For the fridge, the original incandescent bulb used a 40w so I replaced it with a 40w equivalent (9w) CFL. The cold or the condensation doesn't seem to have an effect on the CFL; the light works flawlessly without any flickers just like a normal bulb.

As for the stove, the bulb was already burned out when I moved in Since I only had CFL lightbulbs when I moved in, I just said what the hey and replaced it with a 60w replacement CFL. I think 60w is a bit too bright though, a 40w replacement bulb should be just fine for the stove.


The difficult part was to find a candelabra CFL for the chandelier in my new apartment's living room. I searched HomeDepot, Lowes, and OSH for those but they either cost in excess of $6.00 per bulb or they were too dim (15w equivalent).

Then I stumbled across ecolightbulbs, which seems to be run by some employees at Google! They had a candelabra 40w equivalent CFL bulb which only uses 7w with 8000 hrs of lifetime for only $3.69 per bulb! Granted $3.69 is still expensive, but it beats paying $6.00+ at Home Depot. The cool thing about the candelabra CFL that they sell is that it includes an Edison screw adapter so you can use it normal light fixtures if you want it to!

I was able to use google checkout for five of these and replaced them with the flame-tipped incandescent bulbs in the chandelier. My first impression of the CFL candelabra was that it looked too bulky compared to the old types, but I've gotten used to it. One minor gripe is that candelabra CFLs takes about 1~2 minutes to get to full luminoscity. At the first switch of the light, it looks very dim and dull. However, you do get a pseudo-dimming effect which I think is rather cool on romantic dinners.