Why you should you convert from an incandescent light bulb to an LED light bulb.
Technology has advanced to the point now where not only are LED lights so much more efficient, but they don’t cost as much as they did when they were first introduced onto the market. When LED lights first came out, they cost about $20 to $25 per bulb. Hence, there was some debate about whether it made sense to convert from incandescent to LED because it would take a lot longer before these light bulbs started to pay you back in the energy savings.
However, now these LED bulbs are going to save you up to 75% off your bill. The energy savings will vary depending on what type of bulb you are replacing and how many hours you use light in that particular room; however, there will be savings.
Let’s discuss the actual output and its conversion from the incandescent light bulb. If you have a 60 Watt light bulb that you operate about five hours per day and then convert it to the LED equivalent in lumens light output about 7 to 8 half Watts, you should save about $10 per year per light bulb.
So nowadays, you can get a LED light for less than $10 per bulb, which, as we mentioned before, wasn’t the case. So you’re going to get payback on that light bulb exchange a lot sooner today than you would have 15 years ago. It also, of course, depends on how much you use the bulb and for how long each day. If you were upgrading an incandescent bulb that was used 5 hours per day on average, it makes sense. However, there are going to be some bulbs that you don’t operate that much. You might not operate a bulb for 5 hours in an entire month. For those bulbs, you might not want to change them yet. You might want to wait until they burn out or break before you go ahead and pay for the LED light bulb. You might have a bulb in your utility room where your hot water heater in your furnaces, and you never go in there except maybe once per month. You flip the light on, and you’re only in there for five minutes, and then it’s off. In that instance, this bulb might last few years, so then leave it. But it’s those bulbs that you use a lot that you should definitely switch out. Let’s say you’ve got recessed lighting, and you’ve got 8 or 10 recessed lights in your family room. You know those things are cranking, and you will see some serious savings at the end of the year when you convert those. If those lights are halogen, you will find even more significant savings. Besides, halogen lights are very hot, so the summer’s heat savings will also pay off. An incandescent bulb will crank some heat, and although an LED has a little bit of heat, not nearly as much as incandescent and Halogens.
Sometimes you can’t even touch an incandescent lightbulb if it’s still hot because it was just turned off. You might burn your finger touching that bulb because it’s still hot. A hot halogen light might melt your skin right off. A combination of all these lights throws some severe heat in the summer, and your air conditioning is trying to cool the house at the same time we’ve got these little furnaces heating the room. Hence, there are so many hidden savings that are hard to point out, but it will improve your air conditioning bills because the a/c won’t have to work hard to cool a house lit by hot bulbs.
At the end of the day, if you have any bulb that you operate for at least two hours per day, you should immediately convert it over to LED. If you don’t use the bulb that much, leave it alone. Leave your incandescent in there, and if it’s halogen, you may want to convert it anyway because it’s super hot. Your average savings will be about $10 per year per bulb, so hopefully, that makes it very clear.
If you have a hard time reaching some of your bulbs that are really high, it always pays to call a handyman to change your lightbulbs for you.
