What's the craze about LED Technology? Does it really work? Save on Electric Bill?

I’ve recently checked my electric bill and wondered why it got so high. I cut back on a few things but didn’t see any real difference. So I decided to look into this energy saving “lingo” I been hearing about. I came across articles and sites talking about LED Bulbs. I actually never really paid much attention to this aspect of technology, so I decided to do some reading on the subject.

To my surprise, this is one technology that was actually straight forward and made absolute sense. Older light bulbs (which are still being sold today to unsuspecting victims), use about 45 watts up to 100 watts of electricity.

According to this chart (bottom): http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWeb/na/consumer/inspire-and-learn/find-the-right-bulbs/ The average yearly cost of a 72w light bulb is around $8.67 and based on a 3 hours per day usage at $0.11/kwh rate. This is on the absolute low end of the spectrum of electricity usage. I would say, triple that number for a normal household for 1 bulb.

Doing the calculations, I would say bulbs alone costs an estimated $400 to $500 per year in my house. This was rather socking, for I thought bulbs used little power and not really that of a concern. I looked at my bulbs and most are between 65w and 75w.

So my next decision was some kind of action. I decided to look up the brightness charts to see what kind of LED bulb would be equivalent to the same regular bulbs I had. I will say that most charts out there are dead wrong. I had to do hard testing myself to see the difference in results. A mere 7w LED bulb was able to replace a 75w regular bulb and looks even brighter than my regular bulb. I was amazed!

Another thing to consider is that regular bulbs go bad with each on/off switching you do. With LED Bulbs, they are not using the same technology so they are not affected by on/off operation. LED Bulbs also do not get hot, no matter how long you leave them on.

Lastly, there are also specialty LED bulbs that now have “Motion Detection” in them, so instead of turning on a light, you can buy one of these motion bulbs and simply walk into a dark room or closet and the light will come on J cool huh!

All in all, you can get a 6w or 7w LED Bulb (Not much of a difference), from Lowe’s hardware store in the states, for around $5-$7. Walmart occasionally puts some of these bulbs on sale for around $4.88 or so.

So all in all, my bill went down about $80 after replacing my bulbs, which I think is a huge benefit and noticeable investment.