What saves you money and helps the environment? With over a decade’s experience in LED lighting for homes and workplaces, South East Electrical Services are ideally placed to advise you on the benefits of LED lighting for your home.
Modern LED lighting technology is cheap to run. It consumes less power compared to other lighting systems at your home.
And at the same time it is more environmentally-friendly. For instance, not having the mercury vapour like CFL.
As per the Australian Government study, it consumes up to 75% less energy than the Halogen light bulbs in case of household usage.
LEDs use about 75% less energy than halogen light bulbs and last 5 to 10 times longer, greatly reducing replacement costs and the number of light bulbs ending up in landfill. The up-front cost of LEDs generally has a payback time of less than 1 year.
LED Lights last a really long time compared to incandescent lights. They also last longer than CFLs. Up to six times longer.
This means, on an average, after installing LED lights in your home, you don’t have to think about changing them for about the next 11 years. Or perhaps up to , 20 years. If you’re my age, the life span of LED lights is now about the same as my actual life span.
Another wonderful aspect of LED lights are their running cost. The savings you make on your electricity bills will pay for the upgrade to LED lights.
If you compare an LED light with a 35W down light you’ll get savings of $91 over ten years. That includes the purchase prices of both lights.
The graph below presents data from the Australian Government’s Light Bulb Saver App.
During this ten year period you would have purchased (on average) 10 incandescent globes. Or 2 CFLs.
The running costs of CFLs is almost equivalent to LEDs so in this case you should also weigh up the environmental benefits of LEDs versus CFLs. We’ll get to that in a minute.
When was the last time you hit your light globe with a hammer?
Never. Of course.
Maybe you should try and hit your LED light with a hammer. Chances are it is made of plastic. (Please don’t actually hit your globe with a hammer. If it breaks, we don’t want to take the blame.) You can drop most LED lights without damaging them. The same can’t be said for CFLs or incandescents.
The main reason incandescent globes are so inefficient is because most of their energy is used to produce heat. Only 10-20% of energy consumed by incandescent globes is used to make light.
They’re not really light globes at all. They’re heat globes. Making light is a side-effect.
Halogen lights, which are still common in many homes as downlights, also produce a lot of heat.
If you value safety, converting to LED lights (or CFLs) will significantly decrease your likelihood of a house fire.
Halogen lights can usually be swapped for LED lights these days. There are many alternatives that will allow you to directly retrofit and LED. If you do insist on keeping your halogen downlights, make sure you have a good gap between your lights and your insulation. This will require an inspection of the lights in your ceiling space.
Yes, in case you didn’t get it when we were discussing house fires above, LED lights are much safer. It’s not just fires though. Below are three reasons why LED lights are safer than the alternatives:
You read that last one correctly. CFLs contain mercury vapour. If you break a CFL it will continue to leak mercury vapour weeks or months. If you inhale this vapour it can harm your health.
We’ve covered some of these issues in the sections above. But let’s put them all together so we can see the clear benefits of LED lights.
Reducing your energy will result in less carbon emissions. With global warming and pollution becoming major issues, lower emissions can only be a good thing.
As we showed in the graph in section 2, you’re likely to need twice as many CFLs, and 10 times as many incandescents, in a 10 year period. Less waste is always better for the environment
Yep, we just covered this above. CFLs have mercury vapour in them.
Please, when you’re disposing of CFLs, make sure you do it correctly. They shouldn’t go in your regular garbage.
Gold Coast residents, read this on disposal of harmful materials.
If you break a CFL (which has mercury) you must:
· turn off ceiling fans and air conditioning units
· put on a dust mask and use a utensil to collect broken glass and powder and put them in a plastic bag
· wipe the area with a damp paper towel and put the paper towel in the plastic bag and seal it
· avoid leaving any bulb fragments or clean up materials indoors ventilate the room.
Do not use a vacuum to clean up as this can disperse the mercury.
Maybe I’m easily amused, but when I first replaced my neon tubes with LEDs, I was in love. I think I turned the lights on and off in my garage about twenty times, just for kicks. The difference between the instant light and the former flickering into life was just so good.
And have you ever gone down to your garage or shed, flicked the switch, and your neon light flickered…flickered…but never quite lit up? I bet you have. LEDs won’t do that. They’ll come on straight away.
These guys below show how easy it is to retrofit LED tube lights.
Most CFL lights don’t come up to full brightness straight away either. They fade up to full light. LEDs come on strong and immediate. If you’re popping breifly into a room to get something, it makes a big difference to have immediate full light.
Many LED lights are dimmable. Not all though. If you want dimmable lights, make sure to check before purchasing.
Dimmable lights allow you to change lighting to suit your moods or requirements.
I often leave an outdoor light on at 5%. The energy usage is tiny. And I have a light on when I get home.
My wife likes to dim lights to create the right amount of light in the lounge and living areas.
I control my workshop lights to add the right amount of light depending on the ambient light available.
LED lights emit a clean, white light. That’s fantastic in some situations (like my workshop). But not great in others. Like the lounge-room, where a warmer light would be appropriate.
Which is fine, because they now come in a range of white light spectrum.
For instance, Philips have warm LED globes. If you play the video below it will show you four shades of white in the same room.
You can also add light fixtures, like the chandelier under reason 8, to adjust the warmth of your lighting.
Oh my, there are now so many options for LED lighting it’s hard to keep track.
LED lights have also opened up new alternatives for home lighting. For instance, LED lights brought strip lighting into the household. These three images show examples of strip lighting that just wasn’t possible before LED lights.
Then there is the range of funky globes available. Even the big block stores, like Kmart and Ikea shown below, have globes available in many shapes.
Then you get specialty store, like Vintage LED, who provide LEDs you can show off as part of your lighting solutions.
Want to dim your lights without getting off the couch?
Sending the kids to bed but the hall light needs to be turned on first?
With LED smart bulbs you can do just this from an app on your phone.
If you have a Google Home or Alexa you can turn lights on and off with a voice command.
This can be done from where ever you are. This is also useful as part of you home security system.
Hey Google, turn the living room lights to 20% and turn the outdoor light off.
There are smart LED bulbs that suit every situation and budget.
From strips to bulbs there are LED smart lights for every situation. Smart Strip lights are great in work areas like kitchens or studies as you can alter the brightness of the light as you need to.
Coloured LED smart bulbs are fun for kids rooms or outdoors. Especially fun for a party.
Fluroescent lighting is not known for fabulous colour options. You are unusually stuck with warm or white lighting colour.
LED lights on the other hand are available in a wide range of colours as well as the standard cool and warm whites. And even more fun is that you can get colour changing lights that can be controlled but your smart phone or with a remote. (See smart lights above.) Perfect for a party or an outdoor area.
After 10 very valid points do you really need an 11th reason to install LED lighting?
If you run a business you will be very excited about reason number 11. Energex is offering funding for businesses to become more energy efficient.
We support businesses to make changes that benefit energy efficiency, like upgrading certain appliances, equipment or processes. For example, lighting may account for 10-25% of total electricity use at your business site. By upgrading or replacing your existing lighting with newer, energy saving options such as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), you can save on your bills while helping us manage network peak demand.
Other States run similar programs and it is worth keeping an eye on the Government website for any updates on energy efficiency programs that your business could benefit from.
The always entertaining ElectroBoom has a good go at comparing different light sources in this video. He’s part clown, part science communicator. Which makes for an entertaining way to explain why LED lights are so good.
With years of experience doing LED installations, South East Electrical are you ideal partner for home or business LED lighting.
