>>>From http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls:
>>>
>>>If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>P.S. We've started replacing our bulbs, too.
>>
>>I'm somewhat skeptical of those claims. It's not that I don't think that using CFLs are a good idea. I do, and am using them in my house. It's that without seeing the calculations behind the result, I'm skeptical.
>
>FWIW, my mother said they've replaced most of their bulbs and their electric bill went down big-time. (I think she said it was cut in half.)
>
>Tamar

Our bill has gone done, but I haven't bothered to really measure it. We're on a monthly averaging plan anyway, with the final adjustment made at year end. Our last adjustment went down, even with the utility company getting a rate increase.

Our kitchen area uses 8, 65 watt spotlights, and we've replaced about half of them with the CFL type spotlights. Don't want to replace all of them because they do take a fair bit of time to start emitting enough light to really see by. Kind of like dawn breaking, a slow gathering of light. The CFL individual bulb type don't seem to do that, they just kind of have a small delay, then full bright.