Buzzword: Recessionista

Rooted in the fashion world, recessionista describes a style maven who stays ahead of the trends without falling too deeply into debt. It joins other reeling-economy Buzzwords, including boomerang children, brickor mortis, and staycation.

Why the buzz? Recessionista is relevant to home improvement, too, especially in these tough times. In 2009, the average consumer will spend $1,300 to undertake 2.8 remodeling projects at home, according to the Home Improvement Research Institute. Obviously that money isn't going to buy dramatic changes for your abode, but it is possible to add style and function on a budget.

Buy second-hand. Clothes hounds shop at consignment shops and thrift stores. For the home, you can buy gently used appliances and building products at salvage shops and Habitat for Humanity-run Habitat ReStores and through organizations like Green Demolitions. Freecycle, an online network used by people to trade household items, is another option.

Accessorize your spaces. This rule gets the most mileage in the kitchen. Whereas new cabinets can cost many thousands of dollars, updating the hardware and applying crown molding, for instance, will transform the look of your kitchen for a small fraction of the cost. For the interiors, inexpensive cabinet organizers improve function and capacity.

Look for alternative materials. In our latest test of countertops, laminates were singled out for their wide variety of patterns and colors. Among flooring, the best plastic laminates actually wore better than most wood, for as little as half the cost. Read more about this option in "10 Questions for . . . Fernando Pages Ruiz, Contractor."

Enhance the lighting. You can create flattering lighting at home with a minimal investment by installing dimmer switches, which allow you to adjust light levels depending on the activity, say high for cleaning and low for dining. Task lighting will make your home a safe, inviting place for people of all ages and abilities. Another easy way to save with lighting is to install compact fluorescent lightbulbs. 

Get your house in shape. Fashion freaks might lose a few pounds to squeeze into a gotta-have-it bargain buy. At home, you need to gain rather than lose—that is, boost the energy efficiency of your space. If single-pane windows are failing, replacement windows can save you 10 to 25 percent per year on heating and cooling and enhance the curb appeal of your home. Plugging air leaks in the attic and walls will save energy and eliminate uncomfortable drafts.—Daniel DiClerico

Essential information: Before you start your next remodel, check out our Home Improvement Guide interactive, which offers buying advice on appliances, tools, and building materials.

10 Questions for . . . Fernando Pagés Ruiz, Contractor

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Fernando Pagés Ruiz, contractor and author of Affordable Remodel: How to Get Custom Results on Any Budget. Here, Ruiz talks about the upside of the economic downturn, details common remodeling pitfalls, and offers tips for slashing winter heating bills.

How has the credit crunch impacted the remodeling industry?
We had been in a kind of remodeling frenzy. People could justify the expense of remodeling with the rising value of their homes and the fact that it was relatively easy to get money through a second mortgage. Now that justification is over.

Even in good times, the best returns on remodeling investments were only around 90 percent, according to Remodeling magazine's annual "Cost vs. Value" reports. How many mutual funds do you know that advertise to customers that they'll get back 90 cents on every dollar invested? So remodeling was never an investment, and it more obviously isn't now. The motivation for remodeling should simply be that you plan to live in the house and you're spending money to make it how you want it.

Should home sellers be more motivated to make improvements?
If you're selling your house, the idea of getting it into the best selling shape makes tremendous sense, given the intense competition out there. Again, you won't necessarily get the dollars back, but you'll be able to move your house, whereas the neighbor who hasn't done any updating or maintenance may not.

Can homeowners negotiate lower costs on their projects?
It's a time to find good deals because many contractors who were used to doing a job for 40 to 60 percent over cost will now do it for 20 percent over cost. But depending on the contractor, negotiating can be a good or a bad strategy. You may end up with half a project if the contractor is in distress and looking for some cash flow and agrees to do the job for half the price of what he knows it will take. Chances are he won't be able to finish that job. So it is also a time to be careful.

So how do you protect yourself against the project-half-finished outcome?
In remodeling, the advantage always goes to the one with the most information. That's usually the contractor. And contractors know more than they let on. The only way to balance that is to become educated. I tell people it should take six to nine months to develop a plan and get to know the products. By the time you talk to your contractor, you should be able to tell if he knows his stuff or not. And you should definitely know more about your project than he does. You should be a very smart consumer by that point.

