are these treated the same as

[turtle420]

or actually 120V out of the wall that is transformed to 250W?

Um, yes... no... yes... but no.... depends... yes... no.... no... yes.... No.

Ok, a 250W HPS will pull 250W from your house.

CFLs (as gK said, Cheap Fucking Lights), have two numbers. The big number, is that wattage they're comparable to regarding an incandescent bulb. The lower number, is the actual consumption of the bulb.

If the CFL is 42W, and the big number is 150W, then it will pull from your house 42W. Don't use your 150W number in your calculations... it means jack-shit for us growers.