Yeah yeah, if you have an incandescent bulb that you leave on for
hours and hours, it would save energy to swap it out for a CFL. But
you could save even more by just TURNING IT OFF.

I jumped on the CFL bandwagon with a bunch of bulbs, but only
afterwards (yeah, mea culpa) started to pay close attention to the
duty cycle on those lights. A CFL bulb (any FL light) takes an
initial surge of power to start, plus it only has so many starts in it
from the day it is built. They only save on longer duty cycles.

Quite a lot of the lights in our house are used for only a couple of
minutes at a time, if that. Like our main hallways have switches at
either end and the middle (entry point there also). At night, enter
on one end, turn on light; exit other end, turn off light. Less than
a minute.

In Master Bath, separate WC and Lav areas; go in to pee, turn on
light; finished turn off light. In morning go to sink area, turn on
light, shave; finished turn off light. Less than 5 minutes either
application.

Now that I'm paying attention, I am probably going to switch some of
them back. Until I do, we find ourselves leaving lights on longer in
order to save starts, and also because of the feeling that the longer
they are on, the more we are saving!




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