fluorescent tube light bulbs

[TreasonousBastard]

3. T12's are available, but Lowe's is a not the best place to buy them...

K-Mart, hardware stores, and other places have them, but personally, I prefer Home Depot for fluorescent buying because most the ones they carry have color temperature and accuracy information.

The cheapest cool-white and warm-white fluorescents put out a lot of light, but it's a lousy yellowish color. For a little more money you can get tubes that, among other things, imitate an incandescent bulb, sunlight, or north daylight.

A month or so ago I replaced some kitchen cool-white T12s with tubes from HD that have a color temperature of 3200K and a CRI (the measure of accuracy-- 100 is perfect) of 88. The kitchen looks amazingly better, and people walking in notice.

And, you are best to visit the store and not order online-- I used to sell lighting, and breakage seemed to be the norm.