As New Year’s resolutions go, replacing a household’s worth of incandescent bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent lights seemed, so to speak, an especially bright idea.

With electricity costs in my Westchester County, New York, area much higher than the national average, it seemed a no-brainer to cut energy consumption at my home by installing CFLs. (Learn how to do an energy audit on your home here.) I’d already put in a handful of CFLs, but most bulbs were still of the energy-inefficient incandescent variety.

On New Year’s eve, I headed to the store with a list detailing the various incandescent bulbs I wanted to replace and their CFL equivalents. For example, according to the U.S Department of Energy:
a 9- to 13-watt CFL replaces a 40-watt incandescent;
a 13- to 15-watt CFL, a 60-watt incandescent;
an 18- to 25-watt CFL, a 75-watt incandescent;
and a 23- to 30-watt CFL, a 100-watt incandescent.

I also brought along a printout detailing lighting color temperatures. “Warm,” also called “soft,” lights are designed for interior spaces like the bedroom or spaces where you entertain. “Cool,” also known as “white,” “daylight,” or cool white,” lights are best for the kitchen and other areas where you want the very brightest light, including exterior applications.

Over the course of the next couple of days we replaced dozens of bulbs with CFLs. The biggest part of the job was using a new bulb whose brightness matched what we were used to, but it was otherwise a quick job.

Eventually, we’ll have to figure out what to do with the incandescents I removed. For now, they’re piled up on my workbench in the basement. Send us a note telling us what you’ve done with incandescents you’ve replaced.

Some other observations:

• Prices of CFLs remain too high. To make replacing incandescents an open-and-shut case even for the thriftiest among us, CFLs need to be cheaper than the roughly $2 to $5 I spent per bulb. Note that dimmable CFLs and those in unusual shapes and styles tend to be the priciest. You’ll find the best deals for 60- and 100-watt-equivalent versions.

• Some CFL types are limited. I couldn’t, for example, find CFLs to replace “flame-tip” bulbs in brightnesses that are close to what some of our fixtures require.

• You need to choose the right-color CFL depending on the application. I’ve had to install different CFLs in some fixtures to get the right type of light. In the master bedroom, I had to replace a dazzlingly white 30-watt CFL with a homier 23-watt. And we initially found one new CFL in the room where we watch TV distracting because it protruded from the shade. (We hardly notice it now.)
    If you find that a particular CFL doesn’t give off enough light, use a higher-wattage one. And if the CFL is too bright, install a lower-wattage model instead.

• Manufacturers should improve CFL technology so that turning lights on and off frequently won’t shorten the life of the bulb. Currently the DOE recommends leaving a CFL on for at least 15 minutes.

• Recycling a dead CFL needs to be made easier, as a colleague recounted several months ago in this blog entry. The good news, though, is that I haven’t had to dispose of a dead CFL; even ones I installed years ago are going strong.—Ed Perratore

Essential information: Read our advice on how to handle a broken CFL. And watch our CFL video on the new Consumer Reports video hub.

Photo courtesy of GE