Valerie writes: “Someone in our family recently suggested that compact fluourescents weren’t worth it due to their high initial cost compared to incandescent light bulbs. We’ve switched all our lights to CFL, so my husband looked into the actual costs. I thought you might like the results” In this guest post, she lays out the numbers.
It makes good economic sense to switch from Incandescents to compact fluorescents (CFLs) — it’s not just a bunch of hype. Let me use our very conservative electrical bill to demonstrate how making the switch can save you money.
Our total consumption for July and August was 1195 kilowatt hours (kWh). This equates to 19 kWh/Day — far below the U.S. average of 29 kWh/Day. Part of this low consumption is because we’ve already replaced most of our incandescents with CFLs. But let’s say we haven’t, and assume that our electrical bill with incandescents is the same as it is now.
According to the American Lighting Association, lights account for 25 percent of a homeowner’s electric bill. But let’s assume they’re exaggerating, and put this to 20 percent.
Since we don’t use a lot of electricity in our household, 98% of all our electricity is charged at the lowest rate: $0.053 per kWh. About two percent is charged at $0.062 per kWh. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll just assume we get all of our electricity at the lowest rate.
Here’s the math:
- 20% of our total electricity consumption for 2 months: 1195 * 20% = 229 kWh for lighting
- 229 kWh charged at $0.053: 229 * $0.053 = $12.67 for lighting
- In our area, we also have the delivery, regulatory and debt retirement charges totaling $0.038 per kWh: 229 * $0.038 = $7.74 for lighting
If instead of using 60-watt incandescent bulbs we use 13-watt CFLs, we’ll be using 21.67% as much energy (13 watts divided by 60 watts is 0.2167). Applying this fraction to the cost of lighting, we now pay $2.75/month instead of $12.67, which saves us $9.92. Applying the other miscellaneous charges, we now pay $1.68 instead of $7.74, saving us $6.06. Using these numbers, we’re saving $15.98 per billing period.
It’s true that CFLs cost a lot more than incandescents, but their prices are dropping every day. Also, you can always get them on sale and/or use special coupons to get discounts. We replaced most of our incandescents in our house for around $85. (J.D.’s note: When we bought this house, we had a free home energy audit from Energy Trust of Oregon. They gave us six or seven CFLs for free!)
Even if, for the sake of illustration, we put the cost of incandescents at $0, CFLs will pay themselves off in just a few months. It’s been over a year now since we installed ours, and none have burned out. CFLs are rated for about seven years, which means that for the next six years, they’re saving us money. Even after stacking the cards against us, with the low electricity bill, paying the lowest rate, and assuming incandescents cost nothing, CFLs make sense.
Given that the bulbs should last seven years, we can expect to save at least $575.28, which isn’t bad for a couple of hours of work.
Michael Bluejay has an extensive page describing how to save electricity on lighting. Also, I sometimes see people worry at other sites that CFLs are not safe. Turns out this is mostly an urban myth.) Photo courtesy David Hobby of Strobist.
Addendum: One commenter pointed to this video that explains CFLs in plain English. Though CFLs contain less only 1% of the mercury found in the average home thermometer, they must be disposed of safely. For the best information about how to do this, contact your local solid waste department. You can take CFLs to any IKEA store to dispose of them. In the U.S., you can learn more about disposing CFLs at the EPA’s bulb-recycling web site.
This article is about Choices, Frugality, House and Home
Watch this:
http://www.commoncraft.com/cfl
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Frugality in practice: Using the public library…
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly . Most of us have financial blind spots…
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Here in San Francisco (and possibly other places), our power company PG&E has been subsidizing the price of CFLs periodically. I’ve seen packages of CFLs in both hardware and grocery stores at very special prices, usually something like 4 for $1. These subsidized prices don’t last forever, but I’m fairly certain that they’re part of a nationwide effort. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, PG&E sponsored a “Turn Out Your Lights” night here in SF which was duplicated in cities across the country.
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Actually, there is a kind of disabled people who can’t stay in any areas with fluorescent lighting. The buzz and flickering makes them overstressed and kills their functionality.
The people I’m talking about are autistic, and you can read about the issue in an excellent blog post “We need to remove this access barrier before it gets put up” by famous autistic rights advocate Amanda Baggs.
link to blog post: http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=301
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This weekend, I bought a 4-pack of “60″ watt CFLs for $6.99, or $1.75 each, at Home Depot. I don’t have many bulbs in my apartment–I now have 5 CFLs and 5 regular. I hope this will make a positive difference!
