Along with their Christmas gifts, everyone in my family will receive one compact fluorescent bulb this year. And I hope they will make good use of it. I hope it will lead them to replace just one more bulb, and then one more…
If each household in the US replaced just ONE regular light bulb with an Energy Star bulb:
- enough energy is saved to light more than 3 million homes for one year
- save $600 million in energy costs
- prevents greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of 800 million cars
These CFL’s (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb) are a good way to start saving energy in your home. Here is more helpful information about these bulbs:
- CFL’s use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer
- Save about $30 during the life of the bulb
- Produce 75% less heat thereby lessening the cooling needs for a home
- Great for use in: family room, kitchen, living room, bedrooms, bathroom
- Research the sizes and shapes that you need in order to get to most from your new energy efficient bulbs
- Pick less wattage (see the GE website for a chart) for example: 60 watts requirement can use 15 watt CFL
- Get specially labeled CFL’s for dimmer lights and 3-way
- Not great for rooms where you turn lights on/off frequently (pantry, closets)
- Not great for lights that vibrate (ceiling fans & garage openers)
- These lights do flicker and take a few minutes to reach full brightness
- There is a small amount of mercury in CFL’s (size the tip of a ballpoint pen) – dispose of properly (use this link to earth911)
- If you break a CFL – also clean up and dispose properly (use this link to the Government site)
I hope that you will consider adding compact fluorescent bulbs to your shopping list this year. To help you out, we’ve created a cute little tag that you can access, print out, cut out and attach to your gift
Have a Very Happy and Bright Holiday!
