Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity

Alex and Sara Sifford have many compact fluorescent light bulbs in their home, but she's not completely sold. (By Blaine Harden -- The Washington Post)

"The new fluorescent bulbs aren't just better for both your wallet and the environment -- they produce better light," declares the May issue of Popular Mechanics, in an exhaustive comparison test of the new breed of CFLs against incandescents.

Still, many consumers -- especially women -- do not seem to be buying in.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week showed that while women are more likely than men to say they are "very willing" to change behavior to help the environment, they are less likely to have CFL bulbs at home. Wal-Mart company research shows a similar "disconnect" between the pro-environmental attitudes of women shoppers and their in-store purchases of CFL bulbs.

Wal-Mart launched a campaign last fall to sell 100 million CFL bulbs a year and is prominently displaying them in all its stores. That campaign, Wal-Mart says, has more than doubled the share of CFLs it has sold.

"Attitudes don't always reflect behavior, and that is what was most surprising to us," said Tara Raddohl, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. "Customers may have in mind, yes, they want to support environmentally friendly products, but when they come to the shelf to buy, the data shows they are not always buying them."

Utility company surveys show the same gender-based bulb-buying pattern in the Pacific Northwest, which has the highest CFL market share in the nation, about 11 percent. Men have been aware of CFLs longer than women, have bought them earlier and have installed more of them in the house than women, according to surveys that the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance has been conducting since 2004.

In groceries and drugstores, where 70 percent to 90 percent of light bulbs historically have been sold and where women usually have been the ones doing the buying, CFLs have not taken off nearly as fast as they have in home-improvement stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's, where men do much of the shopping.

"My gut feeling is that the last remaining factor that we have not cracked in selling these bulbs is the 'wife test,' " said My Ton, a senior manager at Ecos Consulting, a company in Portland, Ore., that does market research on energy efficiency.

After a decade as a researcher in residential lighting, Ton said he has concluded that a major part of the CFL problem in penetrating the American home "is a lack of communication between the sexes."

"The guy typically brings a CFL home and just screws it into a lamp in the bedroom, without discussing it with his wife," Ton said. "She walks in, turns on the light and boom -- there is trouble. That is where the negative impressions begin, especially when the guy puts it into the bedroom or the bathroom, the two most sacred areas of the home."

Ton advises husbands and wives "to talk about it before the light bulb is screwed in."

For Alex and Sara Sifford, the time for talking seems long gone.

Over the past nine years, Alex Sifford, who once worked for a utility as an energy-efficiency expert, has replaced nearly every incandescent bulb in the house. If his wife removes a new CFL, he simply waits a few weeks and screws it back in. As the bulbs have improved, he insists, his wife can no longer tell the difference.

Sara Sifford says that is ridiculous. But she has lost the will to fight. She also said she believes that using CFLs is "the moral, ethical and environmentally correct thing to do."

"He has worn me down," she said. "Honestly, the fluorescent bulbs still bug me."