| Ask the EcoGeek: LED Lights |
| Written by Hank Green | ||
| Thursday, 21 June 2007 | ||
 Dear EcoGeek I did a survey and I have 33 recessed bulbs in the house (120W)! I've switched all my non-recessed bulbs with CFLs, but I need something for our recessed lighting. So my question is why aren't these ultra-efficient LED lights being produced in greater quantities (and this bringing the costs down)? - David David, Thirty three 120 watt bulbs will keep your house competing with a small star for both power consumption and light intensity, but I'm not here to judge. If you've got the sockets, they should have high-efficiency bulbs in them. The good news is two-fold. First, you don't have to wait for LED bulbs to show up at Wal-Mart to find a high efficiency alternative because they've started selling excellent recessed CFLs. I've actually got one shooting down on me right now! To match a 120 watt incandescent, you should look for a 23 to 26 watt CFL. The bad news is that LED bulbs would likely be a better choice for you, but a good one won't be easy to find. LED lighting is facing a few barriers that will take some time to overcome. First, LEDs are currently fairly expensive to manufacture, and while their extreme long life and efficiency will eventually pay for the extra cost, it's hard to get folks to cough up 30 bucks for a bulb when they're so used to paying 30 cents. You might be able to find a good one somewhere like Ace Hardware or specialty stores online, but be ready to cough up some change. Continue Reading Second, LEDs have a very high theoretical efficiency, but that doesn't mean they're all created equal. While incandescents and fluorescents have had all their kinks worked out, the materials that will go into creating LED bulbs haven't been settled yet. Engineers at GE, Philips and elsewhere are all slaving away trying to get the maximum light out of the least amount of power without sacrificing the quality of the light...all while decreasing costs. But I guarantee you it'll be worth the wait. LEDs promise huge energy savings, high quality light, instant turn-on, and long-term lifespans while containing absolutely no toxic chemicals. What's my estimate for a $5-$10 120 watt equivalent LED bulb at Wal-Mart? Five years. Which, luckily, is right around when your CFLs will start burning out! Ask the EcoGeek is a weekly column provided by ecogeek.org and syndicated all around the blogosphere. If you want to Ask something of the EcoGeek, send a message to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it If you're interested in syndicating the column, email Hank Green at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Comments
(25)
Recessed CFLs still have drawbacks
written by kballs , June 21, 2007
Warm-Up Times
written by Hank , June 21, 2007
2 minutes is an awefully long warmup time. My recessed CFLs take about 15 seconds to get to full luminosity. They're 15 watt GE's from Target.
Still 15 seconds is an annoying long time, which is why I say that LEDs are a better (if not entirely available) choice. As for working with electronic switches, I've never heard of this problem...but that is, after all, just one light that still needs to be incandescent.
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written by Michael Pereckas , June 21, 2007
I have a few PAR-flood-like CFLs, and they do seem to be the very worst of the slow warm up CFLs, along with one that has a round cover over the tube, instead of an exposed loop/spiral. It's probably not meaningful that at the moment I observe a correlation between very slow warm up and covered rather than exposed fluorescent tube, but that's what I see at the moment. The slow warm up is not all bad when turning on the bathroom light at night, but not so desirable other times. They seem to survive service in the less-than-ideally ventilated fixture. I do have one now quite old GE CFL in a totally unvented, albeit large, table fixture that is quite exceeding my expectations for life under thermal abuse. Quality is hard to predict. They generally last much longer, even if they die relatively young, than the lifespan of their particular model on sale in stores.
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written by Billy Shih , June 21, 2007
I agree that the start up time (no matter how small) is pretty annoying, however I have to comment that the quality of the light is way better than my old fluorescent lights. My family room is absolutely beaming with white light once they are warmed up.
Dimmers?
written by Rob , June 21, 2007
I have several dimmer switches installed in my home. I have converted all the other lights to CFLs, but cannot use these with the dimmer switches. Is there an alternative to using incandescents on a dimmer?
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written by metis , June 21, 2007
so working for a lighting design firm we deal with a lot of this sort of issue.
there are several recess led retrofits, but theyr'e nto great. you're better off looking at cfl for most applications, although i haven't expierenced any warm up times. cmh lamps routinely need warm up time and there are several commercial alamp retrofits available, including a pretty nice 5% dimmable version that dims with remarkably even color. i'll poke around and see if i can find a few more reliably performing brand names.
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written by metis , June 21, 2007
on the dimmer: yes there are dimmable cfls but mostly only doen to 20 or 50% so you'll get a snap off. several led options will dim fully, but most commercially available are of mixed quality unless you go to a high end specilaty lighting store. and as above, there are cmh versions.
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written by Rob , June 21, 2007
Thanks for the info. There is a lighting store up the road. I'll see if they have dimmable LEDs or even CFLs.
