[SmallGovRepub]

“It's a comparison of 300 watts versus 52.”

That's not that much power though. Let's say you use lots of lights and save 500 watts for 12 hours a day by replacing incandescent lights with compact fluorescents, which would be hard to do just replacing lightbulbs in a normal home. If you could do that, you'd be saving six kilowatt hours of electricity a day, which would be less than sixty cents a day if your electricity is costing you under ten cents a kilowatt hour. We pay about nine cents a kilowatt hour where I live, so saving six kilowatt hours a day would save me fifty-four cents a day and about $16.20 in a month. That's pretty good, but if you are only cutting down on a couple of hundred watts for a few hours a day you aren't going to see much of a difference in your electric bill.

[raybbr]

I figure I’m saving about $30 a month. Also, CFL’s last a lot longer and replacing incandescents adds up.

[cva66snipe]

I'll show you something to prove the myth of great savings. 20 bulbs on in the house at 60 watts {what most fixtures will handle maximum now} is 1200 watts. This is at 120 volts meaning roughly 10 amps current draw. Watts is a measurement of power amps is a measurement of how much current is flowing. A quick recovery water heater has 4500 to 5000 watt elements at 230. This means roughly a 20 amp draw at 230 volts. A refrigerator is about 1000-1200 watts usually at 120 volts. A dryer is the same as a water heater. The range of course varies.

If you plug in just one 1200 watt space heater you are using as much power as 20 sixty watt bulbs or 10 amps roughly. The formula is Volts X amps = watts Watts divided by volts = amps roughly. The light bulb issue is a big bunch of boloney fabricated to push more expensive bulbs.

In other words you are only saving a small portion on the least power users in the house to start with.