What other mistakes do homeowners make?
Starting the work all over the house. This is usually a guy thing, the do-it-yourselfer who starts jumping around doing this and doing that until he finally runs out steam and the house is a mess. You need to start with an overall plan, even if you're going to complete the work in stages. With the plan in place, you can segregate the house into sections and proceed from start and finish in an organized, logical manner.

Can you offer any rules of thumb for determining when a project goes from a DIY-friendly one to pro-required job?
Anything that has to do with safety. If you need to put in new gas lines, for example, it's a good idea to call in a plumber.

Manufacturers have made some projects easier, like tiling a laminate floor or installing a ceiling fan. But leave the skilled work to the professionals, like trim carpentry. If you want your cabinets installed correctly, there are a bunch of things a trim carpenter will know that you won't.

Tip of the Day: Simple ways to save energy and money at home

In "Save Energy, Save Money," we focused on big-ticket efficiency improvements, but there are plenty of lower-cost ways to slash your energy bills at home without becoming an energy anorexic, including these and those that follow:

In the bathroom
• Save hot water by taking a 5-minute shower rather than a deep soak in the tub. Replace standard showerheads with low-flow models and turn off any supplemental showerheads.

In the kitchen
• Reheat dishes in your microwave, which likely consumes only about 20 percent of the energy of a typical full-sized oven. On the cooktop, use pans that are the same size as the burner and keep the lid on the pot when you want to boil water.

• Wipe minor oven spills and splatters regularly with a damp cloth so that you don't have to rely as often on the oven's self-cleaning feature. When you do use the self-cleaning feature, start the cycle right after cooking in the oven to take advantage of the preheated space.

• Get the fridge out of the garage. During summer the unit will have to work extra hard to compensate for the 100-plus degrees that a garage can reach. Better yet, consolidate your refrigerator and freezer items into one unit and turn off other refrigerators and freezers.

Around the house
• Unplug your television(s) and most other electronic devices if you use them infrequently or when you're away from home for an extended period. Even when turned off, electronic devices like TVs continue to draw standby power. Also unplug your computer and scanner if they'll sit idle for an extended period.

• To maximize light output, position lamps in the corner of a room, where their light will bounce off two walls. Painting interiors a bright color will also augment light levels, as will regularly dusting lamp shades and lightbulbs.

• Use LED lights for task lighting. In our test of undercabinet lighting, fixtures with LED bulbs were the most energy efficient, even besting fluorescents in the lumens-per-watt department.

• If your existing exterior door is old but still in good shape, install a storm door. During the summer, replace the glass or Plexiglas panels in the storm door with a screen to improve air circulation in the home and reduce the need for air conditioning.

• Buy a humidifier. During heating season, the colder it gets outside, the lower the relative humidity will be indoors. Providing some humidification will help to improve comfort, but don't overhumidify. Use a model with a humidistat to control indoor moisture levels.—Daniel DiClerico

Vintage Consumer Reports: Fluorescent lighting

"Fluorescent lighting has a sufficient surplus of virtues to make any advertising man delirious with its exploitation possibilities."—Consumer Reports, January 1941

Millions of Americans were introduced to fluorescent lighting at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. Soon thereafter, our engineers tested fluorescent bulbs and found that this newfangled type of lighting was superior to incandescents and, despite its higher price—a 15-watt fluorescent tube cost 95 cents and produced comparable light output to a 10-cent 60-watt incandesecent—offered consumers considerable long-term savings since fluorescent bulbs used less electricity and lasted much longer.

That 1941 report proves that what's old is new. (Download a PDF of the article: Consumer Reports_Fluorescent 1941.pdf.) As we've found over the last year and a half during our tests of Energy Star-qualified compact fluorescent lightbulbs, each CFL you install as a replacement for an incandescent bulb will trim your electric bill by at least $30 over its life even though it costs more than an incandescent with comparable light output. We've heard from readers who say their CFLs burned out to soon, yet nearly every bulb we've tested has lasted at least 3,000 hours—triple the typical life of an incandescent—and some much longer than that. (Read our latest testing update.)

We weren't concerned about reducing greenhouse gases in 1941 but today know that energy-sipping CFLs can help substantially reduce carbon-dioxide and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. (You can find out which power sources provide electricity to your home by reading "Uncover the Source of Your Power.") That environmental upside is not greenwashing but rather another reason to replace your incandescent bulbs with CFLs.—Kimberly Janeway

Essential reading: Read our advice on how to handle a broken CFL and watch our video (above). And stay up on the next wave of illuminations technology, solid-state lighting.

