Everyone wants lower energy bills, but high-efficiency bulbs for lighting fixtures are expensive. Fortunately, you can save on custom lighting while still getting the results you want.
But first, you have to learn about your lighting options and decide how you want to use them.
If saving money is your top priority, go to the nearest big box or hardware store. Purchase the most efficient light bulbs you can find. Replace all of your existing bulbs with the ones you just bought. This technique will slash your energy usage immediately.
The only question is whether those high-efficiency bulbs will produce the desired effects. After all, aesthetics and functionality are what custom lighting is all about.
Illuminated areas should have a pleasing glow and sufficient light. The challenge is to find bulbs that create the desired ambiance and save energy dollars too.
Choosing the Right Custom Light Bulbs for Your Home
The last thing anyone wants is ugly lighting. Ugly lights make people look pasty-faced and hollow-eyed. Bad lights can irritate your eyes.
Even the most fabulous rooms can lose their appeal when illuminated with harsh, glaring lights that reveal every flaw, imperfection and blemish. Too much light creates a space that’s stark, bleak and intimidating. It is no longer inviting.
New Energy Efficiency Rules for Light Bulbs
President Biden is pushing to expand the use of high-efficiency lighting to conserve energy and save the climate.
Lumens measure how much light you get from a bulb for each unit of electricity used. A new rule that took effect earlier this year called for a halt in the production of light bulbs that emit more than 45 lumens per watt.
The new rules also allow for the application of the latest energy efficiency requirements to additional types of light bulbs. Fortunately, there are still high-efficiency incandescent bulbs that cast a luminous glow and meet the official government energy standards in the bargain.
Review All Your Custom Lighting Options
Getting the results you want is usually achieved by mixing and matching different lighting options to achieve layered levels of light.
You can learn a lot by purchasing sample bulbs in each category and experimenting with them. You might be surprised by the diversity of effects that each option or mix of options can deliver.
Three Steps to Choosing the Best Bulbs for Your Lighting Fixtures
Knowledge is power. The more you know about these light bulbs, the better equipped you’ll be to choose the right ones. To complete the three steps, simply learn all you can about LEDs, incandescents and CFLs. When you know what each bulb can do, you’ll know enough to choose wisely.
Homeowners generally have three choices when it comes to custom lighting options:
- Light-emitting diode (LED)
- High-efficiency incandescent lights
- Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL)
LED lights: pros and cons
These lights are all about energy efficiency. They burn for up to 100,000 hours and can last for 20 years. By contrast, incandescent lights burn for only 1,000 hours at best.
LED light bulbs use six times less energy than incandescents. They are exceptionally bright and have superior directional ability. They work well in parking garages, as street lights and for outdoor area walkways.
If you crave color, LED lights might disappoint you. They illuminate only a limited range of color compared to incandescents that reveal the full color spectrum.
The LED light bulb is not to blame for this. Rather, LED light manufacturers deliberately reduce the color rendering accuracy of their lights. Reducing the presence of color is thought to make LEDs brighter and more energy-efficient.
LEDs can emit their own colors. LED light strips and light panels can create powerful and unexpected accents in your home using color alone. LEDs can even be used to grow plants.
You may qualify for federal or state tax credits or financial incentives if you purchase energy-efficient products for your home or make energy-saving improvements in your primary residence.
Incandescent lights: pros and cons
Incandescent light bulbs are considered energy gluttons. They deliver only 750-1,000 hours of light per bulb compared to the 100,000 hours you get from an LED light.
Because incandescent lights emit heat, they can affect your heating and cooling costs. In cold regions, the heat from incandescent bulbs could reduce your heating bills. In warmer regions, the same heat can make your cooling costs go up.
Here are some additional advantages of incandescent lights:
- They are easily dimmed with rheostats.
- They produce a warmer glow than their high-efficiency counterparts.
- They cost less than CFLs and LEDs.
- They have higher overall light output.
CFL lights: pros and cons
Curlicue compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) work by running electricity through a tube that contains argon and mercury vapor. Invisible ultraviolet (UV) light is generated, and it stimulates a fluorescent coating inside the tube to produce visible light.
A 2012 study published in Scientific American revealed that CFLs can damage the skin, especially at close range.
Researchers at Stony Brook University found that healthy cells exposed to CFLs stopped growing and changed shape. Previous research had revealed that CFLs can harm previously damaged tissue and worsen chronic skin conditions.
Chips in the phosphor coating inside the spiral allow higher levels of UV light to escape from inside the bulb. UV emissions from CFL bulbs are thought to harm several layers of skin.
The researchers recommend avoiding CFLs at close range and shielding them behind glass barriers or enclosures. LED and incandescent lights produce no UV emissions. As such, they pose no risk.
CFLs are high-efficiency lighting options that are up to four times more efficient than incandescents. If you replace a 100-watt incandescent bulb with a 22-watt CFL, you’ll get the same amount of light.
These lights can be used anywhere you would otherwise use incandescents. CFLs work well in recessed fixtures, track lighting and ceiling lights. There are three-way CFLs and CFLs with dimmers.
A six-pack of CFL bulbs costs between $22 and $25. A six-pack of LED bulbs costs between $28 and $30. A six-pack of incandescents costs about $5.
Random Facts About Lighting
Lumens measure how much light a bulb will give you. Standard light bulbs have between 250 and 2,600 lumens. The more lumens, the brighter the light.
Energy-efficient lights generate 75% less heat than incandescents. That can lower your cooing costs. On the other hand, it could make your heating costs go up.
Energy Star LEDs use only 25% of the energy used by incandescents, and they last 25 times longer. Energy Star CFLs offer comparable energy savings, and they last 10 times longer.
To get soft white light, you have to find out the color temperature of a bulb. The color temperature is measured in kelvins. It’s a number between 1,000 and 10,000.
At 1,000, the color temperature is comparable to candlelight. Between 2,700 and 3,000, it’s warm and inviting. By the time it reaches 10,000, it’s like a clear blue sky.
Wattage measures energy use only. The lower the wattage, the less energy is used.
If you want your colors and textures to have high visibility, check the bulb’s color rendering index (CRI). It’s a number between 1 and 100. The higher the number, the better the quality of light.
Incandescent bulbs score close to 100 on this scale. LED lights score between 70 and 95, and the best CFLs score in the mid 80s.
To learn more about the transformational properties of custom lighting, visit The Home Lighter, Inc., at our residential lighting showroom in Santa Cruz CA.