Some of our house projects aim to make our 1983 house more green. Energy efficiency wasn’t a huge concern among homebuilders or homeowners back then. Now that we are in charge, we are making some changes both to save money and to conserve our resources. I’ve already talked about our new insulation and radiant barrier, which will save a lot of money but also cost a lot upfront. Our next green project was much cheaper and was easy to do ourselves: replacing our inefficient light bulbs.

In your house or apartment, most of your light bulbs are probably the traditional type, known as incandescent. They run electricity through a wire in the middle that resists the flow and glows. This resistance produces a lot of heat and a little bit of light, which is what makes them so wasteful. A newish type of bulb called a compact flourescent blub (CFL) uses electricity to make trapped gases glow instead, producing lots of light and a little bit of heat. For the same light output, they might use a quarter of the electricity of an incandescent bulb. They also last 4-5 times as long, 8000+ hours or more versus 1500-2000 hours. You’ve probably seen them before; they’re swirly white tubes.

CFLs entered the market several years ago. At first they were very expensive and had some quality issues. Today’s CFLs have dropped in price significantly with better quality. At Sam’s Club you can pick up an 8-pack of 60w-equivalent bulbs for less than $1.50 per bulb, not much more than you’d pay for an old-style bulb. In return, you save money in electricity, add much less heat to your home, saving on cooling costs, and won’t have to replace them for a long, long time.

We counted over 60 light bulbs in our new house and are replacing almost all of them with CFLs. There is also a new type of efficient light bulb called an LED bulb, which is much more efficient but also much more expensive and only available for certain applications. I encourage you to check out your lighting options and look for opportunities to green up!