It's Change a Light Day. Install some CFLs

A simple, inexpensive way to save money and energy at home is to replace incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A good day to start your bulb-swapping if you haven't already is today, national Change a Light Day.

If every American household were to replace a single incandescent bulb with an Energy Star-qualified CFL, the energy saved would light more than three million homes for a year and reduce annual energy costs by $600 million, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Don't buy just any bulb—there are performance differences among CFLs, so our experts recommend using only Energy Star-qualified bulbs. And as we reported in this story about the myths and realities associated with these bulbs, today's Energy Star CFLs are much better than earlier versions, as manufacturers have addressed the problems of harsh light, flickering, and slow warm-up times. Even the mercury content has been significantly reduced.—Kimberly Janeway

Essential information: Proper recycling of CFLs is important. Learn about Home Depot's nationwide CFL-recycling program. And find out who invented the CFL. No, it wasn't Thomas Edison.

Product Preview: Masco's Verve Living System

The new Verve Living System from Masco is designed to use radio frequencies to operate the light fixtures throughout a house. The system might be worth considering if you're making an addition to your house or building a new home.

With the Verve system, electrical outlets and lighting fixtures are wired to a central controller. You use what Masco calls "energy harvesting" toggles (shown) to operate the lights. Each toggle can handle up to 10 fixtures connected to the controller, allowing you to turn them on or off with one touch. The manufacturer claims the toggles gather enough electricity every time you use them to transmit a radio signal to the fixtures, which can be equipped with incandescent or compact fluorescent lightbulbs. (Masco also claims the system requires less wiring than traditional ones because it eliminates the need for wiring between light fixtures and their switches. Hardwired fixtures and any electrical outlets that power lamps and other plug-in fixtures still need to be wired to the control panel.)

The toggles are movable, according to the maker, so you could keep one in the car to turn on the lights when you arrive at home, making you feel that much safer when you walk through the front door.—Daniel DiClerico

Essential information: Read our June 2008 report on boosting home security and our look at bump keys.

10 Questions for . . . Ed Hammer, CFL Inventor

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Associate Editor Kimberly Janeway speaks with Ed Hammer about his 1975 invention, the compact fluorescent lightbulb, and why it took so long for this innovation to reach the marketplace. Hammer (shown with the first CFL) has worked in the lighting industry for 50 years and holds more than 40 patents.

How do you feel about being called the father of the CFL? And does Edison inspire or haunt you?
"Father of the CFL" is a nice title—I'm fine with that. I wasn't haunted by Edison. I wanted to make the world a better place; it's still my goal.

What led to your invention?
I was a senior physicist at GE Lighting in Cleveland and was working in fluorescent lighting in 1973, when we had the energy crisis in this country. As a result, we designed a bulb commonly called the F-40 Watt-Miser, the first energy-efficient linear fluorescent lamp. That said, I thought we might as well get a replacement for the 100-watt incandescent lamp. That type of lighting is very, very inefficient.

What did you envision as a replacement for incandescent bulbs?
I thought if we could get a fluorescent replacement, we'd get more efficient lighting. I was also thinking compact and to get it to look like an incandescent I would make it spiral and bend it with certain geometry, but it wouldn't be easy. My colleagues gave me many reasons why it wouldn't work.

From conception to prototype took up to two years, and my first compact fluorescent lightbulb was good. It's on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Today's spirals look very similar to the first one.

You invented the CFL in 1975. Why did it take so long for it to reach stores?
A number of reasons. There wasn't enough money for GE to do the CFL. It got delayed. Time goes on and there were other projects. In 1985 we tried to do the CFL, but bending it was very difficult because there wasn't automated equipment. GE thought the CFL was a good bulb but too expensive to make. The bending was done manually and the other parts were automated. The only place in the world where CFLs could be made and sold at a reasonable price was China. In the end, GE wasn't the first to bring CFLs to market.

Were there any problems with the first CFLs?
One big problem was that they operated with a high-frequency electronic ballast. People complained they were having problems with their TVs and they'd take them back to the store. The output frequency of the CFLs was the same as the frequency from the televisions and was causing interference. Once we identified the frequencies being used, the remote-control people designed around it. Interference is no longer a problem, but that slowed down sales of CFLs.

LED lighting is coming of age

Even though a revival of the musical "Hair" is taking place in New York City through the end of August, this is not the dawning of the age of Aquarius but of LED lighting, as we reported in our May 2 Buzzword: Solid-State Lighting story and as The New York Times covered in the July 28 news story "Fans of L.E.D. Say This Bulb's Time Has Come."