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written by Mike@HCVN , June 21, 2007
Rob -
I finally found some reasonably priced dimmable bulbs ($6.50) over at blackEarth (after 3 years of searching). I'm pimping them as hard as I can since they're half the price of any other's I've found. They're in my kitchen now and my wife and I like them lots. Mike
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written by Mike@HCVN , June 21, 2007
And the actual link:
http://tinyurl.com/2aze6o Mike
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written by Rob , June 22, 2007  Thanks for the info. I just got back from the lighting store and bought 3 GE 20W dimmable CFL's for around US$16 each. They have to be turned up before they come on and are a little twiddly, but are better than the alternative. I have a few left to buy, so I'll checkout your link. The lighting store also had some regular LED bulbs that only consume around 2W!
Recessed Energy efficient bulbs
written by Johan Smit , June 22, 2007
I am a bit of a light fanatic and only use high efficiency lights. For recessed lighting I am using OSRAM decospot led range of lamps. They are available in a variety of colors and connectors, even changing colors! www.osram.com
I have some LED's
written by D. MacIsaac , June 22, 2007
..going off grid and purchased 9 LED bulbs from ebay.com. They are energy sippers ( 1-3 Watts ) but they are low on the lumen scale ( 51 lumens ) so they are good for reading a book and general background light but thats the extent of it..good for my off grid home to make sure I can get around but if I need anything more I got to the 12 watt CFL for more light..warm up time aside they provide more then enough light.
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written by metis , June 22, 2007
my caffeine addled memory failed me, the lamps i was thinking of are cold cathode from litetronics. the catalogue cuts for them can be found here linky they also offer several cfl spots that are more apt for recessed cans.
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written by metis , June 22, 2007
http://www.litetronics.com/cat...e=c&cat=30 bah link for above post which got stripped out.
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written by Jack , June 22, 2007
LED light hurts my eyes. Its so...cold. Why is that?
Good and affordable recessed bulbs
written by Chris , June 23, 2007
Costco has really good recessed lighting CFLs in packs of 4 for about $8.99. They don't dim though. Warm up time is only about 20 seconds, never more than 30. I've bought literally dozens of these for friends and family members and they're a huge hit. Blue package, FEIT electronics, they each use 15W.
The way to ban incandescents and CFLs. T
written by David Deak , June 24, 2007
The High Efficiency LED has been invented by me and developed by my company DEAK-LAM, Inc. They use a special LED and quantum dots to create the colour and luminocity of an incandescent light. 3 watts in @ 110 VAc give the light of a 100 watt incandescent. They will be available during the 4th quarter of 2007.
For news about this see: http://deak-lam.com site is still under construction since we are making many changes for marketing. We also have developed a battery-less and wireless electrical switch coming out at the same time. Don't forget, when one breaks a CFL one has just spread mercury all over th place. Our lights are truly GREEN. Not made of glass, but polycarbonate plastic(can be re-cycled) so one can throw them against a brick wall and they would still function........all solid state. They can be dimmed and will last for 20,000 hours. price competitive with CFLs today.
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written by patrick thomas , July 05, 2007
Can you advise? I want to use some LED rope lights in my kitchen over the wall cabinets as ambient lighting but would like to know if they might be dimmable.
LED Lights for the whole house
written by Vincent , November 02, 2007
Hi,
I am building a new house and I only want to use LEDs. However I also want to make ue of recessed lights in the kitchen. Any ideas how to get this project finished sucessfully? Thanks Vincent
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written by senji , January 02, 2008
I have bought an LED spotlight at BestHongKong and after getting it, in record time over the holidays, and using it, I'm considering becoming a distributor for them. The prices are very reasonable as well as the shipping costs.
Dimmable Rope / Christmas Lights
written by harristl , January 28, 2008
To partially answer Patrick's question, we purchased some strands of LED Christmas lights to use in a cove lighting application. They dim just fine, but will not turn all the way off due to the minimum wattage requirements of our dimmer. We are still working to find a simple solution. Anyone else seen this? Our two strands of LED christmas lights only consume 9.6W. . .that's .4W less than our dimmer's minimum of 10W.
Leds Are the best around
written by Dmac , February 13, 2008
I got my Led Lights for my Office from www.goinggreenlighting.com Going Green indeed. We will be saving 90% off our energy costs next year and because the ceiling is so high. We won't have to send our secretary up on the ladder so much to change the Light bulbs. Well I knew there would be a downside.lol.
I use the Par bulbs in my recessed fixtures.
hydro electric power
written by rick , March 16, 2008
Question, can a water turbine be put in the outflow line of city water tanks to produce power? It seems with gravity feed and pressure that would be a source for electricity.
Dimmable LED products
written by Anne , June 24, 2008
Check out EnvironmentalLights.com for a great selection of dimmable CFLs and LED 6' ceiling fixtures. The LED dimmable ribbon flex is used for cove or accent lighting and is great!
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1. they take 2 full minutes to warm up (when you first turn them on you feel blind because they are so dim)
2. even if they warmed up instantly like LEDs, they don't work with motion sensors or any electronic/non-mechanical switch (even most dimmer-compatible CFLs won't work with electronic motion sensors).