And the Oscar goes to...

I was so excited for Al Gore on Oscar night.

The next morning I started reflecting on An Inconvenient Truth again. I like to think it was a reminder of many things I already know and value... and yet... and yet I had exactly zero compact fluorescent bulbs replacing incandescents in my new house. I had to wonder if I really believed Mr. Gore... or if the message was still taking up residence in my, "gee, wouldn't it be nice if the world was different" category.

I don't know all that much about CFLs. In my first condo, I replaced a few lights with the elongated tube kind. They burned blue and they didn't fit in the same spaces my incandescents did. When I brought those lamps to the house I lived in with my ex, she nixed them. But the challenge Mr. Gore gave in his speech -- take the three bulbs you use most and replace them with CFLs -- plus the recent decision by Australia to outlaw incandescents... well, I decided it was past time to give it a try.

I bought $100 worth of bulbs at the local hardware store. This included a new fixture for the front porch, a couple of "daylight" bulbs, and a whole bunch of soft white spirals in different wattages.

The fluorescent fixture claimed it would save 75% over conventional fixtures, and at our house the front porch light can be on for 4 or more hours. It also had the bonus of being a dusk to dawn lamp -- turning on when the sun went down. Since I am usually the first one home and come home after dark, and in the dark, I started there. It turns out that 25% of the promised savings was because the light cycled on and off every 20 seconds, which the roommates vetoed. So I found another florescent fixture and changed it out again. The steady florescent light was acceptable.

I put the daylight bulbs outside the coat closet. The blue cast in the hall was another no-go for the roomies.

In the kitchen and the full bath, I mixed one incandescent and one soft white fluorescent in each fixture. These were completely inconspicuous to the roommates. Additionally I changed out 3 of the 5 bulbs in the dimmable dining room lamp. These also passed.

My conclusions from this exercise are:

• We are a soft white household.
• My roommates are fine with energy economy as long as it doesn't require major discomfort on their part.

I know the 5 bulbs we use most are among the 15 I changed, so by some measures I've done "enough". But given that Australia and the EU are banning incandescents, I'd like to go farther eventually. I haven't found a bulb that will replace the spot flood we have in the half bath... it's fully enclosed and the lights I've tried are too flat. Maybe that's a place for an LED replacement. I need to try 3-ways in three fixtures, and I need to replace a couple of torchieres.

I'm expecting to do my buying for these experiments from here. If you shop there, any bulb that doesn't say "daylight" is a soft white bulb... at least according to the customer service rep who e-mailed me.