How to choose LED Lighting for your home

It’s Not Just About Wattage

Choosing LED lighting to replace old filament and halogen bulbs in your home is easy if you follow some simple steps. It’s true that the old days of buying a bulb based on the wattage, with higher watts delivering more brightness, meant that choice was not complicated. But now, with LED, you have to move away from just looking at the wattage.

Two Key Measurements

There are two key measurements that help you decide what LED bulb to buy: lumens and kelvins. The lumens indicate how bright the bulb will be and the kelvins will give you a clear idea of the warmth or colour.

Lower kelvin figures indicate more warmth, moving up the scale to what some would term a colder or harsher (bluer) light at the top end. The lumens specify the amount of light emitted.

You will also see, when you search for LED bulbs, that manufacturers give you the wattage and this is useful for understanding how much power will be consumed. It’s no help at all in indicating warmth, colour or brightness.

So how do LED lights work? The term LED stands for light-emitting diode. In an LED light, electricity from a power supply causes a small semiconductor (the diode) to produce light. This LED process is more efficient than the glowing filament that illuminates an incandescent light, so LED lights can help you save on energy costs. A house with LED lights can enjoy the same amount of illumination as one with only incandescent lights but use less energy for lighting.

Choosing LED lights also means you won’t have to purchase replacements as often as you will if you use incandescent lights. The diode has a much longer lifespan than the filament of an incandescent bulb. Some LEDs can last up to 13 years with three hours of daily use. While LEDs can lose brightness over time, they typically won’t burn out like a traditional bulb. The design of an LED allows a heat sink to collect generated heat, preventing it from damaging the light and reducing its life. The heat sink also makes an LED much cooler than a comparable incandescent light.