About 20 years ago I changed most of the lighting in my house from incandescent to fluorescent to save money on the electric bill and it made a small dent in the bill. Over the past several months, I've changed my fluorescent and my remaining incandescent lighting to LED lighting. I got my electrical bill yesterday and I have basically cut my electrical bill in half. Feb 2014 I used 710kWh, Feb 2015 I used 380kWh. I was stunned that it dropped that much. I knew things like my refrigerator, washer/dryer would draw the most power in my house, so I didn't expect the bill to drop that much. The only other things I've done that would have an impact on my electric bill is a new furnace and doubling the insulation in my attic. The price of LED lighting has really dropped over the past couple of years. You can find a 9watt LED bulb, which gives off the same amount of light as 60watt bulb for under $8. I even took it a step further by getting outdoor lighting fixtures (patio, garage, door..) that dim to 50% until motion is detected. So now my outdoor 9watt LED bulbs are only drawing 4.5watts 95%of the time. So instead of using 240watts for outdoor lighting, it's down to 18watts.
I need to do this. Where do you buy you LED bulbs? Online, or some place like Home Depot? And are there good vs bad brands in terms of quality?
Basically between the 3 hardware store around me, Home Depot, Menards and Lowes. I haven't ran into a bad brand yet. I know I've seen a couple of reviews on the internet, but they didn't say much. My outdoor and a few of my indoor bulbs needed to be dimmable LED bulbs.
I've tried a few, and the Cree warm white LED bulbs seem to replicate the light from a normal incandescent bulb the best. I keep a Cree 3 way bulb in the lamp by my spot on the couch. Most often I have it in the low (3 watt) setting and it is perfect for ambient light so my eyes don't hurt looking at the laptop screen.
The only strange issue I have ran into with LED lighting was with my over the kitchen sink 7 LED light bar. It has a clear lens so the light isn't diffused and it will cast 7 shadows Here's a picture of what it does
@palandri I have also noted that the beam from LEDs is narrow, not dispersed. I noted this the other night in parking lot that just installed them--very narrow beam.
Off topic, but I thought I'd toss it in here since it has to due with saving money. There was a new episode of Outrageous Acts Of Science on the Science channel tonight. One of the things they covered was a solar powered transportation competition in Australia. The guys that won built a solar powered car that drove across Australia (north to south) at 120 kilometer/hour = 74.5 mile/hour mph. Amazing!
The LED street lights were designed that way to help minimize light pollution. I read an article on them when they first came out. If the bulb is well designed for a home application you don't encounter it. I have the following bulb in my lamp by my favorite spot on the couch. Nice, warm, even glow. You would never guess it wasn't an incandescent bulb just looking at the lamp.
Good thread! I have florescents in most of the lights I leave on for any length of time. Sometimes those take a minute or two to get up to full brightness. I'll have to give some LEDs a try.
I like the fluorescent bulbs that take a few minutes to achieve full brightness in certain places. My eyes are extremely sensitive to light when I first get up at night. so I have the slow bulbs installed in my bathroom.