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CFLs are definitely worth it! When my husband and I were using regular light bulbs, they were burn out after only a few weeks. But since we’ve switched to CFLs, not one has gone out! So on top of saving money on the electric bill because of CFLs, we’re also saving money because we don’t have to replace bulbs every few weeks.
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I tried to replace all the incandescent bulbs in my home with CF bulbs, but found that more than a few of the appliances simply did not allow for CF bulbs due to the design of the shroud or screen. I suppose this will improve in time, but it was a bit frustrating becuase I’d estimate that nearly 1/3 of the devices had to stick to the conventional bulbs.
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We’ve been replacing every incandescent with CFL when it burns out. Unfortunately we have a couple bad bulb outlets that seem to burn out CFLs quickly (2 days to 2 months). Ah the joys of the 30 year old house.
Now, find a reader who can do the math on energy/money savings from replacing windows! We’ve got the original windows in this house which are single pane with aluminum frames and slides, bad sealing, and seep in cold air from outside all over the house.
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We have been swapping out CFL’s as lights burn out. We have only had one appliance that would not work with the cfl but I have already seen a difference in the energy costs.
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[...] Get Rich Slowly diskuterar flourescerande glödlampor. [...]
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Years ago I heard that flourescent lights use a lot of energy when you turn them on, so they only save energy if they stay on for at least an hour. Is that true of compact flourescents?
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I’ve also replaced as many lights as I can with CFLs. Out of the 15 or 20 that I put in, probably 3 or 5 have burned out way before the 7 year life statement.
Does anyone actually have bulbs that last this long?
Since they are getting so cheap, I guess it still doesn’t matter much if they last the quoted life because I’ll be saving more on electricity than a few replacement bulbs.
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One thing I’ve found out since I switched bulbs is that most CFL’s have a 3 or 5 yr warranty. If they go out before then, and you have your receipt, you can get them replaced for free. We haven’t had any go out yet, I’m hoping we won’t since I didn’t keep our receipts! (I’ll be keeping them for any new bulbs we buy)
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If “people” [a generic "people", but you know the organizations I speak of] REALLY wanted to help conserve energy, rather than these enviromental people taking out an ad for a presdential canidate, all they would have to do is take out 30-second commercials highlighting simple stats and how making a switch will save you money after x-months. Could this get any easier?
Rather than use scare tactics that we’ll all be under water if 30-years, the simplest and most effective way to reach the masses, is to tell them it will hit their wallet harder if they don’t make a change and in the process can help the enviroment in one of the many simple steps.
Great post, simple numbers and it’s this type of info that should be platered on billboards, not all the baloney. KISS works perfectly when dealing with this stuff.
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We’ve replaced some incandescents with fluoros, but we don’t have a plan to do all of them, for a few reasons
- they are really hard to find – either we can only get screwins when we want snapins, or vice versa
- they don’t fit in a lot of our light fittings – too long.
- the light quality is awful! The savings are nowhere near what they say , because you have to buy much higher wattage (or equivalent) than they say to be able to see in the room.
I personally dislike them because I *hate* lights that don’t come on when I snap the switch. That slight delay drives me nuts.
My quality of life is worth more than the savings.
I don’t know about elsewhere, but down here in Australia there is a government plan to phase out incandescents over the next few years (ie they will eventually be illegal)
This is a shame as there is work being done for energy efficient incendescents that will probably be available around the time the ban goes in
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I replaced all of the bulbs in my house for about $60 by going to Sam’s Club and getting them in bulk. We reduced our electric bill by $15/month, and we average about 1000kWh/month. The only bulbs that I did not replace are the lights inside the refrigerator, the oven, the range hood (which I could probably do), or the candelabra bulbs in our dining room that are little 40W bulbs. There are CFL bulbs for the candelabras, but they look hideous; we just try to minimize the use of that light.
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And I use CFL’s in my house, probably around 75% at current time, and I use them because they save me money and because I feel good using them.
I just bought 6-lightbulbs of varying sizes and wattages for $17 at a school fundraiser, bringing me up to neat 100% and I haven’t received them yet, but a local energy company puts on these events at schools. The light bulbs are one of the easiest things you can do to help out, if you feel inclined.
