Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

Five years ago, National Geographic wrote about the phase out of an "unloved" light bulb that was close to phasing out. Yet, here we are still talking about the lighting product that quickly became replaced by LEDs - Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs).

Although LED lighting is the most popular and one of the most efficient lighting options right now, our team still faces a lot of questions on fluorescent lighting. Aletheia Cyr, our training and development specialist, helps walk through some of the most common questions we receive on fluorescent lighting. 

Lighting manufacturers speak different dialects of the same language: part numbers. The point of our part number series is to help you to better understand what all of those characters on your light bulb mean, so you can accurately and easily order replacement products. 

Understanding part numbers is especially helpful when manufacturers begin to phase out and discontinue certain products, causing you to have to buy replacement products from another manufacturer. That's especially useful if you have compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs, with so many manufacturers beginning to phase them out of production.

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL bulbs) first emerged on the lighting market as a more energy-efficient alternative to the incandescent light bulb.

Manufacturers had already started producing linear fluorescents, but the linear tubes did not fit into the same socket as incandescent light bulbs.