Compact fluorescents save energy and can (but not always) save money. By-and-large, these typically use around 25-30% as much electricity as regular incandescent lightbulbs of the same light output, and money savings from the reduction in electricity consumption can be significant, especially since most of the time the electricity cost is a larger percentage of the cost of lighting than the cost of the "bulbs" is. But there are some "ifs", pitfalls and bugs.
My compact fluorescent files:
General notes including some pitfalls, by Sam Goldwasser.
My older, less organized page cfbest.html was discontinued 5/11/2009.
My page with recommendations of what compact fluorescents are best where, and where compact fluorescents are NOT RECOMMENDED. Also "bug reports" including 2 safety recalls. NEW PAGE linked from this one 11/19/2007, updated 4/18/2010.
My dollar store compact fluorescent stuff is here in a separate file. I have a lot of heavily negative experience with dollar store compact fluorescents, with two notable exceptions from Dollar Tree. Updated 5/30/2010.
The CFL web page of "wiggie"/"Jabberwock".
The CFL article by Doug Hembruff.
Written by Don Klipstein.
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