A dimmer gives you much more flexibility with your lighting control--it allows you to adjust the lights in a room for a specific activity or create ambience, rather than simply having the lights turned on or off.

Install a dimmer in your kitchen, for example, and you can brighten lights at breakfast or when preparing meals, and lower them to catch up with your family over an evening snack. In the bathroom, a dimmer means you don't have to begin your morning routine in full bright light, but rather in a soft glow to help you ease into your day. Dim the lights in your dining room and you can create the perfect atmosphere for entertaining friends.

Click here to see ten energy saving solutions from Lutron.

Incandescent and halogen bulbs have a thick metal wire in them, called a filament. (That's the wire you can see through the bulb's glass.) When you turn on a light switch, electrical current passes through the filament, and the filament heats up. When the filament gets hot, it produces light.

A dimmer works by interrupting the current flowing into the filament (the current is interrupted too fast for our eyes to see). When less current flows into the filament, the filament doesn't get as hot, and it produces less light.

The amount you save depends on how many bulbs you use with the dimmer, the amount of time you dim the lights, and by what percentage you dim them. For example, dimming four 75W bulbs by 33% for 3 hours a day saves 26% electricity, translating into $48 in savings over 5 years.

Yes; dimmers can also help reduce CO2 emissions. In fact, if every household in the U.S. installed one Lutron dimmer, we would reduce CO2 emissions equivalent to that from 370,000 cars.

Dimmed bulbs also last up to 10 years, reducing landfill waste.

Using a dimmer with a screw-in CFL may result in poor dimming quality, as evidenced by flickering lights, poor response to the dimmer, or lack of low light levels. It may also damage the bulb.

The reason dimming with a screw-in CFL differs from dimming with an incandescent bulb is that a CFL, like any fluorescent bulb, needs a ballast to make it work. The ballast has to be small to fit inside the base of the bulb; because of the ballast's size some components that would be included in a separate dimming ballast are often left out, which results in poor performance when used with a dimmer. In contrast, an incandescent light bulb doesn't require a ballast to make it work. Click here to learn more about using the right bulbs in your home or business.