What A Softie
Ok, so anyone who doesn’t live under a rock has probably heard about the virtues of compact fluorescent bulbs. Also known as CFLs, these curly soft serve-esque lightbulbs can save you a bundle of cash while doing a solid to Mother Earth to boot. But have you ever noticed sometimes they can give off a bad blue cast? Or even a scary bright white starkness? Apparently there’s an art to selecting the perfect CFLs, and we’re here to crack the code and make doing the right thing even easier. Now you’ll literally have no excuse not to fill your home with these brilliant bulbs (and fill your pockets with all the cash you’ll save).
The key to get soft and gentle lighting that looks a lot less flourescent and a lot more flattering is to select the CFLS labeled “soft white” which usually have anywhere from 900 to 1000 lumens (which is a fancy word for light output). Other CFLs labeled “daylight” and “bright white” have less lumens (usually around 650 to 800) so they tend to look more harsh (and may even give off a blue or super white glow).
Sticking to the “soft white” variety will ensure that your house will look just as cozy and inviting as it did before the big switcheroo. In fact the only difference will be the $46 per lamp that you can save by making the trade. And in case you’re wondering how such a small change can make such a big impact on your wallet (four bulbs can save you $184 alone!) it’s all thanks to the fact that CFLs can produce the equivalent of 60 watts while using only 14 watts. That’s a pretty major difference when you switch out every bulb in your abode. Plus the newest CFLs have a zero lag-time feature. No more waiting a few seconds after flipping the switch for the light to flicker on. We just picked up a few of the new n:vision ones (four for $3.98 at Home Depot) and it’s miraculous! No more illumination delays.
And in other fabulous CFL news, you may have heard that they need to be recycled in a special way (and can’t just be tossed with your regular trash). But now mainstream stores like Home Depot have CFL drop boxes for your old bulbs, so you don’t have to rack your brain about properly disposing of them. How’s that for a bright idea? And since the average CFL is guaranteed to last around 9 years, you’ll have plenty of time before you have to worry about recycling ‘em anyway. Here’s to a well lit home and a lighter conscience!
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Comments
I found that the soft bulbs worked really well with the Yolo Air I repainted all my ceilings with. I love the combo.
Because of the mercury content of CFLs I have been looking at LED lights…any word on those? Are they better? And thanks for all your green tips. I love your blog!
Ok, somewhat interesting, but inaccurate post here. The lumen output isn’t going to change the color of your bulbs, just how bright they are. What the soft white label is actually trying to tell you is the color temperature. The color temperature of a bulb determines its color, the higher the bluer. So a 4100k, 4500k, or even 6000k would be a really white or blue light. A lower color temperature like 2700k-3500k or below would be a warmer color. You can usually find this info on the box the light bulb is sold in.
Another factor to consider is the CRI or color rendering index of the bulb. This number tells you how well the bulb will display colors. How the color of food (for instance) appears under a bulb with a higher CRI is different from that with a low and can be important for determining if that steak is past its prime. You can see an example of this in the light boxes they have in paint stores, showing you how a paint swatch will appear under different kinds of light so the big box store swatch will still look good when you get it home. The CRI is a scale from 0 to 100 percent indicating how accurate a light source is at rendering color. The higher the CRI, the better the color rendering ability. Light sources with a CRI of 85 to 90 are considered good at color rendering. CRI is independent from color temperature.
So, if what you want is the feel of an incandescent warmth, but the energy savings of a CFL, pick a lower color temperature, preferably with a high CRI.
I switched over to the new CFL bulbs in the past year to cut back thinking to save money on hydro and bulbs. In the last 4 months i have had 4 CFL bulbs burn out in different sockets. One bulb not only burnt out it melted the base (black and bubbled from the heat) and sent black soot up my wall (yes right size bulb for that socket). i tried calling around and even called my local hydro office. no one seemed to care. i could see maybe the socket being a problem if they kept burning out in the same spot but they are all in different spots. warrenty is no good without packaging , which no i don’t have, packaging for 15 bulbs when they only come two in a box at time i purchased mine, its too bulky no place to keep it.
and knowing about the mercury, how safe is it when a bulb burns and melts like that? are these really helpfull?
The lag time when you switch the light on really gets on my nerves. Thankfully, the guy at the local hardware store said they are coming out with lights that turn on faster. I don’t enjoy waiting for the lights. So, for now we are sticking with the oldies, but goodies. We have one ceiling fan switched to the new kind. But, Yikes! Scary to hear about the mercury and burning up problems!
I actually did my own road test of the three different CFL designations available from the n:Vision brand available at Home Depot. I personally found the daylight to be too blue, the soft white to be too yellow, and the bright white to be a happy medium between the two. Not perfect, but very easy on the eyes. The light is bright enough to read by, but not glaring enough to be seemingly unnatural.
