Switching to energy efficient lighting options throughout your home or business can significantly reduce your electricity use, and therefore potentially slash your lighting costs.
CFL (compact fluorescent lamps) and LED bulbs provide a long-lasting, power saving alternative to older style incandescent bulbs.
With the price of LED and CFL bulbs reducing all the time and manufacturers producing bulbs for all situations, there’s really no reason not to make the move to a more economical choice of lighting.
LED Lighting
Light-emitting diode light bulbs and lighting fixtures are known as LEDs. LEDs can have varied designs with a range of looks for many different uses. Some are designed to look like old-fashioned light bulbs. LED’s are available to replace a wide range of inefficient halogen and incandescent lighting.
Quality LED light bulbs last 5 to 10 times longer than halogen light bulbs and consume a quarter of the energy to produce the same light output.
- LED bulbs last between 15,000 to 50,000 hrs
- Halogen bulbs last between 1,000 to 4,000 hours
- CFLs last approximately 6,000 hours.
LED light bulbs can be as low as $10. Whilst more expensive upfront in comparison to halogen or CFL, LED comes out on top when considering ongoing electricity and replacement costs.
CFL Lighting
Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), are designed to replace the old incandescent light bulbs which have been around for years; some types fit into light fixtures designed for incandescent bulbs.
CFLs use one-fifth to one-third the electric power, and last eight to fifteen times longer. A CFL has a higher purchase price than an incandescent lamp, but can save over five times its purchase price in electricity costs over the lamp’s lifetime. Like all fluorescent lamps, CFLs contain toxic mercury which complicates their disposal.