Bright Ideas

If you’ve ever lived in a place with electricity, it is by no means certain that you’ve fallen victim to the – freak lightbulb blowout / “I swear I just replaced this bulb” / “I forgot to get lightbulbs at the store, so I’ll just get by on less light” situations.

The New(ish) Product: LED alleges that it has aesthetically caught up to general home light CFL / incandescent counterparts and has surpassed them in efficiency, life and safety.

The Game: On a rainy day such as today, we thought what better way to spend our afternoon (apart from the newly-purchased “Treasure Hunt in a Bottle” puzzle) than a “bulb-off”? With several rooms currently using the standard GE 60 watt and the occasional CFL lightbulbs, we set off to challenge each other to identify and/or rate which bulbs had been replaced with LED.

The Findings: In the vast majority of cases, the standard bulb was selected as the LED, with the explanation that it was “brighter”.  If you’re like me, your experience with LED bulbs extends to the blinding high-beam-seeming headlights coming at you on your commute home. This was not the case. The LED had a bright, yet not “harsh” luminescence.

The Numbers:

A standard 60 watt bulb claims to last 2000 hours.

The new LED bulbs claim an average of 14 years of life, at 3 hours a day. That’s potentially 5113.5 hours of usage.

Finally, the kicker: Each bulb uses fraction of the energy 1.8W vs. 60W!!

They look great

The Punchline: They look great. I’m ordering replacements for the barn and we’ll let you know what the % change in energy savings is!

The Challenge: Change your lights once every 10-14 years with less heat emitted. This means, when you have the lights on during that summer party, your A/C has to work less hard — further energy savings! I hope you’re ready for a hassle-free long-term relationship.

Generating electricity for buildings and homes represents a major portion of our total fossil fuel usage (Transportation being the other big chunk — more on that soon). What would the reduced impact be if everyone made the correct economic decision as well?

Be well and be the change

Future Bright