LEDs have achieved widespread commercial use in traffic lights, street lamps, and other applications. But General Electric, Osram Sylvania, and Royal Philips Electronics are now looking into residential applications. (A Philips iW MR LED is shown.)

As with any emerging technology—pay attention, all you alpha geeks—price is a big issue in how fast consumers will adopt them. LED bulbs cost upward of $100 each. Even if as claimed they last 100 times longer than traditional incandescents and best compact fluorescent lightbulbs for longevity, that's likely a tough sell, especially given the slow economy. But their prices will inevitably drop, making LEDs something worth keeping an eye on.—Daniel DiClerico

Essential information: Read our report on undercabinet lighting, which covers LED fixtures.

Vintage Consumer Reports: Lightbulb testing

The big round object in the photo at right isn't some early satellite or a giant fitness ball. It's an integrating, or Ulbricht, sphere that we used for an August 1965 report on incandescent lightbulbs to check the quality and quantity of their light output.

Each bulb—we tested five major brands—was suspended in the center of the sphere, whose sides were coated with a specially formulated high-reflectance white paint. A precisely regulated current lit each bulb while a photoelectric cell and meter measured the light output in lumens. We ran the test on the bulbs when they were new and after they had burned for 500 hours.

Our testers chose the 500-hour milestone because most of the tested bulbs had a claimed life span of 750 hours. Some of the bulbs burned out far short of their advertised life, while others well exceeded it. But most lasted just about 750 hours.

Forty-three years later we're still testing lights, though now they're compact fluorescent lightbulbs. We covered CFLs in an October 2007 report and continued to test them for months. Read the results of that testing in this update. Our follow-up tests revealed that some low-priced CFLs aren't lasting as long as manufacturers claim.—Gian Trotta

Essential Information: Watch our video on CFLs, right, and read about Home Depot's new CFL-recycling program.

Home Depot launches CFL-recycling program nationwide

Home Depot has done something other major retailers and government at many levels throughout the country have not been able to implement. The home-improvement retailing behemoth today started a free collecting/recycling program for compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs, at its 1,973 U.S. stores; a similar program at Canadian stores started last fall.

“Recycling is expensive, but if you’re waiting for recycling [of CFLs] to be economically feasible, you’ll never do it,” says Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s senior vice president for environmental innovation. The retailer’s effort is not a pilot program—it’s here to stay, according to Jarvis, who adds, “We won’t increase the cost of CFLs.”

The move by Home Depot comes at a time when more Americans are installing these bulbs that use about 75 percent less energy to produce the same amount of light as standard incandescent lightbulbs. In 2007, Home Depot stores in this country sold 75 million CFLs; Wal-Mart, 137 million.

Those energy savings don’t come without a cost: CFLs contain mercury, a neurotoxin. (All of the manufacturers of the Energy Star-qualified CFLs we tested claim to use less than 5 milligrams of mercury per bulb.) The presence of mercury raises several issues, including the recycling and the handling of broken bulbs.

To recycle CFLs at a Home Depot, you bring spent, unbroken bulbs to the store’s returns desk. (Starting in September the stores will have special receptacles on-site for the bulbs.) There’s no fee, and the stores will accept any CFLs, even those you didn’t buy from a Home Depot. The CFLs will be shipped to a recycling company, which will break down and recycle the bulbs and properly deal with the mercury, according to Home Depot.

Here’s hoping that Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, and other retailers nationwide follow Home Depot’s lead.—Kimberly Janeway

Essential information: Read our comparison of the major brands of CFLs (available to subscribers).

Buzzword: Solid-State Lighting

What it means. Solid-state lighting, or SSL, could be the next big thing in residential lighting. SSL refers to a type of bulb—or lamp, in industry parlance—that uses the movement of electrons through a semiconductor material to generate light. The semiconductor is in a solid block form, hence “solid state.”

Because there’s no filament that heats up (and eventually burns out), SSL is up to 50 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs, claim manufacturers. SSL is also said to last as much as 10 times longer than compact fluorescent lighting and contains none of the potentially harmful mercury that has brought CFLs image down to earth and made recycling them a hassle.

