Compact Fluorescent Lamp

Home lighting plays a very important role in efficient functioning and providing the right ambience to your home. Certain areas in the house necessarily require bright lighting. For instance, the family room may just have accent lighting, but you’ll surely need the laundry room and the kitchen to be equipped with somewhat brighter light. One practical way of having that kind of lighting is by using fluorescent lighting.

Working in the kitchen necessitates adequately bright light. It helps locating cooking tools and foodstuffs and allows you to see whatever you might be doing. Efficient lighting provides safety while cooking, as well for the subsequent cleaning and reduces stress while working in the kitchen. Though a bit more expensive that the conventional incandescent lighting, fluorescent lighting provides very bright light and is worth considering. Its higher initial cost is justified by way of resultant energy saving in a span of just one year.

They also prove to be very helpful beneath the cabinets for illuminating the cabinets. You get under the cabinet fluorescent lights in sizes as small as 3/4″ thick of varying lengths that are easy to fix beneath any cabinet, providing you a much better lighted kitchen while you are working there. You’ll find them very handy in creating the desired ambience when you would like to avoid having too bright overhead lighting, yet require some light.

You could do with some fluorescent lighting even in your closets. That would make retrieval of items easy and quick, as you won’t be required to shuffle items in the limited space of the closet. It surely helps to keep the closet better organized and every time you open it, the mess won’t greet you therein. Fluorescent lighting makes the entire closet lively and brilliant.

And of course, you need appropriately positioned bright lights in the bathroom to see your reflection in the mirror for performing the morning chores before you leave your home for the day. You get a very large variety of fluorescent fixtures in different sizes and shapes that would go well with the décor of your bathroom and make it inviting. Many people like to make use of this kind of lighting in their garages. It’s nice and warm to have up to date fluorescent lighting in this important, yet oft-neglected area, especially during extreme winter.

You can find many spots in the house where you could exploit fluorescent lighting to good use and convenience. You just need a bulb and get an appropriate fluorescent fixture and fix it almost anywhere you like. You get a large variety of fixtures of varying sizes and different shapes to chose from and a carefully chosen fixture justifies the expense made.

The increasing consciousness of people towards environments is prompting them to make their contribution to saving Mother Nature. Consequently, we find more and more consumers for ‘green products’. This phenomenon has affected the manufacturing trends too, as manufacturers are led to produce environment friendly materials. If you just look around, you wouldn’t fail to notice that incandescent lamps are getting replaced with CFL (compact fluorescent lights) and LED (light emitting diode) lights.

For quite a long time now, LED’s have largely been used on instrument panels, followed by digital clocks, and traffic lights. LED lighting comprises of a cluster of LED’s. CFL technology too has been around for quite sometime and most often used for commercial lighting. Of course, both these forms of lighting can be used for domestic application and here we’ll try to know which one is preferable to use.

Light Emission

Characteristically, LED’s offer directional lighting only, close to a spotlight, whereas CFL spreads light over a wider area. However, latest developments in the technology have enabled creating bulbs that have a cluster of LED lights incorporating diffuser lenses. This latest generation of LED lights offers light of improved intensity over a broader area and varied uses.

Price is another limitation of LED technology. Generally, CFL bulbs are cheaper than LED lights. But, if you take into consideration the total cost, comprising lifetime and energy efficiency, you’ll agree that LED works out economical, compared to CFL. There is data available to prove that LED’s more than compensate for their initial higher cost.

Energy Efficiency/Environmental Impact

A normal LED light consumes just two to ten watts of power, that’s 1/30 of the energy consumption of a CFL bulb. Moreover, CFL could raise the temperature of the house, especially in summers, and thus add to cooling expenses. . LED’s do not create so much heat like CFL. Reducing your requirements of energy helps saving money on cooling expense and also lowers emissions of carbon dioxide, which surely affects pollution of water and air.

CFL lighting also has negative effects on the environment due its mercury content that’s toxic. Performance of CFLs depends upon mercury emitting ultraviolet light that goes to excite the phosphor coating of CFL bulb. Broken CFL bulbs release mercury that is hazardous. Even the disposal of CFL lamps poses problems, as they need to be disposed off in such a manner as to eliminate its chances of leaking into the environments. LED lights contain no toxic chemicals or materials and can easily be disposed off. Certain varieties of LED lights can be recycled too.

Lifespan of LED’s and CFLs

LED’s last appreciably longer than CFL bulbs. Research shows that an LED normally lasts for 50,000 and 60,000 hours, whereas the usual lifespan of CFL is around 10,000 hours. Another helpful feature of the latest design of LED lighting is that it comes in the form of a cluster of LED’s that make a single light, so that even if a couple of LED’s go out, the overall lighting isn’t much affected.