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I haven’t had much luck with CFLs. I bought two outdoor bulbs for my front door. I use an Intermatic timer to turn the lights on and off. I had read that CFLs don’t work well with timers, and that appears to be true. The lights did not work properly, and I had to switch back to incandescents. I also purchased some CFLs for some lamps, but none of them fit (they were all too tall; necessitating new harps and shades). Finally, I bought one for a ceiling light in my son’s room. I bought a model made specifically to work with a dimmer. It was terrible. I found that when I turned the dimmer down, the light became much “cooler” to the point where it looked like a standard flourescent light. It was unbearable. Bottom line: I like the idea of CFLs, but I don’t want “cool” light in my house. I think these bulbs still have a ways to go.
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We replaced our bulbs with CF bulbs and it does make a big difference on the bill. Easily worth the investment. We bought our first CF bulb in 1996 and it is still working great. Most of the ones we have are over 5 years old and I haven’t had any burn out yet.
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As a resident of Canada I know that the energy “lost” as heat from incandescent bulbs is actually welcome for about 9 months of the year since it contributes to heating a room that is in use. I still use CFLs though since I am usually more concerned with light from my lighting and leave the heating to my furnace.
The only concern I have about CFLs is their high mercury content. Since I am conscious of where my waste goes (especially hazardous waste) I would like to see a lot more public attention paid to the safe end of life disposal of CFLs. So much is spend on promoting their use but I think a lot of people are still unaware of the high mercury content and the need for safe disposal.
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I am not sure the pf economic breakdown of cfl’s but I can tell you that if they use less electrical energy then it’s got to be a good thing. The electrical grid is stressed, trust me, beyond belief. Think, you are lucky if the christmas lights go on. Think, not in my backyard for that transmission line. Think, we use more each year with no new equipment coming online. Think, if the power grid fails then no cool internets.
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I checked on the nearest haz-mat site for disposing of the mercury contaminated waste. 160 miles round trip! At 25 mpg, that is over 6 gallons of gasoline, at $3.00 a gallon, over $18 to dispose of one bulb responsibly.
However, I did keep the receipt and it is only 80 miles round trip to the store.
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My first bulbs were purchased about three years ago. I bought them because of the long life, the decreased energy costs were just a bonus. Of those, I have had one burn out. However, that bulb is on nearly 24/7, and it took it over two years to die. Since most bulbs are not used more than about 8 hours a day, my one that has died a natural death is pretty close to that seven year mark.
However, I have found them to be more fragile than regular bulbs. I’ve lost three or four from having them come apart at some point in the base, either where the glass attaches to the base, or on a seam in the base.
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I tried those CFLs, but the light that comes from them is so UGLY. I’m in an basement apartment with teeeeeny tiny windows, so I’ll skip the CFLs until they can figure out how to make the light a little less harsh.
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Great to see this “highlighted” –
A few points. Using CFLs lower your household CO2 emissions, since the electricity you consume is generated in many locales by the burning of fossil fuels – in Pennsylvania, dirty, dirty coal. So using them not only lowers your bill, bit lowers your ecological foot print.
1) they should be recycled at the end of life, because of their small mercury content. take back programs will expand. Currently Ikea will take back any brand.
2) watch out what the light description is. White or natural light is very, very harsh compared to incandescents which is very yellow and what we’re accustomed to. My husband freaked out the first time I put a cfl in a lamp, rather than in the basement or whatever.
A nice light is sylvania warm white 2700K, 13 watts which equals a 60 watt bulb. You can buy them in a contractor’s dozen box at Lowes, though not online.
Since I have replaced all my bulbs with CFLs in our house, I have taken to donating them and giving them as gifts, to increase their beneficial CO2 reductions.
http://moneychangesthings.blogspot.com/2007/01/cfl-bribes-practical-philanthropy.html
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Peter: I’ve seen that argument about bulbs giving off heat being good in cold climates over and over again. Your view of getting light from your lights and heat from your furnace is the right one. After all, a furnace is designed to *efficiently* produce heat, whereas a CFL is designed to *efficiently* produce light. An incandescent is rather inefficient on both accounts.
MissPinkKate: I’ve certainly run into my share of crappy CFLs (slow warm up, flickering, odd colored light), but there are good ones out there, too. Instead of throwing up your hands, try a few brands. You’ll be surprised at how good some of them are.
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You fail to disclose one of the most annoying symptoms of a switch to CFL bulbs…the “warm up” period that might be a deal breaker for some.
If you need to turn on the lights just for a few seconds to find something, you are going to be out of luck…it takes a good few minutes for the lights to get to full brightness. Once they are on, its a whole different story, but until that point…have fun walking around in dim light.
