Bright Ideas for Lighting Your Home Efficiently

The right lighting can not only enhance your home's appearance, it can also contribute to your safety. And while lighting is not typically a major user of energy in most homes (the average cost is about $236 a year), there are two simple steps you can take to reduce costs:

• Pick the right bulb
• Control your usage

Pick the right bulb

Before you buy bulbs for the fixtures in your home, it's important to know that you're buying the right and most efficient ones. The following chart can help you determine the type of bulb that is most appropriate for each room in your home.

Room or Location	Suggested Bulb / Fixture Type	Bulb Efficiency	Bulb Life	Additional Bulb Information
Outdoor security	1. Metal halide (white light) 2. Halogen flood lights	1. High 2. Medium	1. Long life 2. Medium	1. These lights require their own special fixture and cannot be used in a standard fixture. 2. Can be screwed into standard outdoor floodlight fixtures.
Outdoor landscaping	Solar light fixture	High	Long Life	Easy and inexpensive to install because no wiring is needed. Turns on automatically at dusk. Emits the same amount of light as a 15-20-watt bulb for a few hours after sunset.
Porch	Compact fluorescent	High	Extra long life	Can use in a standard fixture. Good for hard-to-reach places because it does not have to be replaced often.
Interior living, decorative accent	Incandescent	Low	Short Life	Provides warm, natural light. Longer-life incandescent bulbs are available and can last 2-3 times longer than a standard bulb.
Interior accent lighting, track lighting	Halogen	Medium	Medium life	Provides bright, clean and crisp white light. Good for use in indoor flood, spot and recessed lighting.
Laundry, workshop, garage, kitchen, and bath	Fluorescent	High	Long Life	Getting the right length is important, so measure before you buy.

• Cost to operate - The more time the light is on, the more efficient the bulb should be. If a light is on 8 hours or more (day or night), you should use the most efficient bulb in that fixture.
• Wattage - Look for a sticker on your fixture that indicates the maximum wattage allowable and never put in a bulb over that recommended wattage.

Control your usage

To help manage your lighting use, and for added convenience and safety, FPL recommends that you use automatic devices (especially outdoors), such as:

• Preset timers - automatically turn your lights on and off. Ideal if you only want your lights on for a few hours.
• Light-sensitive photocells - switch lights on at night and off during the day and provide light all night long.
• Motion detectors - sense the motion of someone walking up or driving within range of the sensor, which triggers the light to come on. They're a good security measure that doesn't waste energy, since the light only comes on when motion is sensed.

Start saving today

To see how using energy-efficient lighting can help reduce your bill, take the Online Home Energy Survey