09.01
Switching 3 compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) for 3 LED light bulbs and saving 50 watts.
In my living room, I have a stand-up lamp that has 3 light socket and currently houses 3 x 20 watt compact fluorescent bulb. The 3 CFL bulbs were working well and provided sufficient lighting. Only downside was that the CFLs protruded outside the light.
This is how the lights looked when they were on. The compact fluorescent bulbs took a little time to warm up to reach max illumination but since it stuck outside the light housing, the CFL bulbs provided a lot of flood lighting. If you look at the picture below, you can see how the general area is flooded with a orangey-yellow color.
Each of the CFL bulbs were rated at 20 Watts each and the lamp recommended we use nothing stronger than 60 watts per socket. My first question was…regardless of what wattage bulb i place inside…will the lamp itself draw 60 watts of power per socket or will it only draw 20 watts per bulb? I had ordered a Kill-A-Watt power meter online for my personal light testing and just plugged the lamp in to test.
So the lamp with 3 x CFL bulbs is currently pulling 59 watts. Why 59 watts and not 60 watts (20 watts x 3), I have no idea but I’ll go with what the Kill-A-Watt meter is reading.
My plan is to replace these three CFL bulbs with our three 3-Watt LED Light bulbs . I had a few concerns regarding the switch:
1. Will there be enough light?
2. Will the white white light be awkward?
3. How much electricity will I be saving and is it worth the money or trouble?
First off, the LED spot lights are small and sink deep inside the light housing. This keeps the light from giving off any flood effect. The LED spot lights came on immediately with not much fanfare…no green peace fairy came to pat me on the back but it did give full lighting and did not require any warm up period. The light output was significantly less because it did not flood out, but the spots of light were very bright and very white.
As you can see in the picture, the area underneath and my fridge is virtually pitch black, but the spots on my ceiling where the spot lights are hitting is super bright. I prefer more flood lighting but this is acceptable as I can point the spot lights anywhere I want and the spots are strong enough to reflect off the ceiling. The good part is…i’m not staring at exposed lighting like the CFLs. My TV is next to the fridge and I had to turn off the CFLs cause all i saw was glare off the protruding bulbs. So my first concern…is there enough light…i would have to say not quite…i prefer more flooding but I think i will have to add another lamp for that purpose or even swap out one of the LED bulbs for one protruding CFL strictly for flood lighting.
My next concern was the coloring of the bulbs. The LED bulbs tend to have a bluish tint to the bright white but this set seems to be mostly white white. I actually enjoy the white light more than the orange CFL glow as everything looks more true to color and I found it easier on my eyes when i’m reading. I have read online that 5500K daylight white, which I think these lights are pretty close to, are suppose to help you be more alert but i didn’t feel any more alert than usual. So to answer the lighting color question, I have to say I welcome the color change but this is personal preference and you will have to decide for yourself.
Now the last of the questions…how much electricity will I save and will it justify the cost of the LED bulbs ($14.99 ea)?
So lets start with what the Kill-A-Watt meter read off at power consumption…
So the official number is in…9 Watts. Just as the LED spot bulbs claimed a power consumption of 3 watts each…3 of the LED light bulbs and you have 9 Watts of power. I will be saving 50 Watts of power (59 – 9 = 50 watts) per hour by switching over the LED Spot light bulbs.
I generally use this lamp from the time I get off work till the next morning when I leave from work because I live in a basement with no windows so this is my constant on light. I usually get home around 6:30 pm and leave for work about 9:00 am so I am estimating about 14.5 hrs of usage per day.
So lets calculate how much it costs to power the lights using all CFL bulbs and compare it to the all LED bulb combo. The CFL bulbs used 59 Watts per hour for 14.5 hrs a day. This equates to 855.5 watt hours per day. Assuming CA electricity rate per kilowatt is $0.12, then it costs about $0.1026 to run the lamp per day and about $3.0798 per month.
The LED light bulbs used 9 Watts per hour for 14.5 hrs a day. Put the numbers together and we get 130.5 watt hours per day at $0.12 per kilowatt equals $0.01566 per day to run the three LED light bulbs. In 30 days, the LED spot light bulbs cost $0.4698 to run. Compare that to the CFLs $3.0798 and you are saving $2.61 per month.
The three LED spot light bulbs cost $14.99 each for a total of $44.97. To recover that amount, we will need to run the bulbs for 17.229 months or about 1 year and 6 months. The LED spot light bulbs have an expected lifetime of 30,000hrs to 50,000hrs so you can estimate at least 5 years of usage (using the min 30000hr). In the lifetime of the three bulbs, you will save approximately $156.60 (5 years => 60 months and you save $2.61 per month). The other factor is that you will not have to switch out the bulbs for 5 years and not worry about the mercury inside the CFL bulbs.
