LED Light Bulbs: The Economical and Environmentally Friendly Lighting Option

A few years ago, the thought of buying LED light bulbs for your home was quite unrealistic for most people. We were only just getting used to the idea of replacing our old-fashioned incandescent bulbs with the new compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) that cost more upfront but last a lot longer. LED light bulbs were something we used to see in fancy restaurants, retail stores and nightclubs, but they were just too expensive for the average person to use at home.

Thanks to recent technological advances, however, LEDs are now much more affordable, and at the same time there are more powerful LED bulb models on the market. These new lighting products are becoming increasingly available to the general public, and are no longer only to be found in specialty stores. These days, you can buy a light bulb made up of a cluster of LEDs that fits in a regular light fitting, so you won’t need to buy new lamps in order to benefit from this exciting new technology.

Although it will cost you more than a compact fluorescent lamp or a traditional light bulb, an LED bulb is more energy-efficient since it emits more light per watt of power consumed. It will therefore last you longer and require less electricity to run, resulting in significant cost savings in the long run. A typical LED light bulb for household use has a projected lifespan of 30,000 hours, or 20-30 years with normal use (three to four hours a day), while a compact fluorescent is expected to last around 8,000 hours and an incandescent bulb just 1,000 hours.

While prices have come down considerably, a branded LED light bulb will still set you back $30-50 these days. Changing all your domestic lighting to LEDs can require quite an investment, in other words. But you can find less expensive alternatives if you shop around. The best deals tend to be available from online stores that specialize in selling electronic products from China at wholesale prices.

Another advantage of LEDs is that, unlike the compact fluorescents that have become so popular, they don’t contain mercury or other toxic elements. They might have seemed like a good idea a few years ago, but CFLs are now causing environmental problems when they are disposed of in municipal waste dumps and landfills, and poisons leach out into the ground and the water table. And the fact that LED bulbs last so much longer than older bulb types means that there will be fewer used ones around to pollute our environment. So switching to LED light bulbs is kinder to the earth too.