Replacing Incandescent Bulbs with Economical LED Bulbs

By now we've heard of the benefits and energy savings from LED lighting, but many of us haven't made the switch for a single reason: LED bulbs are more expensive. Did you ever wonder exactly how much you could save by replacing your old incandescent bulbs with LED lights? Are LED lights a good investment? While replacing this homeowner's inefficient bulbs with LED, Larry Janesky, owner and president of Dr. Energy Saver does the math.

Economical LED Bulbs

Today, we are at this house, where we are doing a lot of great things to make it more energy efficient and more comfortable. One of the things that we are going to be doing is changing some lighting. If I take this bulb out, it is an incandescent flood bulb that is 65 watts and I put in this bulb which is an LED bulb at 7.2 watts. I can make a big difference in how much energy this home uses. That is beautiful light LED's modern LED's are what we call a color temperature that is very acceptable. With color temperature the lower the better, warm white is considered about 2700 K or Kelvin. We don't want over 3,000 K if we get into the 3,500 to 4,000 or 5,000 Kelvin, at 5,000 K color temperature you got a really bluey white light.

Efficient Bulbs

So, that would be 65 watt hours where we could replace this with an LED bulb like this and this bulb will burn 7.2 watts per hour. We are saving approximately 58 watts per hour. There are other types of bulbs too, bulbs like this and this and this and even little MR16 style bulbs like this. These are all LED's. These little yellow chips, light emitting diodes that are on here, they are not yellow when this bulb lights up. When this lights up they are bright and emit the light and it looks a little strange. We are not used to this kind of thing, but it doesn't look strange when it is lit up. It looks fantastic, it looks very high tech and the light is very natural and you will be very happy with these.

Save Money In The End With LED

I am going to do the math for you right here, and we have 40 x 65 is 2600, okay and then we divide that by 1,000 to get kilowatt hours so 2600 watt hours obviously divided by a 1,000 to get kilowatt hours 2.6 and then we multiply it x in our area 18� so times .18 equals 46.8� an hour, okay per hour to run those 40 bulbs. Now let's take a look at if we burn these bulbs instead these LED's what it is going to cost us. We have 40 bulbs x 7.2 let's be exact 7.2 watts so we got a 40x7.2 is 288 divided by 1,000 is obviously .28. .28 kilowatt hours times 18� times .18 is 5� per hour so to run 40 of these, 46.8� an hour, 40 of these 5�an hour, I would say that is a big win.

Heat From Lighting

We have just had them on for a few minutes and the heat bakes the paint on the fixture and it starts peeling off they get so hot. This is not going to help your air conditioning load in the summer time at all and certainly burns a lot more electricity that it needs to. Here is the 50 watts, a ton of heat. Here is 3 watts; hardly any heat at all, 3 watts, amazing.

Read Full Video Transcript Below:

Hi. I'm Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver. Today, we are at this house, where we are doing a lot of great things to make it more energy efficient and more comfortable. One of the things that we are going to be doing is changing some lighting. If I take this bulb out, it is an incandescent flood bulb that is 65 watts and I put in this bulb which is an LED bulb at 7.2 watts. I can make a big difference in how much energy this home uses. That is beautiful light LED's modern LED's are what we call a color temperature that is very acceptable. With color temperature the lower the better, warm white is considered about 2700 K or Kelvin. We don't want over 3,000 K if we get into the 3,500 to 4,000 or 5,000 Kelvin, at 5,000 K color temperature you got a really bluey white light. I looks commercial you are not going to be happy with it but with modern LED lighting all that is over with. You buy the right lamps and Dr. Energy Saver has these available for you and you get beautiful light. It is warm white. Your colors look good. You look good under it and you save energy. But let's take a look now; this bulb was not on for very long because if it was, I wouldn't be able to touch it and the reason is because it creates a lot of heat and incandescent bulbs use as much as 90% of their energy in creating "waste heat" that we don't even want. We want the light not the heat. LED bulbs burn much cooler maybe 130 degrees compared to 380 degrees this bulb would reach once it gets warmed up. Now, if you have the air conditioning on in the summer you have burning electricity to run your air conditioning to take heat away from the house and then you have all these little heaters all over the places where there is a light bulb there is a 380 degrees heater adding heat to the house.

You don't want that. It is electric heat. It is inefficient. It cost you more to get heat off of a light bulb than it does just to run your furnace that little extra more. We look at a house like this and we look at all the candle lights in the ceiling. I mean look here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. Over 40 lights just in this main area not including bedrooms, the basement, second floor rooms, okay, over 40 lights. Let's take a look at the economics of changing all these lights at Dr. Energy Saver we use LED lighting, a CFL lighting is also very good and very efficient but LED lighting is even more efficient the bulbs will last even longer and they go full on right away where CFL lighting comes on about 60% and then takes a minute or two to warm up especially if it is cold. Now in this house, let's just talk about the efficiencies here when we say efficiencies, we mean this will burn 65 watts every hour. So, that would be 65 watt hours where we could replace this with an LED bulb like this and this bulb will burn 7.2 watts per hour. We are saving approximately 58 watts per hour. There are other types of bulbs too, bulbs like this and this and this and even little MR16 style bulbs like this. These are all LED's. These little yellow chips, light emitting diodes that are on here, they are not yellow when this bulb lights up. When this lights up they are bright and emit the light and it looks a little strange. We are not used to this kind of thing, but it doesn't look strange when it is lit up. It looks fantastic, it looks very high tech and the light is very natural and you will be very happy with these. Let's take a look here though. This is how the numbers work, okay. If we had 65 watts here okay, we are talking about changing this bulb with this one, okay. 65 watts minus 7 watts that is what this bulb is. We are saving 58 watts, okay.

