Do you care so much about the environment (or your electric bill) that you would put up with dingy, soul-sucking fluorescent light in your most sacred of spaces? Or are Con Ed’s free CFLs really a great leap forward from the stark, buzzing, flickering blue bulbs that dutifully lit your grandfather’s utility shed?
dojoji writes on the Brooklynian.com Prospect Heights Forum | DailyHeights.com Message Boards: “Has anyone gotten the free light bulb exchange from ConEd? The guy is here right now–on a ladder–changing all my lightbulbs for me. They are called CFL (fluorescent) and they work fine and light the room in the same way that regular bulbs do. So I’m not complaining–and if my electric bill goes down then I’ll be REALLY excited.”
“He says it saves 75% on energy from the lights.
Funny story–he says Brooklyn residents are holding out because they do not trust Con Ed. LOL. They expect it to take 4 years for Brooklyn residents to fully convert.”
So are CFLs going to be recommended by HGTV designers any time soon? sweet tea responds: “i relented and let one of these guys replace some of my bulbs….enh. i didn’t do the lamps or the kitchen overhead because i hate the quality of light from the CFLs. yeah, they’re better than they were 15 years ago when my dad first started buying them from our neighbor with the solar roof, but they’re not that much better. i find the light ugly and depressing.”
Get used to a brave new fluorescent future on the Prospect Heights Forum | DailyHeights.com Message Boards
“Dingy” and “soul-sucking” seems a little extreme, not to mention out of date. The light quality from the CFLs has gotten good enough that you might mistake it for incandescent. Con Ed doesn’t supply anything brighter than a 100 watt equivalent, but that was bright enough for most of my fixtures. Since incandescent bulbs are the most energy consumptive light source after candles, don’t you owe it to the world to at least try a CFL? Jeez, they’re free.
On the other hand, each CFL has a thimbleful of mercury vapor inside. So if you break one, open the windows right away. The vapor dissipates within an hour.
has anyone actually changed over completely to green energy from con ed? i’m moving into a new (rental) apartment and i want to switch over my gas and electric bills.
i got them all changed. he was cool and it did it really fast. he also had a bunch of different strength lights so he matched the lighting i already had. and he replaced the vanity lights.