Solar and Wind Power

This DIY cut monthly electricity costs article is just the beginning when it comes to easy ways to save you money on your power bills. You could purchase some new green products or maybe even use the extra money to buy yourself a little vacation.

CFL is what’s called a Compact Fluorescent Lamp or a circular fluorescent bulb. CFL and incandescent bulbs each generate light in different ways.

Since Thomas Edison’s invention of incandescent light bulbs they have pretty much worked the same way. 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.

Now you may have heard this before, however unless you are only turning that incandescent bulb on a couple of times per year, you’re wasting money, doesn’t matter how cheap that bulb is. If you want to save money look for the green products. Saving around 75% in costs is the newer Energy Star compact fluorescent lights compared with the incandescent bulbs. In 6 months of usage a CFL will pay for itself saving you about $30 per bulb over its lifespan!

There are different choices for the color of the light omitted from the CFL bulbs these days. 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 like the mood that incandescent light bulbs produce then going for a warmer CFL light would suit you better. 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. A Kelvin rating of 2700K-3000K means it’s a warm/yellow bulb. 3500K-4100K Kelvin rating will get you a cool white bulb. 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. Use an 18-25 watt CFL to replace a 75 watt incandescent bulb. And to replace 100 watt incandescents use 23-30 watt CFLs.

Always recycle all your old fluorescent bulbs where possible. Some states forbid mixing used bulbs that contain mercury with solid waste trash. Thats because in one CFL there is about 5 milligrams of mercury.

When you want to recycle your used CFL green products, places like ACE Hardware, Orchard (OSH), IKEA and Home Depot will accept and properly dispose of the used CFL bulbs.

If it’s decorative lights you are after, try Energy Star qualified light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. These LEDs use up to 90% less energy than the same incandescent bulbs to produce exactly the same amount of light! 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 it’s a good idea to use CFLs inside and outside you could try the LEDs. These will reduce your carbon footprint and save you lots of money at the same time.