Call me old-fashioned, but there's one thing i hate about flouro lights : they make any decent room look like a gosh-darned hospital. Maybe it's because of the fact that they produce light evenly across the spectrum with a slight bias towards blue. Which is the problem. I don't know why, but blue light just makes me feel irritable and all that (well during nightime at least - it's not so bad at day.)

Our good friends, however, the incandescent lightbulb, produces light biased towards red, orange and yellow, though, which makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside. However, one may observe that a) they produce a lot of heat - smething you don't need in a QLD summer, esp. when you're running a couple computers in the same room and they chew more energy (all that heat is electricity that isn't going towards making electrons jump around and produce photons of glorious, visible light).

So my question is : why do I not see flouro lights made in some ultra-special way so that they produce 'warm' light? Surely all you would have to do is put a coating on there that absorbs some of the blue light, and you might even be able to use a chemical that re-emits it as something with a lower wavelength so it doesn't just heat up the tube (that's wasted energy.)

Of course, if such a thing already exists, feel free to tell me about it - then you can slap me over the face some. After you send me a few

Flourescent bulbs come in several different types of 'light'.
Warm White and Cool White are the most readily available. And cheapest.
There are 'gro-lamps' as well, which put out a different UV light for plants of all types.
And there is another bulb, I forget the name, which in more like 'outdoor light'. These are about twice the price of the standard cool or warm bulbs, but worth the money in my opinion.
Last house I had, I put them in the Kitchen and it totally changed the room.
I will be using them in my new shop as well if I ever get it finished.

Okay, doh!! Those 'outdoor light' ones sound about right.

You wouldn't happen to know how they stack up effiiciency wise against standard ones, would you?

I know what you mean. Plus, the reason i hate flourescent lights is because they drive my eyes nuts. I never have dry eyes when i am working in a "warm" light situation or by natural light but as soon as i start to work in or around flourescent light, my eyes get so dry and it becomes really hard to work. I know they are cheap but come on, productivity would sky rocket is warm light was used all the time

I think standard 48 inch flouescents are 40 w per bulb and I think the 'outdoor' ones are 32 w per bulb. I'll try to remember to check at the local Hardware store and advise the details.