The next time Woodbury, Minn., custom builder Troy Hofmann sells one of his signature insulated-concrete homes, the structure will have two additional energy-saving features: compact fluorescent light bulbs and the pin-based fixtures that house them.

Until now, Hofmann has shied away from the most energy efficient of all residential lighting because the long-burning bulbs, he says, were too bulky to hide beneath the elegant luminaires designed for traditional incandescent bulbs. And he eschewed fixtures specifically designed to cover fluorescent lights as “too big, too square, too boxy, and too ugly.”

During the past two years, that has changed. Not only are new fixtures more stylish covers for the twisted tubes that pack up to 10,000 hours of light and need changing only after five to seven years, but fluorescent bulbs are smaller and closer in color to familiar-yet-inefficient incandescent light. Even better, they operate without the pesky flickering that characterized prior generations of fluorescent lighting.

“Now you don't have to compromise energy savings for design or the look,” says Hofmann, who notes that improvements in the design of the bulbs and their luminaires are a relief for energy-conscious builders. “If it's a choice between saving energy and having an ugly fixture or not saving energy and having a beautiful fixture, [home buyers] will choose the aesthetic every time.”

Yet few builders are choosing to equip their new units or even their model homes with fixtures sporting compact fluorescent light bulbs, which burn about 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and, when used to displace incandescents throughout a home, can save a homeowner up to $2,000 in utility bills over the long life of the product.

While the size and color of the once-bulky bulbs have become more pleasing as manufacturers scurry to respond to the demands of California code officials for more energy-efficient building products, their price has not. Indeed, the bare-bones compact fluorescent equivalent of the household staple—the 30-cent, 60-watt, soft white incandescent bulb that lasts for 750 to 1,000 hours—costs at least 20 times more. And builders aren't the ones who reap the electric-bill savings from the energy-efficient technology; rather, their customers do.

“Builders need to embrace this more,” notes Jeffrey Beiter, director of business development for the energy-efficient products group at Seagull Lighting, a manufacturer of lighting fixtures. “They want to build a superior product but they stop short” when it comes to lighting. “They don't put it in model homes because it costs more. But it costs more because [the homeowner] is going to get a lot more mileage to the gallon.”

Technically, they get more lumens per watt. Fluorescent lighting is more energy efficient than incandescent, in part, because fluorescent bulbs emit far more light (lumens) than heat energy (watts). Indeed, fluorescent bulbs create a negligible amount of heat, producing between 50 and 100 lumens per watt. Incandescent lights, on the other hand, emit more heat than light, only about 15 lumens per watt. Because the incandescent wastes up to 85 percent of its energy producing heat, it burns itself out in short order. So users are paying for heat they don't need and that can force their air conditioners to work harder to keep the house cool.

Still, Americans love the soft yellow color of familiar incandescent lighting and have resisted the more expensive fluorescent replacements since they hit the market in 1939. Early versions, installed mainly in office buildings and notorious for hesitating and blinking before offering a steady stream of overhead light, came only in long, thin tubes that cast a harsh, bluish glare instead of a warm candle-like glow. Eventually, some homeowners welcomed the fluorescent tubes into their basements, laundry rooms, and some kitchens, but not into the main living areas of the home.

Year by year, manufacturers have responded by shrinking and twisting those tubes into the A-like shape of the typical incandescent bulb and threading their bases so they can screw into the same table lamps and overhead sockets as their energy-wasting competitor. And they have manipulated the bulbs' color so it mimics the popular incandescent.