We have heard and read about the benefits of changing to fluorescent lighting, but just never really bought into it.  We thought that fluorescent lights were expensive to buy, put out an ugly white light, and probably wouldn't make a big enough differ in the monthly electric bill to warrant the cost.  What DID catch our interest, though was that they last longer.  With 14 foot ceilings in the living/dining area of our recently renovated "church home", the idea of going 5-7 years without changing bulbs was attractive!

With that in mind, we chose to change the lights in our living/dining area to compact fluorescents (a total of 26 bulbs).  It was right about the same time that we had electric central air conditioning added to our home.  As we got into summer and temperatures climbed, we expected our electric bill to climb, too.  As it turned out, we used 5 - 26% less for each of the last 5 months as compared to the same months last year.  We actually saved more than what it cost us to run air conditioning!

We have since changed all of our home lighting to fluorescent.  The best overall prices that we could find in our area were at Costco.  Costco's regular price for the compact fluorescents (60 watt equivalents) is currently $13.99 in our area for a pack of 10 ($1.40 each).  We have also found ‘specialty' fluorescents on sale at Fred Meyer recently for $1.99 per bulb instead of $4.99.  IKEA also offers a pretty good selection of specialty fluorescents.

A couple things that we have noticed are some bulbs have a delay in turning on ... others come on right away, but take a couple minutes to get to full brightness (especially the fluorescent flood lights).  Minor inconveniences, really.  But it's funny ... we're kind of looking forward to our next electric bill!

Patty & Scott Carroll - RE/MAX Equity Group, Vancouver WA