Now let's say we burn these bulbs an average of 4 hours a day, okay, that is 350 I'm sorry times 350 days a year. So, there is 365 days in a year, let's say you go on vacation for a couple of weeks 350 days a year that equals 81,200 watt hours. Now if we divide that by 1,000 we get kilowatt hours. It is obviously 81.2 kilowatt hours and that is what our electric company bills us in kilowatt hours. Well how much do they charge us? Well here in our area it varies throughout the country, but here in our area they charge us 18 ¢ a kilowatt hour. Okay so 81.2 x 18 ¢ = $14.61 per year that we would save by using this bulb this LED bulb instead of this old incandescent bulb which is just pretty much not changed since Thomas Edison invented it over 100 years ago. We don't have all the excess heat that the incandescent bulb puts out either. We don't have to get rid of that heat with our air conditioning. And we also know that this bulb will last 20 times as long as this bulb. This bulb only last 600 to a thousand, up to 2,000 hours where this bulb will last about 20 times longer than that so consider all the cost of replacing this bulb 20 times where this one would just stay lit for all that time and you wouldn't have to replace it. All that aggravation of buying bulbs and getting the latter out and changing the bulbs, if we upgrade for every one of the bulbs we can avoid it all. If we are upgrading bulbs that we use 4 hours per day on average we are saving $14 and 61 ¢ per year. Wow, that is a great payback. You will get your money back in a year and half, or two years even if it was 2-1/2 years on some of the bulbs that is a great investment.

Where can you make an investment and get your money back in 2-1/2 years you double your money in 5 years triple your money in 7-1/2 years that is just a wonderful investment and something that everyone should do. Now let's take a look at what does it cost we walk to the south and we see 40 of these bulbs in the common areas. What does that cost per hour? Let's say we have some friends over, we turn the lights on, we have 40 lights just in the common area not including any of the bedrooms or the finished basement or anywhere else so bathrooms or anything like that. Just this common area so we have 40 bulbs x 65 watts. I am going to do the math for you right here, and we have 40 x 65 is 2600, okay and then we divide that by 1,000 to get kilowatt hours so 2600 watt hours obviously divided by a 1,000 to get kilowatt hours 2.6 and then we multiply it x in our area 18 ¢ so times .18 equals 46.8 ¢ an hour, okay per hour to run those 40 bulbs. Now let's take a look at if we burn these bulbs instead these LED's what it is going to cost us. We have 40 bulbs x 7.2 let's be exact 7.2 watts so we got a 40x7.2 is 288 divided by 1,000 is obviously .28. .28 kilowatt hours times 18 ¢ times .18 is 5 ¢ per hour so to run 40 of these, 46.8 ¢ an hour, 40 of these 5 ¢ an hour, I would say that is a big win. And you know over the days, the weeks go by, the months go by, the years go by you are saving money and your electric bill is lower because you made a wise decision. Outdoor fixtures are often left on all night or for long periods of time and these bulbs are 40 watts. These ones that were replacing them with the LED's are 3-1/2 watts so that is 36-1/2 watts that we are going to be saving times a lot of hours. The homeowner tells us they like to leave these bulbs on a lot.

There is two of them in each picture you might not think 40 watts is too much, but these things get hot enough to melt the plastic or around their bases. This is the 5th fixture I have changed these bulbs in here and all of them had melted plastic on the fixtures if somebody came to the door and you want to flick the light on and see who his there, CFL's take awhile to warm up especially, when it is very cold that when it is winter they are dim when they start up and it takes a couple of minutes to come full bright. The new technology LED's full bright right away ideal for outdoor situations. So, here we have 6 MR16's and we have two of them blown out and they are halogen bulbs for you and 6 part 30 can lights in just this section. So, 12 light bulbs, 50 watts each, times 6 is 300 watts and 65 watts times 6 is 390 watts that equals 540 watts if you had all these lights on in this room for 1 hour 540 watts that is just over half of a kilowatt hour and in our area 18 ¢ kilowatt hour it is basically 10 ¢ an hour to have these lights on in this room. Now, when we change them over to LED's we have six 3watt bulbs. We haven't change them all yet. Six 3 watt bulbs and six 7 watt bulbs which is 60 watts total for this for 12 light bulbs 60 watts total and it is going to cost you about a penny an hour so before it was 10 ¢ an hour, after LED's, a penny an hour. Now these little bulbs here are called MR16. This style has 2 pins on the end. They are 50 watts and they produce a lot of heat; these bulbs get really hot, but this is the replacement. It is an LED bulb, guess how many watts? 50 watts, 3 watts now that is living baby, these bulbs are super hot. We have just had them on for a few minutes and the heat bakes the paint on the fixture and it starts peeling off they get so hot.

This is not going to help your air conditioning load in the summer time at all and certainly burns a lot more electricity that it needs to. Here is the 50 watts, a ton of heat. Here is 3 watts; hardly any heat at all, 3 watts, amazing. Making your home more energy efficient is the right thing to do and it is a smart thing to do because the repairs that Dr. Energy Saver performs always pay for themselves over time in the savings on your electric and fuel bills and you will enjoy a more comfortable home in the process, but how do you know which repairs need to be done in your home. It is simple call Dr. Energy Saver. We will do a complete evaluation on your home and tell you what repairs are most important for you. Contact Dr. Energy Saver for a home energy evaluation and written estimate.