Why the buzz? SSL has existed for decades under the name LED, short for light-emitting diode (the semiconductor material involved is a diode). But LEDs are not the only kinds of SSL. For example, laser technology is a form of SSL, and organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, are on the horizon. As a result, the lighting industry is transitioning toward the more all-inclusive solid-state lighting moniker. “Within the broad category of TVs, you have several options, including LCD, plasma, and OLED. Similarly, solid-state lighting refers to anything that is not a conventional gas-based lighting technology,” says Govi Rao, chief executive officer of Lighting Science Group (LSG), a manufacturer of lighting equipment.

The switch to SSL might also have to do with the marketing of LEDs, which are still leading the way in this technology. For years, LEDs were limited to commercial use, for example in traffic signals and airport signage. The fact that they couldn’t generate pure white light kept them out of the residential market, except as the red indicator lights on electronic devices. But manufacturers are getting closer to a perfect white LED; LSG, for one, just launched a line of replacement LEDs (shown). Unfortunately, no matter how good the technology gets, some consumers will always associate LEDs with Lite-Brite. By giving the lights a different name, manufacturers can in a way reintroduce them to consumers.

Whatever its name, SSL is still years away from wide residential use. But it’s making steady inroads, including for undercabinet lighting. We’re currently testing these task-lighting fixtures for our August 2008 special kitchen section. Five years ago, we wouldn’t have covered SSL, but this year, it’s a theme in the story. Without giving too much away, we’ll just say that the purported efficiency of SSL is pretty solid.—Daniel DiClerico

Selections from Consumer Reports' Selling It

In each issue of Consumer Reports, the Selling It page covers the goofs, glitches, gotchas, and howlers that appear on product packaging, in advertising, and elsewhere. Below you’ll find a few recent Selling It entries that relate to the home. We’ll present these pieces on this blog from time to time. (Click on each image to enlarge it.)

Look for more Selling It items on our Web site—new ones are added monthly—and submit ideas to this section.

Military mix-up
This offer for a door knocker (right) says, “Show your pride for our Armed Services.” Just don’t be picky about which service you support. As a Maryland reader pointed out, the knocker identified as “Army design” has the Navy design; “Navy” is Air Force, and “Air Force” is Army. The Marines design is correct. (From the December 2007 issue of Consumer Reports.)

Maybe you use scissors?   
Cuisinart’s Mini-Prep food processor (right) came with directions to heed before use: To get an even chop, “always cut large pieces of food into smaller pieces of even size—about 1/2 inch.” (From the January 2008 issue of Consumer Reports.)

A kinda sorta guarantee
The language on the package at right is common in lightbulb packaging (longevity depends on how bulbs are used), but those two tiny words—"up to"—still shed very little light. As a Georgia reader reasoned, “If it lasts one minute, one hour, or one day it fulfills the guarantee.” (From the February 2008 issue of Consumer Reports.)

Gee, no GE
This package for a replacement part (left) had a Massachusetts reader scratching her head. (From the March 2008 issue of Consumer Reports.)

Essential information: Learn more about entry doors and door locks. Find the best food processor. Consider replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Choose a new coffeemaker.

Seeing the light on CFLs

As New Year’s resolutions go, replacing a household’s worth of incandescent bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent lights seemed, so to speak, an especially bright idea.

With electricity costs in my Westchester County, New York, area much higher than the national average, it seemed a no-brainer to cut energy consumption at my home by installing CFLs. (Learn how to do an energy audit on your home here.) I’d already put in a handful of CFLs, but most bulbs were still of the energy-inefficient incandescent variety.

On New Year’s eve, I headed to the store with a list detailing the various incandescent bulbs I wanted to replace and their CFL equivalents. For example, according to the U.S Department of Energy:
a 9- to 13-watt CFL replaces a 40-watt incandescent;
a 13- to 15-watt CFL, a 60-watt incandescent;
an 18- to 25-watt CFL, a 75-watt incandescent;
and a 23- to 30-watt CFL, a 100-watt incandescent.

I also brought along a printout detailing lighting color temperatures. “Warm,” also called “soft,” lights are designed for interior spaces like the bedroom or spaces where you entertain. “Cool,” also known as “white,” “daylight,” or cool white,” lights are best for the kitchen and other areas where you want the very brightest light, including exterior applications.

Over the course of the next couple of days we replaced dozens of bulbs with CFLs. The biggest part of the job was using a new bulb whose brightness matched what we were used to, but it was otherwise a quick job.

