This may be a stupid question, but I don't know the answer... can someone help me? :)

I have a ceiling mounted combination fan/heat/light unit in the bathroom, and I replaced the light bulb w/ a standard A-type bulb, which tripped the circuit breaker. I then used a compact fluorescent. Now it's flickering wildly, and constantly getting brighter and brighter while it's on.

Is this because the wattage is too high or too low?

Thanks!!

Even if you had the wrong size bulb in their it would not immediately cause the breaker to trip.

Sounds like you have some kind of failure within the fixture. Now that failure could have been caused by using too large a wattage of bulb. That requires a long time (months or years) unless you founda way to put in 1000 watt bulb.