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Another thing to look for are rebates. The state of Iowa has a CFL rebate program I was able to get 50% off the purchase of my bulbs! I’m sure other states have similar programs as well.
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I bought a bunch that were on sale and replaced them throughout the house. I bought too high of a wattage though, at least I assume that’s why a couple of them buzz. I’ve had to use three lights instead of four in a couple of rooms.
And I’ve had I think four burn out so far. I’m interested in continuing to use them though!
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I think it’s very irresponsible for bloggers to post about the benefits of CFLs and not inform people what to do with the bulbs when they burn out. I have four mercury filled CFLs that I cannot in good conscience throw in the garbage – PLEASE TELL ME WHERE TO DISPOSE OF THEM!
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Here in SF we can get CFLs at a rate discounted by a grant from the power company (PG&E). I just this weekend bought a four pack of CFLs for $3.99. At $1 a bulb it’s a pretty easy decision!
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Regarding the mercury content…I was looking around on Michael Bluejay’s site linked to the article (nice site, check it out), and here’s what he has to say:
“CFL’s have a few downsides: The most notable is that they start dim and take a few minutes to warm up to full brightness (though that’s an advantage if you need to flip the lights on in the middle of the night — since they won’t shock you with the terrifying instant brightness of regular lights). Also, most CFL’s can’t be used on dimmer switches; to use them on dimmers you need to buy the kind marked for dimmer use. Finally, CFL’s contain small amounts of mercury, so if a bulb breaks you should use chemical-resistant gloves to clean it up. The amount of mercury in one bulb is so small that disposal isn’t subject to federal regulations, but to be responsible it’s best to dispose of old or broken fluorescent lights at your community’s hazardous waste facility, rather than throwing them in the trash.”
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I should add that with the CFL’s we’ve been buying, the warm-up period seems to have disappeared, guess they’ve improved that technology. Only a couple of our bulbs have the flickering start-up, and we’ve placed them in rooms where it’s not an annoyance.
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[...] takes a look at how much CFLs really cost. – I’m still not a big fan of CFLs (compact florescent lightbulbs) but I’m still buying [...]
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[...] takes a look at how much CFLs really cost. – I’m still not a big fan of CFLs (compact florescent lightbulbs) but I’m still buying [...]
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I got a three pack at Wal-Mart for $6.97. I;m in the process of switching all our bulbs in the apartment.
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Australia is in the process of phasing out incandescents altogether!
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/Pages/Article.aspx?ID=661
People are now saying LED lighting is even more efficient than CFL’s, but I think of them as Christmas decoration lighting. Anyone know about using them indoors?
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Any tips on brands/types of CFLs that have very little lag or warm-up time? Is there any rating or something that you can tell this by looking on the packaging? I hate the ones that flicker when starting, or have a noticeable 2-second lag between flipping the switch and actually turning on.
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Just last night my husband was brooding about what he’ll do when it isn’t possible to get “regular” light bulbs any more. We got some of the CFLs when we had an energy audit done, but we have older lamps and they don’t fit most of them, and when they do, the light isn’t pleasant. BUT on the other hand, my father was a great one for teaching his kids to turn off unneeded lights. As a result, it seems our light bulbs don’t burn out very often… and, we don’t do Christmas lights or other kinds of night-light pollution (see http://starrynightlights.com/blog/?p=52), so I’m not feeling any ecological guilt about not making this change yet. And what about LED lighting? Will that be replacing CFLs?
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I’ve been replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs as they’ve been burning out. I’ve only been able to replace 2 or 3 bulbs since we bought our house though (almost 2 years) under this plan.
We have a number of small halogen lamps as well for lighting specific areas so we don’t have to light up a whole room if we’re just grabbing something from a shelf, or only hanging out in one corner of the room.
Unfortunately, CFLs can’t be put on a dimmer, so two of our more heavily-used rooms won’t ever get CFLs. Other fixtures, the bulbs just won’t fit and I’m not particularly interested in changing whole fixtures just to use CFLs unless I have to.
I do dislike the long warm-up time, even on the “fast” start-up bulbs, and the light color sometimes is a bit unnatural. But I’ll keep installing them as time goes on to reduce my power usage and for the convenience of not having to replace bulbs as often.
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I’ve been using CFLs for at least 10 years now. It rather surprises me that everyone else is just catching on.
Only one CFL has lasted more than a year. And that one’s 10 years old, so it’s an outlier. I’ve had some burn out in less than a week. They are not suitable for porch light use if there is any humidity.
