If you have decided to replace all your incandescent light bulbs with LEDs, you’ ve possibly made the best decision for energy costs. LED lights will help you save a considerable amount of money on your energy bills and help you lower your primary and secondary carbon footprint.
However, there are certain important considerations that you must have in mind before going out to shop for LED bulbs.
Measurement of Brightness
If you haven’t used LED lights before, then you probably don’t know anything about lumens (lm).
The measure of brightness for incandescent bulbs is watts. In essence, watts are the measure of how much electricity a bulb pulls, which directly affects brightens. This is the reason why watts is used as a measurement of brightens. However, LED works differently. Since the focus of LED is consuming as little energy as possible, using watts isn’t exactly a good measure for brightness.
Therefore, when shopping for LED, you will need to look for lumens (lm), which is the proper way of measuring the brightness of the bulb. Deepening on the technology, an LED bulb drawing in lesser watts could be providing more brightness than the one consuming more watts.
Colors
While incandescent bulbs only came with yellow and warm hues, LED comes in a wide spectrum of colors.
You can find almost any color bulb in an LED, whether it be red, purple, blue or green. However, for your home you should be going with something similar to an incandescent bulb in the range yellow and white. Some colors worth considering are “soft white”, “bright white” and “warm white”.
It is better to mix it up and use different colors for different parts of the house. You could use bright white for your kitchen, while go with warm and soft white for your living room and bedrooms.
Cost
LED bulbs cost more upfront, so you should be prepared to spend a little money while shopping. However, consider it an investment that will save you a lot of money in the long-term.
This is because LED bulbs consume a lot less energy. An LED bulb consumes only 10% to 20% energy of an incandescent bulb, while providing more light. They also have longer life, so you won’t have to worry about replacing the bulbs any time soon.
Dimmable Options
LED bulbs come with dimmable options as well, so with dimmable bulbs for your bedrooms.
If you already have dimmers installed in your switches for your incandescent light bulbs, they might need to be replaced, as these dimmers won’t be as effective with LED. Since LED consumes only a little bit of energy, you will need to get dimmers that are compatible with LED.
Fixtures
You won’t need any sort of major electrical upgrades in your wiring system or your fixtures to have LED installed. However, you must ensure that you aren’t installing any LED bulbs in enclosed housing. Even though LEDs only produce a minimal amount of heat, they do produce it, which needs a place to dissipate. If the heat doesn’t find a place to dissipate, your LED will fizzle out long before its useful life is over.
The best thing to do in this case is to hire an electrician that specializes in LED lights.
We are the leading electrical service in Cypress, TX and offer complete LED solutions for homes. Visit our website if you want to learn more.