LEDs will Give you Brain Freeze.

First LED really are a good thing,  a great thing.  If I were to have put in incandescent light bulbs in the house (over 60 bulbs) I would have over 4,000 watts in light bulbs.  But with LEDs I have less than 400 watts of light bulbs.       For you electronic guys    P = I X E     or  to get current      I = P/E     That’s  33.3 Amps vs  3.3 Amps of current to run the lights. A 90% reduction in El usage.

That’s the first part of the Brain Freeze.  You can send your kid out to replace an incandescent bulb. “Hay Kid go get me a 60W bulb”.      Done.       So you think you just have to buy a LED that is listed as a 60W equitant.  Not really.  Just go to Lowe’s or Home Depot light row and take a look, Brain Freeze.

LED’s have many options:

First the old friendly Watts, but there isn’t really a direct match even though the manufactures puts on the label some numbers. Most 60W replacements are around 8Ws but I’ve gotten equivalent light (lumens) out of 4.5W LEDs.

Second: Lumens, which is a measurement of the amount of light a bulb puts out.  But I haven’t found that a 60W putting out 800 lumens.  A 6-8W LED puts out about 800 lumens but I find them brighter than incandescent.  In a fixture that I’d put two 40W bulbs I only pit one LED equivalent.  A 4.5W LED.

Third is the color:  or kelvin (K).  The K measurement of an LED is between 2500K to 6500K.    This is a pure personal choice. 5,000K is considered “Daylight”, the sun at high noon. But I find this light way to bright indoors.   An incandescent bulb is around 2,800 and a florescent bulb around 4,500K   .

Fourth is projection: Yea Projection options. That is how the LED transmits it light.  An incandescent projects its light evenly around the bulb, but with LEDs there are many different ways a bulb will projection the light.

Fifth the some LED shouldn’t be in contained covers.   It’s written on the box.  I have heard they may burn out fasted or my (mini) explode.

Sixth is a replaceable bulb or fixed.  Some fixtures have non replaceable bulbs. At first thought with a 20-25 year projected life who cares.  But if you have 4 like fixtures and in five plus years one goes out can you get parts or will you have to replace all 4 fixtures to keep them matching.  Also with a replaceable bulb in 5 years a 6w bulb might be replaced with a 0.5W. If you bulbs are replaceable you can easy upgrade.

Socket: I never had thought about the size of a bulbs socked.  Edison 27 or T10 or  ???????

My Experience:

The watt comparison is really of  little help, but I’ve found a 60W equivalent LED produces more light that a 60W incandescent bulb.  I don’t care want the Lumens are.  I’d say about (unscientific)  20% more light. Example the second floor hall lights.  Two bulbs in each fixture, I would had put two 40W incandescent bulbs, but with 2 40W equivalent it was way too much light, so I cut down to one bulb in each fixture.

Color is personal.  We have 10 high hat fixtures in the kitchen, so I went to Lowe’s and bought 6 different bulbs and put them in the high hats and had an onsite test.   We like 2,700K bulbs, 3,000K are OK, but nothing higher. A couple of the closets have higher, the electrician installed them, I can tolerate them in a closet. I think the 2,700K just has a nice warm effect. Now for a shop light a 4,500K or higher, the light is bluer but I think it better for working with. 

 Projection just depends on the fixture, and what kind of effect you want.

 Fixed vs replaceable.  We went with 95% replaceable for the reasons I point out above.  It one set of fixtures I wanted a certain effect and could only find it in a fixed bulb fixture

Prices are dropping like crazy.  I bought a big bunch on 40W Philips  equivalent  from Lowe’s on sale for under a dollar.  

As for lasting 20 to 25 years w can only wait. I had one Halogen type replacement o the range hood go bad in 3 weeks.  But the others are all working.