LED lamps are the new wave in lamps. Lasting 10 times longer than incandescent, no mercury like CFL's, the color is almost as good, lumen output is close to the same and some are dimmable. So why aren't we buying them? Mostly the answer I hear is because they are expensive. LED, the saying "You get what you pay for" really rings true. Good LED diodes are in good lamps, cheap LED diodes are in cheap lamps.Lets take that argument and look at it. As a rule in technology everything usually gets cheaper every year, BUT it only drops approximately 5 -10 percent per year. The energy savings for one LED lamp is approximately 80 percent over conventional incandescent. If you are one of those that would like to wait for the cheap price you will be missing out on 5 to 6 years of 80% savings. The amount of money saved over the next 6 years well outweighs the cost if purchased now and you will still have 10 to 15 years life left on the bulb. You will never recoup the loss. These lamps are ideal for homes with the lower 8' or 9' ceilings because the heat from LED lamps is far less, saving money with airconditioning cost. Homes with ceilings over 12' benefits are you don't have to change the bulbs.
Another way you may want to use LED lamps is for your landscape lighting. Here the saving has to be worked on a little differently. Looking at a traditional landscape job, if you use 150 watt transformer to light up trees for example, you would normally only be able to use 6 - 20w spots. With LED you can use up to 15 heads on the same transformer, making a layout of some jobs easier and more dramatic in it's effect. Your savings would be 150 watts over using traditional heads or if 5 to 6 heads are all you need drop the size of the transformer down to a 60w saving you 90 watts. Note; beware when purchasing 12v LED lamps, you need to make sure of the type transformers you have either electronic or magnetic and buy the correct lamp.
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