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The compact Fluorescent light bulb which earns the governments energy star rating uses 75% less energy than your standard bulb and should last 10 times longer too.

These bulbs save about 30 dollars in electricity costs over their lifetime, and are 75% less heat producing, this making them safer to use in the home.

They come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, but are best used where they are needed to be kept on for more than 15-20 minutes at a time, for instance in the kitchen, living room, dinning room, bedroom, or maybe even outdoors.

Places that allow a free flow of air are better for CFL usage, so recessed areas are not as good, but things such as table lamps, hanging lights and wall lights would be good.

If you have dimmer switches then you need to buy special bulbs designed for use with them, check the manufacturer's description to make sure they are compatible.

To get the right amount of light from your CFL bulb which would replace the normal bulb you will need to check the product packaging which normally says something like "soft white 60" 0r "60 watt replacement".

You also need to check the lumen rating- the higher the rating - the greater the light output.

An example of which bulb to replace with your CFL is:

40 watt = 450 lumens = CFL of 7 watts
60 watt = 800 lumens = CFL of 11 watts
150 watt = 2,600 lumens = CFL of 30 watts

Please be aware that CFL's contain a small percentage of mercury, which needs to be disposed of with care, and can be recycled.

Learn more about this author, Christine Bennett.
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