Make the switch to LED Holiday lights

It’s the holiday season and almost every house in our street is decorated with for the Season with lights. Twinkling bulbs of incandescent brightness but also energy guzzling little suckers! If you are looking for a more energy efficient replacement for traditional holiday lights this season, then go with LED lighting. LED or light-emitting diodes have been around for almost 50 years in the electronics industry but more recently has been breaking into the general household market, especially home lighting. Why? Well because they have many advantages over the traditional incandescent lighting: lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, more durable, smaller sizing, shatterproof, mercury free, shock resistant, they are more reliable and the LEDs don’t get warm and are therefore safer than traditional lighting which can get very hot when left on for hours at a time during holiday celebrations!

Photo credit: levelbest from Flickr

The only downside is the initial cost for the LED lighting is a little higher than the traditional incandescent lighting, however that initial expense is quickly reaped back with the energy cost savings. The US Department of Energy states that running LED holiday lights on one 6-foot tree for 12 hours per day for
40 days can save 90% or more energy when compared to traditional
incandescent holiday lights. That’s just ONE tree! Imagine those other indoor lights, plus the outdoor tree, house lighting, windows and driveways. Over the course of those 40 days you could save a bundle of cash, not just the environment. The Department of Energy estimates that if households and businesses
switched to LED holiday lights, it would save close to the output of a
large (1000 MW) electric power plant, or the annual electrical
consumption of 500,000 households.

Remember too the initial cost is also offset against longevity of the LED lights! The average incandescent bulb has a lifetime of 2000 hours, compare that to an LED at 20,000+ hours (some LED lighting packaging even states as much as 50,000 hours!!!). 20,000 hours is reportedly enough to last for 40 holiday seasons! Considering the energy costs mentioned above, that’s going to be an amzing financial saving for your household. Also because LEDs use less power it is safer to connect multiple strings of LED lights without overloading the electricity sockets.

LED lights may cost more initially but you’ll soon see the savings year on yea, and keep your house looking great season after season!

dalgal | My Bio & Articles