November 21, 2017
Holidays just aren’t the holidays without some good ol’ fashioned decoration.
But as you’re starting to pull out the boxes of last year’s trinkets, stay away from one common holiday decoration: Incandescent lights.
So, what’s wrong with incandescent lights? Well, the short answer is that they use up a lot of energy. In fact, these lights are so inefficient that the government has slowly been phasing out high-wattage incandescent bulbs since 2013.
So why are so many Florida homeowners still using these outdated, inefficient lights?
Well, it most likely comes down to habit or the belief that incandescent lighting isn’t really that much more expensive than other bulbs, like LEDs. So, we’ve decided to take matters into our own hands and take a look at whether this is accurate or not.
To answer this question, let’s look at a hypothetical example…
Let’s say Homeowner A decides to use incandescent lights for his holiday decorations. His neighbor, Homeowner B, is using LEDs for his decorating.
They both use the same amount of lights and both turn them on at 7pm and turn them off at 7am (12 hours a day) for 30 days. Using Sarasota’s cost of electricity at 10.4 cents per kWh, let’s take a look at how much they’ll end up spending:
Bottom line: If you’re planning to keep your incandescent Christmas lights, you’ll pay an energy bill that’s over 6 times higher than if you were to use LED lights.
LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lights use up to 80% less energy than incandescent bulbs, making them a lot less expensive to operate (as we saw above).
But that’s not the only reason to make the switch from incandescent to LED. LEDs also have a much longer lifespan than incandescent lights:
So, if you’re using incandescent bulbs this holiday season, not only will you have to pay a lot more in energy bills but you’ll also have to pay to replace your bulbs every year or so. Whereas a homeowner using LED bulbs can use their holiday lights for decades before having to replace them.
Higher-than-normal energy bills in the midst of all the holiday spending isn’t on anyone’s wish list this year.
If you want to learn more about how you can cut down on energy usage, just contact us. We’re happy to offer energy-efficient solutions for you and your home.
Have outdated incandescent exterior/interior light fixtures and want to have them replaced with LEDs? We can help with that too. Just check out some of our past work.
Posted in: Tips