Tim, if you get fairly low wattage CFLs (i.e. 13 or 14 watt which is equivalent to 60 watt incandescent), then it shouldn't be a problem in your open fixtures. Home Depot has a great line of
n:vision CFLs. I have a pair of 14 watt ones operating in a totally enclosed fixture with no problems. It says in the
FAQ that bulbs under 23 watts can be used in totally enclosed fixtures. They are $8 for a 4 pack, and are available in soft white (2700K), bright white (3500K), and daylight (5500K). The daylight ones are not noticeably blue like 6500K daylight often is. The downside is that these are NOT dimmable, and may not work properly on a circuit with a lamp dimmer even with the dimmer fully on (only way is to buy a few to test). They do have a line of candelabra base bulbs (with large base adaptor) which are dimmable. Downside of these is cost (~$6 each IIRC), only available in soft white, and only in low wattages. They really aren't a suitable replacement.
The bottom line is if you can give up the dimmability, then low cost CFL replacements exist (you may need to change your dimmer switches to standard ones). If you want dimmability, then the costs exceed $10 a lamp usually. For example,
these are very nice, but at $14.95 each, ouch!
A good compromise might be to decide which areas you must have dimming, and which ones you can live without it. Just get rid of the dimming switches in the areas you can live without dimming, and use the $2 n:vision bulbs from Home Depot. Perhaps if you only need to buy a handful of dimmable lamps then your expenses can be kept in line.
LED is another option, but too many screw-in replacements are made with craptastic 5mm LEDs which will be dim as heck after a few thousand hours. You need to buy something with power LEDs like Crees or Luxeons. However, you're talking usually upwards of $50 a lamp, and not all are dimmable. Once LED takes off for home lighting, you'll undoubtedly see the cost of these drop dramatically. I also suspect that dimmability will be more commonplace with LED bulbs. It's technically much easier to design an LED for dimmability than a CFL.
So my advice for now is to get by without dimming for as many lamps as you can. If you can live with the power usage, heat, color (although that's subjective
), and short life of the incans for a few more years you'll undoubtedly have a much wider range of attractive LED options. Remember that right now CRI is the next big thing being worked on with LEDs. Current ones are somewhat lacking although I've found Cree is the best. Their cool whites are in the low 80s, similar to commodity CFLs but not full spectrum. Soon we should see LEDs with CRI in the mid 90s (but at the expense of perhaps 25% efficiency). And of course efficiency will continue to increase, albeit more slowly than in years past (
Osram just hit 136 lm/W at 350 mA in the lab )
