Choosing Eco-Friendly Light Bulbs

When shopping for a compact florescent bulbs (CFL's), the following is considered the standard equivalent for incandescent versus CFL. However, I have found this comparison to be a little off—that CFL’s tend to cast less light than their incandescent equivalents. However, because a watt is a watt, if your lamp indicates a maximum of one hundred watts, and a twenty watt bulb CFL isn’t bright enough, you can safely use a twenty-three CFL watt bulb.

Incandescent CFL
60 watts 11 watts
75 watts 18 watts
100 watts 20 watts
150 watts 23 watts

Natural-spectrum bulbs are another great choice, and they mimic natural sunlight and last thirty-five hundred hours. As the name implies, the light cast imitates the full-spectrum—or natural daylight—and so makes colors appear bright and true.