Million Lights Project is offering Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs for free to the first 1 million requests. Thanks Slickdeals!

CLICK HERE

Earth Day 2008 is almost 3 months ago. Is this offer still good?

You should have just tried it. I signed up and got the following response:

Thank you fellow luminary! You have taken an essential step in reducing greenhouse gases in America. Now tell you friends about this project, and continue to take the little steps to help with global warming.

Your bulb will be sent to you in the mail in the next few months. We thank you for your patience, as this is a big undertaking to send out one million bulbs across America.

Joe

Worked for me - hopefully not a marketing gimmick to harvest e-mail and snail mail info. No matter as I used my work address and the phony name I go by here. In fact most workers think my alias is my real name LOL.

Thanks OP.

Same. Worked for me.

Already converted over to CF and received more bulbs from the TVA yesterday, giving me about a dozen spares (theoretically a 10-year supply) in the closet.

As an aside - if your electricity supplier is offering an energy audit / energy saving kit, that's a great opportunity. Here's the kit the TVA mails out to customers who complete an energy audit (my home was already down to $535 a year):

http://www.energyright.com/audit_kit.htm

If you haven't switched to CFL yet, it can be a tremendous savings. Do the math. You won't believe how much you can save.

Our living room lights are on about 16 hours a day. (I work at home, in the living room.) We have four 100 watt can lights there. Electricity is currently about 16 cents/kWh here. That's about $31/month for traditional incandescent bulbs. We switched them out for 23 or 26 watt CFL bulbs (I can't remember which). They're just as bright (even a little brighter after they warm up) but they only cost about $7 or $8 per month. That'll save us over $275 per year, just from this one room.

We switched out about 100 bulbs throughout the house a couple weeks ago. We'll be switching out the rest after our next run to Sams Club. (That's where we buy ours - we like the GE 6 and 8 packs that they sell.)

If you have lights on a dimmer, be aware that standard CFL lights won't work. They make special dimmable ones. We haven't found any locally, but will probably buy some online at some point.

The color of the light is different (more blue/white than the yellow you're used to with normal lights), but you get used to them really quick and don't even notice unless you have some CFL and some incandescent in the same room.

The one thing that's harder to get used to is that they're fairly dim when you first turn them on and they take about 30-60 seconds to get to full brightness. It's actually nice in the morning, since it gives your eyes a little time to get used to them. It's annoying to walk into a bathroom and have it be dim at first, though. One reason we like the GE's is that they seem to start brighter and reach maximum brightness quicker, but maybe that's just our imagination. I think there are some you can order that start at full brightness, which might be good in bathrooms.

The CF light (on a sensor) on my porch alone saves almost $4 a month (and that's paying TVA rates).

Southern Cal Edison is underwriting the 23Watt (equiv of 100Watt) at Ralph's. You can buy a 4-pack for $1! So I stocked up on those. Have them in my home office, living room, bedroom stand. I bought lower wattage for my kitchen/dining room/overhead bedroom lights. Technically they're not supposed to be used w/ dimmers, but they're fine. They just don't do the slider/dimmer part - ie, they're either on full or off. I couldn't find any for the bathroom lights that were low enough. I tried the equiv of a 40watt (I've got 6 of those globe bulb type things in the bathroom) & the 6-40s made it seem as though I was on the surface of the sun! I looked at the original bulbs & they're 25watts, so put those back in. I've been on GE & everyone else's website looking for 25watt equiv, but so far no such luck. If anyone knows where I can find the equivalent of 25watt, let me know!

My electric bill has gone down since I replaced all the bulbs. Granted my bill isn't as large as some of you because I've got a 2bedroom/2bath apt vs a house, but my bill over the last several months has gone from $32 in January to $18 this month! It went steadily down once I installed them in Jan.

I'm also getting into if I'm not using something I unplug it (even things that are 'off' draw some power) & especially if I'm traveling. Not using the stereo it gets unplugged. I even put the microwave on a power strip the other day. If the microwave isn't being used, then I turn the power strip off. Etc. The only 2 'big' things I don't do the on/off of the power strip is the tv & computer equipment/fios, the former primarily because I record shows on the dvr & the latter because I don't want to screw up the router.

FWIW - the pack from SCE is a brand called Greenlite/soft white version. I find that they're like the traditional 'yellow' light we're used to. The other ones I bought at Home Depot said softwhite, but I think they're more the blue white that MichaelColey uses. Or the ones I have for the light/fan in my bedroom are.

I even bought some extra 4-packs for $1 to give as stocking stuffers at Xmastime.

Cheers.

I found 25W equivalents at Lowe's. they were expensive--about $5.00 each as I recall, but I needed/wanted them for a particular location.

Thanks! I'll have to figure out where the local Lowe's is & get some. I was on GE & everyone else's website & really had a hard time find a 25watt equivalent.

Cheers.

At Lowe's, there's has historically also been a 4+ pack of CF bulbs (think the boxes are green and white) that come in 13 or 19w for an average cost below $2 each. Not available on website but I always found in store. It's also the same model Home Depot gave away for Earth Day.

Just checked the Lowe's site. Nearest Lowes are about 7-9miles away, so I'll time it for when I'm in the area. FYI for others - it appears the equivalent of 25watts is the 7watt CFL. Lowe's carries the Sylvania brand. The local Lowes is showing a price of $4.03/ea.

And as long as we're saving the environment, another note. If your CFL wears out, take it to a recycling center rather than dumping it in the normal trash.

Cheers.

Thanks, Just signed up for free CFL.

I guess FTer's snapped up the last ones....

...before I got there.

Thank you for your interest in this initiative, but we are sorry to say that this project is no longer in effect since we are currently seeking sponsorships for a 2009 Earth Day Launch.