Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright

John, in his advanced years, has become a bit of an energy miser, and ridicules my love of incandescent bulbs (I SWEAR basic flourescent lights give me head aches! The outdoor lighting aisle of Lowes is akin to an iron maiden!). And I admit that the ridicule I endured for owning a Prius but not sorting my recycling has made me decidedly more consciously green.

I read online somewhere that people who experience headaches from flourescent lights are sensitive to the temperture of the light. Incadescent light hovers around 2700K, while standard flourescent bulbs put out a harsher 6500K. The lower the temperture, the warmer (redder) the light, so the higher the tempeture, the cooler (bluer) the light. The photo below (from Wiki) illustrates this point quite well.

Popular Mechanics has a very imformative article about this. It compares various lights/brands.


John and I read up on this back in 2007, and after searching high and low, we finally found some CFLs that are >2700K, so we've replaced almost all of our lighting with these. They're not too horrid and painful. I think I'll still horde some incandescents, so if banning legislation ever passes, I'll be a bulb-bootlegger.