) and put the bag and/or vacuum debris, as
   well as the cleaning materials, in two sealed plastic bags in the
   outdoor trash or protected outdoor location for normal disposal.

So that's the latest I have on CFL's.  And I'm told that the number of xxx's it takes to change a CFL depends on location, location, location!