Ivo Janssen

You can get full spectrum CFL, for about $5 a bulb. I prefer full spectrum to yellow bulbs.

We use the CFL bulbs in places like the kitchen, laundry room, bathrooms, playroom, kids rooms.

I use full spectrum bulbs in other places where I spend a lot of time.

What she said. If you want the full-spectrum, look for 5000K+ color on the package. I like the light those give off the best. But there are the yellowish ones too.

I didn't know that there were dimmable one, but I replaced the few dimmers we had in the house with regular switches. It just wasn't that big a deal, and I almost always kept the light on full anyway.

You can find ones that are instant-on, but it may take a little searching.

The biggest drawback for us is that those motion-sensing light switches will not work with CFs. They work fine with regular tube-fluorescents, just not with CFs. I keep wanting to replace the bathroom light switch with a motion sensor, as the kids keep leaving it on, but the two that I tried just don't work well.

But all in all, I'm very happy that I switched to CFs. Our electric bill dropped by $5-$10/month, and they paid for themselves in 6 months. There's a secondary effect in the summer, as your air conditioner no longer has to work to remove the heat generated by the light bulbs.

Agreed. The dimming inability (with the ones we got anyways) just irritates me back to normal bulbs. I pondering seeing if there are LED lights that would work. It would make for some interesting lighting effects too as you can use different colors. I assume dimming would be done through turning off a number of the LEDs etc.

There was just something on NPR (Well, on public radio and I think it was NPR) about how these are all very known and adoption stopping issues that the industry knows about. Some CFL expert spoke about how the fixes to all these problems are in the pipes, but the bulbs are super spendy now but are coming down quickly.

Sorry for not having more info, but I was driving at the time. :)

You could do a compromise/mixed approach, e.g. fluorescent in places like kitchen, bathroom, garage, and traditional light in den, bedroom. Office could have mixed, e.g. fluorescent ceiling light for overall room light, plus a smaller traditional standing or desk lamp to highlight what you're working on.