L.J.T. is right on here… The color temperature is what you’re describing. Lumen output measures how much light the bulb puts out. It is interesting that you found a correlation between the lumen output and the soft white color in the bulbs you tested. I’m no expert on how color temperatures are achieved.. perhaps increased tinting on warmer color temperatures creates lower lumen output. FWIW, we’ve been fairly happy with Bright Effects softwhite 100watt equivalents sold at the local big box. Only downside is the ones we’ve tried aren’t dimmable - something we’re going to try in the next few weeks.
Keep up the good work… love your blog.
Thanks for the lighting info L.J.T. and Fred! We’re admittedly only as expert as the two articles we perused online (and the ever-so-helpful CFL packaging that we toted home with us for our lighting review). So thanks for the clarification!
And Amy it’s really interesting that you prefer the bright white bulbs- it’s totally personal preference meets specific surroundings (for example people with higher ceilings might have a different opinion). We’re all about what works for you so feel free to do your own tests everyone! And let us know what you guys think!
As for the CFL burning out experiences that you guys mention- yikes!! We’ve never had any problem with ours, but it’s certainly annoying that some of you have. Hopefully over time all the glitches will get ironed out (like the lag times getting shorter and shorter, etc).
And about the LED question, we hear those are even more energy efficient (and may be less troublesome when it comes to burning out like CFLs) but they’re pretty expensive as of now and the ones we’ve seen tend to give off an even bluer cast- like outdoor solar lighting. But within the next few years we’re sure they’ll get even more affordable and better looking. We’ve even heard that by 2014 most incandescent bulbs will be banned. How crazy is that?!
xoxo,
Sherry
Also, just to point out…
I watched a news story about this a while ago and was very disturbed by how you are to clean up a broken bulb.
Go to: http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
I would switch completely to CFLs (most of our lights already are, because I just hate changing lightbulbs), but we have a number of fixtures that use the small-base candelabra bulbs. I have CFL floodlamps for our recessed lights and nice rounded ones (similar to traditional bulbs) for the open globes in the bathroom, but I have not found anything comparable to candelabra bulbs in a CFL. Any suggestions?
I found CFL candelabras at Lowes for our over the dining table fixture. They were significantly dimmer than the previous fixtures though. One caution though is that you can’t put CFLs on a dimmer switch.
walmart candelabra bulbs, one to a pack for $9.97
no can’t use dimmer, my mom bought these for her ceiling fan because the motion would cause the normal bulbs to blow all the time. 3 months and she is still on the same bulbs ( made to handle ceiling fan motion as well)
Color temperatures of flourscents from incandescents, as you said, are vastly different from each other. Here is a list of lights and their corresponding color temperature (http://www.sizes.com/units/color_temperature.htm), which is somewhat independent of light output as LJT and Ethan pointed out.
Source Color temperature in kelvin
Skylight (blue sky) 12,000 - 20,000
Average summer shade 8000
Light summer shade 7100
Typical summer light (sun + sky) 6500
Daylight fluorescent (caution!) 6300
Xenon short-arc 6400
Overcast sky 6000
Clear mercury lamp 5900
Sunlight (noon, summer, mid-latitudes) 5400
Design white fluorescent 5200
Special fluorescents used for color evaluation 5000
Daylight photoflood 4800 - 5000
Sunlight (early morning and late afternoon) 4300
Brite White Deluxe Mercury lamp 4000
Sunlight (1 hour after dawn) 3500
Cool white fluorescent 3400
Photoflood 3400
Professional tungsten photographic lights 3200
100-watt tungsten halogen 3000
Deluxe Warm White fluorescent 2950
100-watt incandescent 2870
40-watt incandescent 2500
High-pressure sodium light 2100
Sunlight (sunrise or sunset) 2000
Candle flame 1850 - 1900
Match flame 1700
For photography, this is a major issue, as taking a picture with mixed color temparuture lighting means that true “white” is a myth, because of all the different color temperatures. As an experiment, take a picture of a room with with incandescents and flourescents in the same room and you’ll see a huge difference in how the adjacent white areas look around them, and which “white” your camera chooses as a true white.
For bathrooms high color temperatures should be avoided as they tend to put a ghostly palor on people - you definitely want a warm (orangish) color temperature to your lights so everybody isn’t looking excessively pale.
For kitchens and bright/sunny rooms you can get away with a higher color temperature as the incoming daylight will match this color temperature.
For bedrooms or places where you want a soft warm light you should also choose a lower color temperature. This orange glow translates to our eyes as warmth, as opposed to the bluish tint of a flourescent.
I already blogged about how 2 CFLs broke a minute after we installed them, one in our office and one in our storage room. We re-checked and they were the right ones, but we just can’t figure out what happened to make them blow.
Anyway, I just need to get used to not have as much light the first minute or so until they warm up. It’s a little bit annoying in the bathroom, but nice in our bedside lamps, since we get to check the time or whatever without being instantly blind.