Eventually, we’ll have to figure out what to do with the incandescents I removed. For now, they’re piled up on my workbench in the basement. Send us a note telling us what you’ve done with incandescents you’ve replaced.

Some other observations:

• Prices of CFLs remain too high. To make replacing incandescents an open-and-shut case even for the thriftiest among us, CFLs need to be cheaper than the roughly $2 to $5 I spent per bulb. Note that dimmable CFLs and those in unusual shapes and styles tend to be the priciest. You’ll find the best deals for 60- and 100-watt-equivalent versions.

• Some CFL types are limited. I couldn’t, for example, find CFLs to replace “flame-tip” bulbs in brightnesses that are close to what some of our fixtures require.

• You need to choose the right-color CFL depending on the application. I’ve had to install different CFLs in some fixtures to get the right type of light. In the master bedroom, I had to replace a dazzlingly white 30-watt CFL with a homier 23-watt. And we initially found one new CFL in the room where we watch TV distracting because it protruded from the shade. (We hardly notice it now.)
    If you find that a particular CFL doesn’t give off enough light, use a higher-wattage one. And if the CFL is too bright, install a lower-wattage model instead.

• Manufacturers should improve CFL technology so that turning lights on and off frequently won’t shorten the life of the bulb. Currently the DOE recommends leaving a CFL on for at least 15 minutes.

• Recycling a dead CFL needs to be made easier, as a colleague recounted several months ago in this blog entry. The good news, though, is that I haven’t had to dispose of a dead CFL; even ones I installed years ago are going strong.—Ed Perratore

Essential information: Read our advice on how to handle a broken CFL. And watch our CFL video on the new Consumer Reports video hub.

Photo courtesy of GE

LED lights are the bright choice for the holidays

The end-of-year holidays are all about tradition, but we wanted to see if a newcomer (LED lighting) to the seasonal-decorating game could give the old standby (incandescent) a run for its money. We compared LED and incandescent bulbs in mini, C7, and C9 sizes to determine how much it cost to light 50 feet of strings for 300 hours. We also exposed the bulbs to moisture, hot and cold temperatures, and UV light, and had an independent lab measure brightness. Here are the results of our holiday light head-to-head:

Price. The LEDs cost more per string than the incandescents: $16 for the C7 and $20 for the C9 compared with $10 (C7) and $11 (C9) for each incandescent string. What’s more, each string of C7 and C9 LEDs was 16.7 feet long compared with 25 feet long for each incandescent string. As a result, it cost more to wrap a tree with 50 feet of C7 ($48) or C9 ($60) LEDs than with C7 ($20) and C9 incandescents ($22). (The mini-LED strings we tested were as long as the mini-incandescent strings—25 feet—but cost $3 more apiece.) Note that the 50-foot runs of C7 and C9 LED and incandescent lights had the same number of bulbs: 150.

Energy use and costs. LEDs used 1 to 3 kilowatt-hours of energy while the incandescents used 2 to 105 kWh, saving $1 to $11.

Durability. All LED bulbs were still working even after 4,000-plus hours, while each string of incandescents had one or more bulbs burn out before 2,000 hours. The LED bulbs we bought were also plastic and therefore less likely to break than the glass incandescents.

Brightness. The C9 and C7 incandescents were five to six times brighter than the LEDs, though the mini-incandescents were slightly dimmer than the mini-LEDs.

LEDs are better for the environment; run much cooler, reducing fire risk; should last longer; and could save you money. But it's apt to take more than one holiday season for the savings to kick in, and you might not realize any savings if payback takes more than three 90-day seasons: As a rule, you shouldn't use decorative lights longer than that.

Safety information: Christmas trees are involved in about 300 fires each year that result in 14 deaths. No matter which type of holiday lighting you use, follow our safety advice:
• Make sure the wire for the lights you buy has a holographic "UL Listed" tag.
• Discard any light strings with broken sockets, frayed or bare wires, or loose connections.
• Plug no more than three strings of lights into a single extension cord.
• Turn off your holiday lights when you leave home or go to bed.

For more information on holiday lights, watch our video report.

 

Q&A: Can CFLs interfere with electronic equipment?

A friend believes that compact fluorescent lightbulbs in her den cause her TV to change channels on its own. Is there a poltergeist in her house, or can CFLs really cause interference?

Your friend is probably not sharing her home with any mischievous spirits. Most modern TVs, radios, cell phones, and remote controls rely on infrared light to send signals. It’s not common, but some electronic devices mistakenly interpret the infrared light emitted by CFLs as a signal, causing them to temporarily go kerflooey.

