I replaced every bulb in my house, cellar, and garage last fall with CFLs. To this point I see no difference in my bills. After thinking about it I realize that I never left a light on that wasn't being used. These projected savings depend greatly on how homeowners use thier lights before they replace them with CFLs. If you're the type of person who uses a minimum of light and doesn't leave lights on without a reason, I wouldn't bother to switch to CFLs because you won't live long enough to save any money or environment.

Something I never see factored in to the discussion about banning incandescents is the fact that the heat given off by incandescents may well be useful, especially if you live in the north and the building is electrically heated. Untill recently I lived in a home with resistace heating where I would tell my family during the heating season, 'don't bother turning off the lights when you're not using them, they're heating the appartment with the same electricity the heaters use at basically same 100% efficency.' Changing your bulbs may lower your electric bill, but expect your heating oil bill to go up in the winter.

Our local school district just paid a contractor many millions to replace "inefficient" lighting to save money on the power bill. The heating season is almost as long as the school year. Most of the electricity here is hydro power. All that equipment took energy to manufacture/ship/install and the junk takes energy to recycle and much of it gets landfilled 200 miles away. The payback period to install PV panels to power the inefficient lighting (using a 2 way meter on the grid) would probably have been less. As for helping global warming I would not be surprised if it was a net loss.

curleycue flourescents are nice...longlived...don't work well in cold hallways..save energy? maybe some..can't tell.

Unplugged electric oil heaters, huge diff in bill...almost cut in half.

Waiting for 12 volt computers and other electronics and perhaps a smaller microwave. Lighting is critical in the N. Hemisphere and vital to overcome SAD. Living in a dark house is depressing..and coming home to one is depressing.

The CFL type bulb may seem like an easy way to save money, and be more efficient, just screw them in.. well not quite.

They have limitations… Consider that they are not recommended for recessed lighting such as ceiling fans or recessed ceiling lights.. also most of them cannot be used in light dimmer circuits, in fact this will void the warranty.

They do not give the same amount of lighting as claimed. The amount of light produced equivalent to an incandescent bulb is guaranteed only for 40 percent of the CFL’s life span..

They contain mercury, though not much.. They cannot be disposed in the trash especially where trash in incinerated. So the expense of disposing them .. driving to the nearest disposal area may more than offset any savings.

They also give out less heat.
A recent study showed that in colder areas such as in the Northeast any loss heat by changing to CFLs would be made up by the home heating system.. So that alone would cancel any big advantage.

These lights bug my eyes! When I've worked for companies that use fluorescent lighting (rows and rows of them, enough to do surgery by) my eyes have suffered. Especially when driving home in the dark. I've seen references on-line to fluorescent lights contributing to cataracts, especially in blue-eyed people. Of course my eye doctor poo-poo-ed this question when I asked him about it, but the evidence I have (my own experience) tells me that there's more to the story than is apparent from a casual glance. As usual 'we' go rushing into something without thinking it through thoroughly...