LESLIE: Everybody’s going green including Marty. What can we do for you?
MARTY: The subject is our kitchen. We have a small kitchen. It’s about 8×10. It’s not an eat-in; it’s just a utilitarian type place. And we have fluorescent lighting in there now, which is a single fixture with two circular lights that amount to 72 watts fluorescent. And we want to change and we’re talking about going back to incandescents; perhaps a single fixture. But what we’re not too sure about is how much wattage should we use to replace 72 watts of fluorescent.
TOM: It depends on what you mean by 72 watts. Now, if you’re looking, for example, at compact fluorescents, they usually give you a wattage equivalent to an incandescent bulb. So, for example, a 75-watt compact fluorescent is actually only using about a quarter of that amount of electricity because watts is a measure of electricity and electrical consumption. If you’re talking about one of those old-fashioned circular bulbs …
MARTY: Yes.
TOM: … well, what you might want to do is probably go with 100 to 150 watts worth of electricity but try to buy a fixture that uses compact fluorescents because this way it’s not going to cost you anymore to operate it than the old fixture does right now.
MARTY: OK, so we were trying to get away from the fluorescent look but maybe because …
TOM: Well, but this is a different type of fluorescent. I’m talking about using a compact fluorescent bulb.
MARTY: I see.
TOM: Not a circular, old-fashioned fluorescent.
MARTY: OK. And those will fit into a regular incandescent fixture.
TOM: Socket. Socket. Correct.
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