Energy Star-qualified CFLs likely won’t cause this interference, one reason why we recommend that you use only Energy Star CFLs. As we reported in “New twists in savings,” these bulbs also meet tough standards for start-up and warm-up times, brightness, color, bulb life, and energy use, and they can’t hum or buzz. If a particular model of CFL does cause interference, a warning must appear on its packaging.

Our advice is that your friend not use CFLs in fixtures near her TVs, radios, remote controls, or cell phones. If interference occurs, she should move the CFLs away from the electronic equipment or plug the light fixture and the electronic device in different outlets.

Also be aware that some timers can shorten the life span of CFLs. “While CFLs can be used with mechanical timers, electronic or digital timers may cause interference with the electronic ballast, and can adversely affect product performance. Typically, CFLs used on electronic or digital timers will fail far before their rated lifetime,” say the folks behind the Energy Star program.—Kimberly Janeway

CFL recycling catches on

As we reported in the October 2007 story “New twists in savings,” compact fluorescent lightbulbs contain small amounts of mercury. The presence of this neurotoxin in the bulbs means that you can’t simply throw out CFLs with the trash or recycle them as you would other household products. “Where, oh where, can I recycle my CFL?” details how tough it can be to properly dispose of CFLs.

One recycling option is to ship the bulbs to a company that will safely remove the mercury, which is then reused in new fluorescent lights. As mentioned in “The bulb is in the mail,” CFL maker Sylvania is working with Lombard, Illinois–based Veolia Environmental Services to recycle CFLs through Veolia's Recyclepak program. (A Recyclepak bucket is shown.)

The effort seems to be catching on. TCP, Inc., a major CFL manufacturer based in Aurora, Ohio, announced on October 30 that it has also partnered with Veolia for CFL recycling. "We’re proud to add TCP to a growing list of manufacturers working directly with Veolia that support recycling mercury-containing lamps, sustainability, and environmental responsibility,” said Rob Wlezien, vice president of sales and marketing for Veolia, in a release.—Steven H. Saltzman

CR’s take: Until more local governments, retailers, and manufacturers create easy-to-use recycling plans, Recyclepak is one way for you to safely recycle CFLs.

Wal-Mart introduces private-label CFLs

Wal-Mart set an ambitious goal of selling 100 million compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) in the United States this year. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailing giant touted the energy-saving and financial benefits of switching from power-hungry incandescent bulbs to more-efficient CFLs.

With the recent announcement that it is selling its own private-label CFLs in more than 3,000 U.S. stores, Wal-Mart is hoping that the so-called “unbeatable price” of its bulbs will spur sales.

The 9-, 13-, 18-, and 23-watt Great Value–brand spiral CFLs, which you can use in a variety of indoor and outdoor applications, come in four-packs that cost $7.58. For our October 2007 report on CFLs, “New twists in savings,” we paid about $8 or $9 per four-pack of spiral bulbs.

We haven’t yet tested the Wal-Mart CFLs, but the company claims they are Energy Star qualified. This means they meet the government’s standards for start-up and warm-up times, brightness, color, bulb life, and energy use; they also cannot hum or buzz. Our experts recommend that you use only Energy Star bulbs for those locations where you’re considering installing CFLs.

It’s worth noting that CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, so it’s important to properly handle and dispose of them. Wal-Mart CFLs, says a company spokesperson, do not exceed 5 milligrams per bulb and comply with the European Restriction on Hazardous Substance standards for mercury and heavy-metal content.—Kimberly Janeway

Essential information: Find out how the major brands of CFLs compare to one another. (This information is available to subscribers.)

Where, oh where, can I recycle my CFL?

Not too long ago, at a friend’s party, I noticed a funny-looking object sitting on a table.

Staring at the twisty glass top that was creatively secured into a square wooden base, I saw pencils poking out from the hollow center. “Is that a CFL?” I asked.

“Yeah. It burned out, and I’ve heard those bulbs contain mercury, so I didn’t want to toss it,” my handy friend answered. “I wasn’t sure what else to do with it.” Hence the lightbulb-turned-pencil-holder.

I’m all too familiar with the CFL-disposal dilemma. I’m reminded of it each time I pass the broken CFL lying double-bagged on a table near my front door. And it’s not as if I haven’t tried to properly dispose of the busted bulb.

