DIY Cut Monthly Electricity Costs on Lighting

If you want to save money on your power bills this DIY cut monthly electricity costs article is going to show you some great and practical ways. You could get yourself some new green products or even take you and your family on a mini vacation.

The abbreviation CFL stands for Compact Fluorescent Lamp, sometimes known as a circular fluorescent bulb. Incandescent bulbs generate light differently to a CFL bulb.

Thomas Edison was the inventor of incandescent light bulbs and since his invention the general principle of them is still the same. When electricity is connected to both of the sides of a carbon filament, it gets hot and light is produced. Normal fluoro tubes and CFLs have a closed glass tube that has a fluoro coating which glows as current is applied to the mercury vapour and argon inside.

You might've heard how the incandescent bulbs work but if you are using the bulb more than a couple of times a year, your money is being wasted, no matter how cheap the bulb was. If you want to save money look for the green products. Compared with an incandescent bulb the newer Energy Star CFL bulbs can save around 75% in costs. In 6 months of usage a CFL will pay for itself saving you about $30 per bulb over its lifespan!

The CFL bulb has come a long way these days giving us a much wider choice of light spectrum that is omitted. The mood of the rooms in your house, office or any other rooms can be greatly changed. The CFL bulb colors offer a variety of choices from daylight blue to warm yellow. If you prefer the look and feel of what incandescent bulbs offer choose a warm light. A good thing to remember is that the bluer light can be quite harsh and have negative effects on light sensitive people.

If you look at the package that the bulb comes in it should have K for Kelvin rating, which gives you the "temperature" of the bulb. If you see a K rating of 2700K-3000K you will be getting a warm/yellow bulb. If you're looking for a cool white bulb look for a rating of 3500K-4100K. And if you wanted the Daylight Blue bulb look for a Kelvin rated bulb of 5000K-6500K.

If you are looking to replace 40 watt incandescent bulbs, use 9-13 watt CFL bulbs. Replace a 60 watt incandescent with a 13-15 watt CFL. Replace a 75 watt incandescent with an 18-25 watt CFL. And look for the 23-30 watt CFLs if you want to replace 100 watt incandescent bulbs.

Always recycle all your old fluorescent bulbs where possible. It's forbidden in some states to throw away old mercury bulbs with the normal solid waste trash. They do this as about 5 milligrams of mercury is in each CFL bulb.

If you want places to recycle your used CFL bulbs and other green products you can take them to places such as IKEA, (OSH) Orchard, ACE Hardware and Home Depot.

If it's decorative lights you are after, try Energy Star qualified light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. They produce the same amount of light as an equivalent incandescent bulb and use up to 90% less energy! It takes the same amount of energy to power up one 7 watt incandescent bulb as it does to power up to 140 LEDs!

So try the LED decorative lights for the outside and the give CFLs a go for the inside. They will save you some good money and reduce your carbon footprint.

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