Wednesday, September 5, 2012

LED Bulbs

I have wanted to try those LED bulbs for a while now but they were so EXPENSIVE but the other day Michelle was putting in an order on Amazon that came to a few dollars under the $25 where she could get free shipping so she wanted me to order something (and save herself some money, of course). I looked at the stuff I had one my wishlist but didn't really want anything except the LED bulb and figured if I was going to get something it might as well be something I want that is useful so I ordered a bulb. It was $9.25 (yes, I know that is terrible but I wanted to try it).
Throughout the house we have fluorescent bulbs except in the bathroom because I ran out and it had an incandescent bulb. The LED bulb that I ordered said it was equal to a 50 watt incandescent. I was doubtful because I remembered when the fluorescent bulbs came out and how dim they were at that time.
The bulb came in today.
I will say this, the bulbs are heavy and feel a whole lot sturdier than an incandescent or fluorescent bulb. I switched out the bulb in the bathroom and was pleasantly surprised. It really does seem at least as bright as a 50 watt bulb and it does have a nice white light to it.
The side of the box says to run it 3 hours a day would be $.72 yearly (depending upon rates, so that could mean anything) and the life expectancy if run 3 hours a day is 18.26 years. I don't know how long we actually run our bathroom light every day it might be 3 hours but I doubt it.
 Now if we could just get the price down a bit, I would slowly replace my fluorescent bulbs with these.

15 comments:

  1. Becky, I am in total agreement! Those bulbs are insanely expensive at the moment, but they certainly DO save on electricity. I also hate the contamination issue with compact fluorescent bulbs. We've had quite a few break over the years and they are quite the problem to clean up safely. They last nowhere near the 10 years that they say they will. I think that if you can replace your most frequently used bulbs first, you'll see a significant savings which will fund (at least partially) buying more bulbs.

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    1. Yeah, I think I will buy some anyway. We have not had any fluorescent bulbs break but we also have no where to safely dispose of them so we have to put them in our regular trash and I don't like that idea.

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    2. On my blog, I reported a place to recycle CFL.

      http://practical-parsimony.blogspot.com/2012/09/recycling-opportunities-cfl-bulbs.html

      I hope it is okay to post a link to my blog.

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  2. You are going to love it! We switched out the lights over our dining room table last year. They are the lights that are on the most in the house. We were amazed at the noticeable difference in our electric bill which we could only attribute to the switch in bulbs. Yes, they were expensive initially but they have probably paid for themselves in the last year. We are now trying to see if we can find bulbs that will fit in our kitchen track lights since they are also on for significant amounts of time.
    Enjoy your new light!
    Judy

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    1. I really like the white light they produces. It is very nice, bright but not blinding. I know the fact that I like the way the light is bright but not blinding and that in itself will make we want to buy more. I just really like it.

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  3. I have also heard about customers' reactions on LED bulbs being too pricey compared to its other counterparts. But come to think of it. LEDs are more energy efficient, safer, less maintenance and longer life span compared to its other counterparts. LEDs are just pricey at first but you can actually save big time when you try to compare it with your other lighting fixtures. Have a great day!

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  4. I've seen price comparisons and cfls and leds are about the same if you look at it over their whole lifespan. I've seen comparisons that say they are cheaper now. I wish those sites would put up dates for when they do their comparisons. But either way they have a long lifespan so you won't get that savings for years and years since the upfront cost is so much. But they do use maybe half the electricity, maybe a bit more. I do like them because of their lack of mercury. Our town does have a toxic waste disposal so we can get rid of them safely.

    When we moved into this house we replaced all our lights with cfls. We probably will switch over to leds when they start burning out. But when I bought the cfls I bought them in bulk since I was redoing the whole house and I still have some left in the container. Little did I know that my state would have replaced all my incandescents for me, if I had just called them in. They will give you hundreds of dollars in cfls. As many as you need. They even climb the stools to put them in. They also will give you new thermostats that have timers. Ah the programs I miss out on because I don't know of them.

    I keep thinking there are a couple of bulbs that ought to be leds because we use them so much. As soon as our solar goes online I just know my husband will want to have all our electricity come from the panels. But they are only good enough for 90%. It will be interesting to see if we can pull it down. Probably not. It is a new house. We even put a switch into the TV so it doesn't suck juice when it isn't on. Lightbulbs would be an easy change.

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    1. Well, I can buy 3 fluorescent bulbs for $8.99 here so these are pretty expensive when compared to that. And of course the fluorescents were pretty expensive compaired to the dollar I used to spend on 4 incandescent bulbs, lol. Whatever, I will do the same as you and replace the fluorescents with LED's when they burn out.

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  5. I use the CFLS's but as you said the LEDS seem pricey. Will they work on dimmer?

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    1. They do have some that will work with a dimmer.

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  6. LED's are the future. I develop surgical lighting systems for doctors and hospitals and LED's are all I'm developing. The price is dropping and the output is increasing. I feel in 3-5 years they will be about the same price as CFL's.

    At the moment I do not have any in my house except for night lights but as soon as the price drops another 10-20% I will begin the conversion.

    One thing that ALL LED's do is lose some of their brightness, about 20%, during the first 30-40 hours of use. This is normal for LED's and after that they flatten out and remain at that level for the next 50,000 hours. So if you want a 60 watt equivalent you need to buy a 100 watt in the beginning. It is just the nature of LED's.

    Mike

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    1. Thanks for that information Mike. That was really helpful! I'll be getting some more I'm sure when I can. Will remember to get them a bit brighter although this one bulb in the bathroom is a lot brighter than the 40 watt incandescent it had in it before so I think it will be fine but I might want a bit stronger bulb for the kitchen now that I know.

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  7. Another benefit of the LED bulbs is how little heat they put out. My wife insists on using lamps instead of overhead lighting...one of her lamps is right next to the house's thermostat...which causes the AC to overrun and freeze up in the summer and not cool the house in the winter when the lights on. I like being married so I gave up giving her a logical reason to move the lamp years ago and just got used to being too hot or too cold until I found the LED bulb. Puts out even less heat than a compact fluorescent and helped keep me married...who could ask for anything more.

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    1. Yeah but that is also an issue for me. I use a lot of incandescent bulbs in my brooders because they DO put off heat. I like these bulbs but I hope they still have the incandescents available to for certain things.

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  8. Interesting post...thanks for sharing it.

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