Switching From Incandescent To CFL

I am always looking to be as energy efficient as possible. One of the ways I go about this is to always use CFLs (Compact fluorescent lamps) whenever possible. I have seen these types of bulbs bring down electric bills, first hand.

When we moved in to this house, I knew I had my work cut out for me. This house is much larger than our last. In that house, I think I changed about 15 light bulbs from incandescent to CFL. I thought that was a real challenge and was quite proud of myself. Well, in this house, I already changed out over 20 bulbs and think I may have finished all of them, except for the dimmers. There are at least 20 more dimmer bulbs that need to be changed.

The problem is, I just read a bunch of reviews on dimmer (dimmable?) light bulbs on Amazon and they were not very good. People were saying that they buzz and flicker, to say the least. Some people said they burned out easily and didn’t work from the get go. I think I am going to wait on the dimmers, which kills me.

Just a word of advice about CFLs…when buying them to try to mimic a regular light bulb, go with the “soft white” ones. On most packages, you will see three choices. One is “daylight,” which you really don’t want, unless you want a very hard light. Another is “bright white,” which is pretty white and not that soothing for indoors. The last is “soft white,” which looks the most like a regular bulb. I bought the “bright white” and the “soft white” and the soft white looks much better.