Be aware of 'light heat'

If you use energy saving lights throughout the house you may find you have to turn your heating up. Why? because normal incandescent light bulbs convert a larger proportion of their electricity into heat.

For a normal 100W incandescent bulb, these proportions are approximately: 3W light and 97W heat

This means that the replacement of approximately twelve 100W incandescent light bulbs with equivalent energy saving bulbs that only produce approximately 17W of heat, would be the equivalent of turning off a 1kW electric fire. Good news from an energy consumption perspective but your house will become colder as a consequence.

Missing Heat

So, during winter months you may need to find extra heat from somewhere, such as the central heating. In fact for certain light fittings - say a bedside lamp - you may wish to consider using an incandescent light bulb for additional warmth during winter months, and changing to an energy saving version for when the nights get warmer.

But you will only be able to do this whilst incandescent light bulbs are available, since the EU are looking to phase these out. How dare we think for ourselves as to what is best solution for our own personal circumstances!

Also remember, this is why it makes sense to use energy saving light bulbs outdoors. If you use normal incandescent bulbs indoors, at least the house is benefiting from the heat they generate, whereas outdoors you're losing all the heat to the atmosphere.

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