Where household is concerned the future is already settled. Present lighting technology as represented by incandescent bulbs and Compact Fluorescent Lamps doesn’t have much place in a low energy, low carbon world. Light Emitting Diodes on the other hand are based on technology similar to that which powered the computer revolution – and look how that turned out.
Incandescent bulbs waste considerably more electricity generating heat than light. This costs money and wastes precious natural resources to make that electricity. The net result on both scores is further unwelcome contributions to atmospheric warming and CO2 pollution.
CFLs provide some advances over regular light bulbs but also bring their own specific disadvantages. Among their many another problems, arguably the worst is that they carry mercury vapor and are therefore not easy to safely and responsibly dispose of. They’ve also never been accused of being elegant and attractive.
Using present day LED technology you should expect to get the same level of brightness as any given incandescent bulb using 1/10th the power. And with no hidden problems either. Moreover they are rugged little things, pleasingly small and you will have to replace a regular bulb a staggering 25 to 50 times before the LED wears out.
So the obvious question is why aren’t we installing them? This is due to insufficient understanding with regard to the true costs involved, plus lack of awareness about the product itself. When it comes to costs then it’s only natural to compare initial product prices and LED is a significantly more costly purchase. However, the true overall cost is mostly made up of operating costs and here LED leaves the competition in the dust.
Installing LED lamps in the home is also a topic with its fair share of confusion and misinformation. The Internet is not short of people complaining that LED lights are insufficiently bright enough for use in the house. What they are actually saying is that they bought under powered products, either as a result of ignorance or penny pinching, but expected better performance than they got. Choosing a 1.5w LED over a 6w is no different to purchasing a normal 15w instead of 60w bulb.
But there is more to it than just seeing to it your light bulbs are bright enough in the first place. The light from an LED is noticeably different; whereas the majority of incandescent bulbs give a warm golden glow, they are quite a bit more distinctly white, typically narrow beam and extremely bright when viewed directly. All the qualities that make a terrific spotlight, which is why they are a great choice for replacing halogen lamps. Unlike CFLs they also retrofit either 12 volt MR16 or GU10 mains format bases.
Finally, because an LED gives off so little heat, it can be fitted in far more places than is possible with a seriously hot halogen light. This means you can easily put them in concealed locations to create soft lighting effects by bouncing the light off adjacent surfaces. So in addition to being bright and sparkly you can mix in warmer more diffuse light that also absorbs color from the materials they are reflected from.
To discover more about this topic, I recommend these articles that further cover LED MR16 and 12v lights.
categories: 12v LED lighting,GU10 LED bulbs,MR16 LED lamps,12 volt lighting,halogen vs LED,LED spotlight,low energy lighting,12v lighting,LED,lighting,energy saving
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.