A few weeks ago, following my own advice from a prior CFL posting, I scoured the Web for recycling options. I called the household-hazardous-waste facility nearest my New York City apartment to confirm the place actually accepts CFLs, but the number had been disconnected. I dialed another option. No luck. The company had recently moved out of the city. The next-best location doesn’t even have a number listed. I could take my chances and show up with my bulb, but I’m not feeling very optimistic about successful disposal.

I was left with a listing of several other places that claim to accept CFLs by mail, as one manufacturer, Sylvania, has recently started doing. But the shipping is at my own expense and impractical for the one bulb I have. (With the limited numbers of lights in my apartment and the expected long life of CFLs, it could be years before I have enough to mail.)

Another possible drop-off for my lifeless lightbulb is Ikea, the Swedish retailer whose colossal stores now accept old bulbs. The nearest location is an hour away, though, and unless I’m going there to shop and eat some of the delicious lingonberry mousse served at the restaurant, I figure it’s not worth the effort to get there and back just to drop off a single bulb.

And so my shattered bulb continues to await its fate.

It’s times like these when I realize consumers could really benefit from practical, convenient CFL-recycling options. As in San Francisco, where the city has set up a partnership with local hardware stores that take the bulbs. Now wouldn’t that be nice.—Kristi Wiedemann, Science and Policy Analyst, GreenerChoices.org

Essential information: Visit GreenerChoices.org for the latest news on environmental issues and expert advice on ways to save energy and money every day. And take our informal survey to let us know if you use CFLs in your home.

Some TLC for CFLs

A recent post I read on Treehugger.com, linked me to an interesting story in the Toronto Star about the mercury that’s present in compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or CFLs.

“Seeing the Light on Lamps,” by environmental reporter Catherine Porter, brings you inside the factory of Fluorescent Lamp Recyclers, a fascinating company that Porter describes as the “Microsoft of fluorescent lamp recycling.”

The concerns over the presence of mercury in CFLs spurred the Ayr, Ontario–based Fluorescent Lamp Recyclers to create a safe way to recycle the toxic metal. Click on the Toronto Star infographic below to see how the mercury gets reclaimed.

We recently addressed a reader query on the drawbacks of using CFLs, including the presence of mercury. While the widespread use of CFLs could result in less mercury entering the environment, safe recycling—along with reuse of the reclaimed mercury—will become a necessity as sales of the bulbs increase. The Toronto Star article noted that only 7 percent of CFLs in Canada are recycled.

At least one manufacturer has caught on. Osram Sylvania announced on June 11 that it is now offering two ways for consumers to recycle CFLs and other fluorescent fixtures. (Note: You foot the bill to ship bulbs back to the manufacturer.) “It’s exciting to be the first lighting manufacturer to offer all of our customers a recycling solution,” said Jennifer Dolin, environmental marketing manager for the manufacturer in a release. “With recycling and disposal options available in only a few communities, our . . . options allow consumers and small communities everywhere to recycle their spent lamps easily.”

It’s about time.—Steven H. Saltzman

Essential information: Look for our full report on CFLs in the October 2007 issue of Consumer Reports, on sale this September. In the meanwhile, take our informal survey to let us know if you use CFLs in your home. And visit GreenerChoices.org for the latest news on environmental issues and expert advice on ways to save energy and money every day.

Canada plans incandescent ban

Following proposals made in U.S. states and in other countries, the Canadian government on April 25 announced a plan to ban the sale of incandescent lightbulbs there by 2012, according to a report in the trade journal Home Improvement Retailing. Australia plans to ban the sale of incandescent lighting by 2009.

The Ottawa government wants to cut emissions of greenhouse gases in half by 2015, and the switch from incandescents to compact fluorescents (CFLs) and other more-efficient lighting “is one of the easiest and most effective things we can do to reduce energy use and harmful emissions. By banning inefficient lighting, we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by more than six million tons per year,” explained Gary Lunn, minister of Natural Resources.

The Canadian decision to ban traditional incandescent bulbs comes at a time when CFLs are basking in a very positive “green” light, despite some concerns about the mercury content of the bulbs. CFL sales at Home Depot Canada, for instance, have climbed 350 percent from 2004 to 2006. The home-improvement retailer has announced it will stop selling incandescent lightbulbs by 2011.—Steven H. Saltzman

Essential information: Learn more about CFLs on GreenerChoices.org. And check out this PSA on compact fluorescents from Penn State Public Broadcasting.