With further development of LED technology, we should expect improvements of manufacturing technology employed for their making and eventually the cost would come down.

Over the last few decades Atlanta has been a witness to an incredible growth, true to the proverbial “Resurgence” or Rising Again. The expansion has brought in many changes in the lifestyles of its inhabitants with up to date electrical gadgets being increasingly patronized in homes. As a result there has been a steep rise in the power bills.

Atlanta residents were keen to find ways of reducing their energy requirements enabling them to save money, while simultaneously making their contribution for saving the planet by curtailing their dependence on non-renewable sources of energy. An effort in that direction is the use of fluorescent lamps, now popularly known as CFLs (compact fluorescent lamp).

Fluorescent bulbs have numerous advantages, compared to traditional incandescent lamps. These bulbs consume less power, are longer lasting. Moreover, they come with a larger surface area that yields better illumination and are available in many designs and shapes.

Now, people like to have dimmer switches along with CFLs to reduce consumption of power and to have an appropriate ambience in the room. However, on using any normal dimmer switch you will not get satisfactory results, if at all it works.

When you try using normal dimmer switches with CFLs. You may find that:
On connecting a normal dimmer switch to CFLs, you will realize that:

* Lamps don’t light up
* You hear a buzzing sound as you switch the lamp on
* You are likely to have an unstable output of light as the lamp constantly goes on and off
* The lifetime of the CFL will reduce significantly

Fluorescent lights work on the principle of induction whereas conventional bulbs operate on the principle of resistance. That’s why a dimmer switch designed to work with a normal bulb can’t be used for operating a CFL. However, of late the manufacturers of CFLs have developed dimmer switches to be used for the purpose. These are designed for dimming ballasts and need to be installed by electricians in Atlanta.

In case of conventional bulbs, the dimmer just reduces the power coming into the bulb. You can’t use the same technique for a fluorescent bulb because its filament needs heating to a specific temperature for it to illuminate. Dimming ballast employed with fluorescent bulbs works like a central control to manage the amount of incoming power to the bulb.

In the era gone by, magnetic dimming ballasts were employed with fluorescent bulbs, but now we use electronic ballasts. Dimmer ballasts meant for CFLs are quite expensive and are mainly used for commercial applications.

If you like to dim the fluorescent lights working at home, you’ll need the services of a qualified electrical contractor in Atlanta.

Fluorescent magnifier lamps are meant for people who find it difficult to read, sew, and indulge in crafting or doing any work that needs good eyesight. If your eyesight is already poor, further straining may make your vision worse. Principally, a magnifying lamp makes small prints larger, thus enabling you to read easily and at the same time it brightens the page you are reading.

As light is reflected back from an object to our eyes, we are able to see it. An adequately lit place facilitates reading. There are many kinds of magnifier lamps. One of the often used is a fluorescent one. Here, let’s see what makes a fluorescent magnifier lamp better than other kinds of magnifier lamps.

Light – A fluorescent magnifying lamp emits full spectrum of light, simply put it means you can read more comfortably, compared to incandescent bulbs.

Expense – A Fluorescent lamp costs you half of any regular bulbs but that doesn’t mean that fluorescent is not as bright. They are as bright (if not brighter) as any other lighting. So why spend more for the same effect?

Heat – You won’t feel hot while sitting under it, as it emits no heat. In case of a normal bulb that we have been using for generations, a good part of the current is consumed for producing heat that goes waste. So, in effect you are wasting current thru the medium of heat. Most often the magnifier lamp needs to be positioned close to you, enabling you to look through the magnifying lens, and in case it is emitting heat you will definitely feel hot. However, you don’t feel any heat while using a fluorescent lamp and thus allowing you to read comfortably.

Longevity – When talking of duration, a fluorescent lamp is most likely to last longer than any incandescent bulbs. It is almost 15 times sturdier than other kinds of bulbs. Normal bulbs are easily fused if they are turned on and off too frequently of if left on for too long. Fluorescent bulbs pose no such problems and save the bother of changing the bulbs more often.

You surely are going to save money by using fluorescent bulbs at home or workplace. They consume less energy; yet give better quality lighting without heating the surroundings. You will soon notice the reduction in your electricity bills. Further, these bulbs have health giving features too. They don’t strain your eyes and provide clear vision.

A fluorescent magnifying lamp is not a very expensive piece of equipment but it surely brings you enormous benefits. The dual combination of magnified lens and fluorescent lighting makes a perfect match that provides you the best way to read at ease or to enjoy your leisure pursuit.