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I recently put in CFL bulbs into the stairwell area of my apartment, since the sockets would blow out incandescent bulbs in a few months. The light is a little harsh from them, but then again I also bought 100W equivalent for better visibility on the stairs and in the lightless laundry closet. The 60W equivilents I bought for the living room are not harsh at all. In fact, I don’t even remember that they’re CFLs when I turn the fixture on.
I bought both packs at Walgreens for around $2 a bulb, normal price. None of them have a discernible warm-up time; I think they have pretty much figured this one out.
Thanks for the disposal information. I was actually not aware of that. I agree that they should be a little more open about the need to dispose of them properly, though they will need to be careful about scaring away people.
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Many businesses and stratas have made the switch because the longer life of the lights means fewer replacements — freeing janitors to do other work.
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I have used these for a long time. I find that the ones from Home Depot and Sam’s Club, though cheaper do not last very long.
I now buy them from a website called 1000BULBS where the price and color selection is good and they seem to be lasting…although seven years is a stretch by any standard.
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I’ve replaced every recessed light in my place with CFLs and found some that work in all my sconces. So it isn’t every bulb, but the vast majority. I’ve seen huge drops in my electrical costs. As far as them taking a few minutes to warm up, I’m hard pressed to imagine a situation where that’s really a dire problem.
I would say that they don’t make great dimmer bulbs. I have dimmer CFLs, but it isn’t close to being the same as an incadescent.
But I’ll happily live with that for the electricity savings.
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@144mph & others: They now make CFLs in various sizes. I had to buy slightly more expensive ones to fit in one of my fixtures as well, but that only means it will take another month or three to pay them off. Just keep your eyes open, and go to a hardware store to get the greater range of options.
@Pam: There was an episode of the Mythbusters where they poved that the “start up” energy cost of a CFL was a total myth. http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/12/episode_69_22000_foot_fall_lig.html
to quote:
Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able calculated how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. “It’s best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for”:
* Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
* CFL: 0.015 seconds
SO yah… don’t worry about that myth.
@Lea & others: Lea, it seems you’re in Australia, but here in the USA, your concerns are really non-issues. The bulbs are EVERYWHERE (even the grocery stores), they come in a LARGE variety of sizes, and the “warm up” time is down to under four seconds for the bulbs i own at least. I am sure that when in 2010 or so the law comes into effect that you can’t buy incandescent, you won’t have an issue of finding them, and in all the different sizes that we Yanks enjoy.
@MissPinkKate: There are a large variety of colour spectrums available for CFLs now. Just go to a store that has a good return policy, and try them until you get one that looks right. Please don’t give up on trying to save both $ & then environment because it will take some time.
@Joe Banks: If you read the WHOLE article, you see that JD gives links to where to dispose of the CFL’s properly are listed. You don’t see people making a fuss about people being able to buy Mercury thermostats, now do you?
@Money Changes Things: From what i’ve read, they haven’t QUITE gotten the spectrum issues of LEDs figured out yet. Sounds like the florescents of about 10 years go. Probably good for things like the pantry, or a closet, but most people seem to find them not good enough yet for places like the living room. :[
@Pete: I just bought the Menards (a mid-west home-improvement store) brand, and even those didn’t have the issue you saw. Try the GE Brand, my friend seems to like those? Again, a good return policy is your friend, as is the guy working in that department!
PS: Sorry for the length of this post, alot to respond to.
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Note: The only CFL’s i have that have a “warm up time” are the ones that i had to buy that were specially sized. all the other ones (the daylight spectrums) start up instantly.
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I think I might have “dirty power” at my home, or something. I’ve tried CFLs, and they blow out (with a buzz and smoke!) after a short time. This has made them too expensive for me to use in my old house, but I plan to try again when I build a new house.
Here’s an article I found interesting:
http://www.homeenergy.org/archive/hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/93/931113.html
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I personally dislike the CFLs. I don’t like the quality of the light, and they don’t work with dimmers (we have a lot of dimmers). The bulbs do a weird flicker if you activate the dimmer. I have heard that there are bulbs that work with dimmers or dimmers that work with CFLs, but I’m not interested in spending more $$.
I hope those who are swapping out incandescents for CFLs are waiting ’til the incans burn out…
Off my soapbox now.
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For those that live near an Ikea, they take fluorescent bulbs back. The only trick is remembering to take them and remembering not to bring them back home again!
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