Dimmable CFLs Appear At Walmart
This weekend when I was grocery shopping at Walmart, I made a discovery. Finally, dimmable CFLs have shown up there. I’ve seen them on the internet for what I thought were outrageously high prices, but until this past weekend, I hadn’t seen any at our local stores. I’d checked Lowe’s, Home Depot, several supermarkets, as well as Walmart, and no luck until now.
Since we moved into our house, we had slowly (at the rate of one bulb per week) replaced almost all of the incandescent bulbs in our home with CFLs. We finished that project late this past summer, except for three fixtures - two hallway ones that have tiny bulbs with candelabra ends, which I haven’t seen a CFL version of, and our one dimmable fixture. The hallway ones we hardly ever use, but the dimmable fixture is in our office and has 5 60-watt bulbs in it. And is on probably 6-8 hours a day, depending on how dreary it is outside. The office is connected to our children’s playroom and the fixture is the primary source of light for both areas.
We’d really wanted to replace those bulbs with CFLs but could not because of the dimmable factor. But then, this weekend…
They’re $11.74. Each. I need five of them. Seriously… not going to happen.
Now, over the long term, they should more than pay for themselves. The package says they save an average of $45 over their lifetime in energy costs, plus you wouldn’t be buying any more bulbs in that time. But $58.70 plus tax is a big investment to make up front. However, $49 savings times 5 bulbs is $225, and if you subtract the cost of the bulbs, you still come out $166.30 ahead, or $27.72 a year (the package says 6 years is the average lifespan). In just two years they just about pay for themselves in energy savings.
So we came up with a plan. My brother gave each of us a DVD for Christmas that we neither wanted or requested, and are movies we would never watch. Walmart takes returns for store credit without a receipt, as long as they sell the same thing. I looked the DVDs up on Walmart.com and they sell both. So last night, I took the DVDs back, got $29.09 in a Walmart gift card, and bought three bulbs. With tax, I had to pay $8.24 out of pocket. And now we have three dimmable CFLs in our fixture. Over the next few months, I’ll try to work buying the other two into our budget somewhere.
I will say this - they don’t really dim much. Just in case you were interested in that feature. It doesn’t really matter to us, we don’t really use the “dimming” function of our fixture that often, it was just like this when we bought the house, but it is something to consider if you actually want your dimmable lights to… dim.
Three cheers for energy savings. Or… three bulbs. 
Maybe I’ll even see a noticeable difference in our electric bill next month.
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January 24th, 2008 at 6:08 am
I’ve seen these bulbs at the local wal-mart by my house for a while now. I’m in the same boat as you though in that I don’t like the initial up front investment. I think I might break down and buy a couple though, to at least put into the ‘high traffic’ rooms in my house: the office and the living room.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:30 am
We’ve been replacing ours as well. I’ve replaced every single lamp but my problems is that I have over 35 recessed can lights. Wal-Mart has them for about 6 bucks with tax. I’ve already replaced a few but I guess I’ll do the rest over time.
I started replacing my incandescents because I was tired of them going out constantly. I haven’t had to replace any of the CFL’s. And, I’ve noticed our electric bill has come down about 8 dollars. Sweeeeeet!
January 24th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Do you see energy savings over all from changing out the other bulbs in your house? I am just curious. I read another blog where the lady said they save hundreds a month using CFL’s (guess their lights are on 24/7 because I don’t see how that is possible). I’ve switched out most of our most often used lights and I think our usage has gone down about 2kw hours a month. Clearly not hundreds but something. I also don’t like the light they give in the overhead fixtures, I don’t mind it in a lamp with a lamp shade as much I think because the lamp shade warms up the light a little. I’m still on the fence, but I will do my part to save the planet.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:59 am
I have CFLs in the 3 lamps I use regularly, but need one for an overhead cam light. I haven’t noticed the savings, but actually use very little electricity in the way of lighting. I only keep a lamp on in the room where I am at the time, the rest of the apartment is dark…that was my father’s mantra many, many years ago…”Turn out the light when you leave the room!”
January 24th, 2008 at 9:32 am
@Ron - we had 10 recessed can lights, mostly in our two bathrooms. I actually got a few on sale in 2 packs for about $9 for two but that was a while back. I just kept replacing one a week and eventually they were all done. I scored on the “60 watt” comparables though - got a 6 pack on clearance for $8… ahhhhh
@dawn - it is hard to say if I have seen savings, since we started replacing them as soon as we moved into our house so we don’t have a baseline to compare to. I will say though that our bill in April (when we were using probably the same amount of lights/appliances etc as now and no a/c yet, and only 1 or two of our bulbs had been replaced since we moved at the end of March) and last month’s bill were about $10 different - so maybe that means we save about $10 a month with the majority of our bulbs CFL. If this month shows the same, I’ll believe it. lol. We have gas heat so that isn’t a factor.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Just a little thought,
If you don’t use the dimmable feature on your lights, you can plug in regular CFL’s. The regular ones will start to buzz and hum if you try to dim them, but it will not really hurt anything but the lightbulb itself.
I know *paidtwice* will see it, but for the rest of you, I work at one of the big 3 of lightbulbs. Please don’t share it.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Please keep in mind everyone that in cold climates CFLs make less sense in the winter. Remember that the regular bulb is wasting lots of power. . . in the form of HEAT. So if you are spinding lots heating your home because it’s -5F outside, switching to CFLs probably won’t net you much gain.
They are not the be all and end all of power savings. Plus, in my experience they never last as long as claimed. Though longer than regular bulbs. . . 7 years, I think not. Possibly if you have it in an isolated perfect electrical environment at 70F and don’t switch it off and on ever you will get that far, but regular use I doubt you will see the savings that manufacturers claim.
Also remember to ventilate your room if you drop one, and wear a dust mask while sweeping up the mess since mercury probably isn’t too good for your insides.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I use them in many of my fixtures like hallways and in my workshop, and we have an ‘always on’ one in my basement that will end up saving power since we put a small one there instead of a 60watt bulb . . . but don’t replace working lights with them expecting to save you hundreds on your bills. Change them as needed and for areas where they are useful.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
@Kim - I thought if I put a regular CFL in my dimmable lamp, even if I don’t “dim” it (because I have to dial through the dim to turn it on) I would kill off the CFL. Interesting to know that doesn’t seem to be the case…. as I said, the “dim” factor for us is not critical.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Just thought I’d mention this since the article pointed them out, but IKEA has the 5w Candelabra style bulbs. I’ve used these and they work well enough (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70060613).
They may be available elsewhere, but this is the only place I’ve found in Houston.
-D
January 24th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I don’t have an IKEA, but I am going to go check those out and see if you can get them online and how much they are. Thanks!
January 24th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Just wanted to chime in and say that before I knew that putting CFLs in dimmable lights was bad, I replaced several dimmable incandescents with normal CFLs. I never use the dimming function, either - they were installed by the previous owner (who needs a dimmer switch in their kitchen?) - but when I’ve bumped it on occasion, I have noticed the bulbs hum ominously, as Kim mentioned. Other than that I haven’t had any problems.