Fluorescent Lights

I strongly suggest using fluorescent light bulbs. The money saved is a better investment than the stock market even. When people say "I hate the flickering and the color" that is becuase they are used to standard fluorescent lights at businesses. Household fluorescent lights are called "compact fluorescents" and their behavior is nearly indistiguishable from normal incandescent lightbulbs, except for the electricity and money and time saved. Halogen lightbulbs are also incandescent lightbulbs, just a little more efficient, but good for outdoor lighting where fluorescent bulbs might not hold up well (Fluorescents operate at -20 F to 120 F ). LED lights are slightly more efficient than incandescents also, but are generally only good for very small and beams of light such as flashlights. Incandescents get even more inefficient as the bulbs get smaller, so LEDs are good for little nightlights or small flashlites. Standard fluorescent lights are the very most efficient, but their color, slight flickering and hum irritate ppl, so they arent bad for stores and garages and such. I switched several lights in my house to fluorescent, and none of my roommates noticed until I said something about it a month later. You only need to know a couple of things when finding fluorescent lightbulbs. Get a compact fluorescent bulb rated at 2700K or 2700 Kelvin for color temperature (sometimes referred to as "Warm White"), this is identical to the light color for regular incandescent lights.

You save tons of money in the end with fluorescent lights because they last 10 times longer and are about 4 to 6 times more efficient than incandescents...and you dont have to change them as often. The amount of money saved will grow as energy costs rise into the future. Not to mention all the environmental help due to less use of electricity. There are some myths out there which I will try to debunk. With the ealiest fluroescent lights (like in the 50s) ppl were told not to turn them on and off a lot, as this will make them not last as long. Modern fluorescents don't really have this problem. It's true that flicking them on and off a lot will cut down on their lifespan, but its nearly insignificant. Also, fluorescents are most efficent when they are on longer than a couple seconds. Modern bulbs fix this too, because the inefficiency lasts something like a 1/10 of a second at the start, so its not really an issue. Another thing is that fluorescent bulbs have a very tiny amount of mercury in them which is extremely toxic. I hear that you can find places that will recycle flourescents, but i havent found any. If anybody finds one that recycles or disploses of them better let me know. But the big thing is that incandescent bulbs usually release a lot more mercury into the system, even though they dont contain mercury, because they use so much more electricity, and most electricity in the states comes from coal plants. Coal plants release a bunch of mercury into the air.

One last thing, when buying, pay attention to the dimensions of the lightbulb, some are bigger than others. "Mini-Spirals" are slightly smaller than incandescents, and should fit where needed.

As usual, if you've found conflicting research, lemme know so we can try to understand this better.