Failing the wife test

Washington Post:

Alex and Sara Sifford, who live here on the Oregon coast, want to do the right thing to save a warming world.

To that end, Alex Sifford, 51, has been buying compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use about 75 percent less power than incandescent bulbs. He sneaks them into sockets all over the house. This has been driving his wife nuts.

She knows that the bulbs, called CFLs, save money and use less energy, thus cutting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change. She knows, too, that Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey and the Department of Energy endorse them. Still, the bulbs, with their initial flicker, slow warm-up and slightly weird color, bug her.

"What really got me was when my husband put a fluorescent in the lamp next to my bed," recalls Sara Sifford, 53. She said she yelled at her husband for "violating the last vestige of my personal space."

Experts on energy consumption call it the "wife test." And one of the dimly lighted truths of the global-warming era is that fluorescent bulbs still seem to be flunking out in most American homes.

...

If you get the ones that are designed to match "daylight" the color should not be a problem and I have not noticed a flicker. The Prairie wife does not like the ones over my workspace because she thinks they are too bright even though they are equivalent to the regular 60 watt bulbs. Because of her distaste for fluorescent lighting we do not have them anywhere else.

I am not really concerned about global warming. I prefer warmer weather. I am concerned about keeping my untility bill as low as possible so I can spend the money for other priorities. Fortunately I designed our house with a lot of natural lighting so we rarely have lights on during the day.