LED Lights & LED Downlights - Why Change?

There are a few things we all want from our lighting – a bright light that we can see by when it’s dark, good value for money and, with any luck, energy efficiency too. Until quite recently, it’s been hard to get all three of these things together. However, modern technology means that our lighting is now able to be much more efficient and offer us everything we’re looking for. LED lighting is one of the best examples of this and it is well worth considering for your home.



Let’s say that you have got a regular incandescent bulb in your home – not an energy saving model. About eighty per cent of the energy sent to that bulb will be lost as heat, while only twenty per cent of the energy will be channelled into providing you with light. By contrast, if you have a good LED light bulb instead, those proportions will effectively be inversed. Only twenty per cent of the energy will be lost as heat, while eighty per cent of the energy will be used to power the light itself.

This means that LED lights are much brighter than ‘normal’ lights, which is ideal when you are looking for the most efficient ways to light your home. It also means you should need fewer bulbs to achieve the same result than if you used regular light bulbs. LED light bulbs are also much more efficient thanks to most of their energy being used for light rather than heat, so they have good environmental benefits that are sure to be of interest to anyone who cares about their carbon footprint. Also, since they waste less energy as heat, LED bulbs are also cooler to the touch, which is an important safety component (we’ve all accidentally touched a hot light bulb at some point – at least you’re much less likely to get burned with an LED bulb!).

Another benefit of using LED light bulbs instead of regular light bulbs is that they last a lot longer. If you have a regular incandescent light bulb, it will probably be able to last for around 1000 hours but may well blow out fairly quickly. Halogen bulbs can last for around 2000 hours and compact fluorescent bulbs usually have a life of about 6000 hours. An LED light bulb can last for up to 50,000 hours, which obviously means you will get a lot more use out of it before the bulb burns out and it needs to be replaced.

LED light bulbs are also very durable thanks to their compact design, so there is significantly less risk of them smashing or otherwise becoming damaged as can happen with other types of bulb. They also reach their full brightness much quicker than many other forms of lighting, which makes them convenient, and their light is solid and therefore extremely practical.

Overall, if you are looking for a lighting solution that is kind to the environment, will last you for years to come and provides an excellent standard of light, LED lighting is definitely an option worth considering.