Eighteen months ago, I replaced most of Ranchero Indebto’s conventional incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. It’s proved to be a wise investment. In a time of rising electric rates, our monthly bills have held steady. Better yet, I’m not replacing conventional bulbs each week. While I might not be the chief cook and bottle washer, I am exclusively responsible for taking out the garbage and changing the light bulbs…

As I wrote in my Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs Nine Month Update last summer, the technology has been quite reliable. The bulbs have been most successful in fixtures that are left on for long periods of time. For example, we have half a dozen installed in our overhead basement fixtures and these darn bulbs burn for days on end (my family has a tough time remembering to turn off any lights… and with the basement door closed, these are the primary suspects).

I haven’t had to replace a single basement bulb in a year and a half.

Last Halloween, I installed two outdoor compact fluorescent bulbs in the recessed fixtures on our front porch. It seems like I’ve needed to replace at least one of the conventional porch lights on Halloween every year for all the years we’ve lived at Ranchero Indebto. Here’s to hoping that I won’t have to climb up that ladder until 2010 or so.

[Continue reading Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs - 9 Month Update]

Tags: light bulb replacement, ranchero indebto, incandescent bulb, compact fluorescent bulb