CFL stands for compact fluorescent lamps and have been the talk of the town for the past few years now because of their low energy consumption. In fact a few countries have made it mandatory to switch from incandescent bulbs to CFLs in order to reduce the energy consumption.
Although CFLs have been around for a couple of decades now, they were not widely preferred for a couple of reasons. They could only emit white light, and most people did not want to have their homes looking like their offices or shops and preferred incandescent bulbs because of this. They were also not dimmable in the sense that if you had a dimmer switch you could reduce the intensity of the light by dimming it and while incandescent bulbs lend themselves to this CFLs did not. Now however both these reasons, or should we say excuses have been removed with CFLs coming in different colors and being able to be dimmed as well.
A dimmable CFL is just the same as any other CFL bulb except that you can use it with a dimmer switch while the normal ones cannot. Although most normal CFLs will also dim to a certain extent they are nowhere near what these bulbs can do. If you are going to get CFLs then getting the dimmable ones might be a good idea even if you do not have a dimmer switch in your home. The reason for this is that if in case you change your mind and install one later on you do not have to change all the bulbs. Considering that these bulbs are more expensive than the normal incandescent bulbs this is something worth considering. This should however not be a reason for you not to purchase these bulbs because research has shown that these bulbs save an average of $100 a year per bulb on electricity charges.
CFLs are, on an average, 80 to 85% more efficient than normal incandescent bulbs. Which means that a single 10 watt CFL can give you as much light as a 60 or 80 watt incandescent bulb. This alone should be sufficient reason to get them although there is another reason which is the longevity of the bulb. The incandescent bulbs last for an average of 750 hrs before having to be replaced, while the CFL bulbs last an average of 20,000 hrs. This means that although they are more expensive, you will still have to replace at least 20 incandescent bulbs before having to replace one of these and these bulbs definitely do not cost 20 times the cost of a normal bulb. In the long run these bulbs are actually cheaper.
After government intervention, these bulbs are made for a variety of sizes and purposes and there is nothing that you have for which you cannot get one of these bulbs. In fact you even get CFL bulbs with tiny pins so that they can be used in your candelabra. There are bulbs made specifically for your chandeliers and for lanterns and if someone told you that you could not use shades with these lamps because they emitted a lot of heat, they would be a few years behind technology. The newer bulbs can be used with shades and do not emit any more heat than the incandescent bulbs.
Even if you are not an Eco-maniac it still makes sense to buy these lamps purely from an economical point of view. The benefit to mother earth would be subsidiary. Whatever the naysayers say they do not have a leg to stand on because any wrong that these bulbs do is offset by the good that they do. Change; you can help the environment while helping yourself too.