My friend that had the flood finally got to move back into her house yesterday. As I was helping, I noticed the old bathroom light fixture sitting in the trash, with all of the old light bulbs still in it. With the challenge, I can’t buy light bulbs, so I gladly unscrewed them all, placed them in an unwanted pink basket and brought them home. I have 2 lamps that need bulbs.
I want to switch my bulbs over to the compact fluorescent energy saving bulbs, but that requires purchasing them. It’s great to do this, but throwing away good bulbs seems like a bad idea to me. I plan to switch them out as they burn out, as they are better for the environment and they use 25% of the energy of standard incandescent bulbs.
I decided to count the number of bulbs and the types that I have in my house. Here’s the analysis. (Whatever, it only took 5 minutes)
- Incandescent – 43
- Compact Fluorescent – 23
- LED – 13
- Halogen – 24
- Low Watt – 8
- Fluorescent tubes – 2
Dang! I have a lot of lights in my house! Only 41% of my lighting is energy efficient. Using an energy star calculator, replacing all of the non-energy efficient bulbs in my house would cost just under $500, retail price. The halogens would pay for themselves in 1 year in energy savings. 
The incandescents will pay for themselves in 14 months. So the big question is, do you replace them right away or do you replace them as they burn out? Or some people might even be wondering if they should replace them at all? What are the pros and cons here? Let’s put these bulbs head to head and see what makes the most sense.
Pros: switching to energy efficient lighting
- Saves money on your energy consumption. Up to 75% savings on CF’s and 90% on LED’s.
- Much better for the environment. LED’s have no toxic materials in them and require no special disposal procedures. CF’s help prevent the greenhouse effect and global warming.
- Lamp life. LED’s last ten’s of thousands of hours, CF’s last approximately 6,000-15,000 hours, incandescents last approximately 750-1,250 hours, halogens last approximately 2,000 hours. The life span of energy efficient bulbs are substantially longer than the non-energy efficient bulbs. This makes the initial higher cost of the bulb a good value.
- Costs. When factoring the bulb costs and the energy costs together, these save a lot of money in the long run.
Cons: switching to energy efficient lighting
- The bulbs cost a lot more to purchase. The purchase price is higher, usually 2 to 5 times more. The upfront cost is more, although the long term savings should be taken into consideration.
- Lights on. CF’s take time to “warm up” and the light gets to it’s full brightness in about a minute. For some people this is an issue, but I’ve gotten used to it. It’s actually nice in the morning when you first wake up not to have bright lights in your face.
- Lighting ambiance. LED’s light lacks in brightness and because of the light temperature, has a bluish hue to them. Incandescents have a warm, yellow light. Incandescents also have directional capabilities that the others don’t have, which is why you see a lot of halogen fixtures in stores and restaurants. Lots of progress is being made with the energy efficient bulbs in this respect.
- Disposal. Disposal of CF bulbs is tricky, as they contain a small amount of mercury.
For me, the pros outweigh the cons. I will continue to replace the bulbs as they burn out with energy efficient bulbs when I can. When the shopping challenge is over, I’ll consider replacing a portion of these that are in fixtures I use frequently. Some of the accent lighting fixtures I don’t use often can wait.
Disposal and recycling issues. The recycling and disposal of the CF’s is still not easy. (Jason, better late than never on this post) Although there are many recycling programs, there aren’t many drop off places and the city recycling program doesn’t pick these up from your house. 
It’s just not easy to dispose of these bulbs right now. There are, however, two major retailers that participate in the recycling and disposal of these bulbs. They are The Home Depot and Ikea. 
Yes, it’s a little bit of work to save your bulbs and take them to the store, but you can plan it with a needed trip to that store. Get together with you neighbors and take turns making a “bulb disposal run” each month. Given the life span of these bulbs, it’s not a huge time sacrifice, and given the size of them, it’s not much of a space sacrifice either. 
