'Tis the season to light up our trees and outdoor spaces. This is the most obvious way that most of us display our holiday spirit, but it is also a great way to save a considerable amount on your electric bills.
LED Lights: A Revolution of Illumination
During the dark, cold days of December, many of us welcome bright, colorful Christmas lights, bringing a very festive appearance to our homes - Also the kids won't let you forget that these lights will let Santa know where you live. Up until now, traditional Christmas lights have consumed a tremendous amount of electricity.
This can be evidenced by looking at our electric bills over the Christmas season due to Holiday lighting. Therefore many energy conscious families have been presented a quandary even though they so love their lighting decorations. Even though energy-efficient LED Christmas lights have been arriving on the store shelves for several years, their acceptance has been slow.
However, these first generation LED's had their share of problems. Lights that were supposed to be white had a bluish tint. As for the colored lights, they lacked the same warm glow of their traditional lighting counterparts. And as is true for any product recently introduced in the sales market, they were costly, as compared to their traditional counterparts.
Manufactures of LED lighting have made great strides in LED lighting technology in the past few years, making LED Christmas Lights appear more like traditional lighting that we all grew up with, allowing the consumer to save a lot of energy over the holidays as well.
LED Christmas Lights - Traditional Christmas Lights
As compared to their more traditional counterparts, LED Christmas lights have several advantages. Reduced energy usage is the most obvious usage. As compared to traditional lights, LED Christmas Lights use a fraction of the energy.
There was a very interesting study made by a major retailer comparing LED's to traditional lighting.
LED Mini-Lights; 60 bulb string; Energy used: 4.8 watts
Traditional Mini Lights; 100 bulbs: Energy Used 40.8 watts
Note that the 60 LED bulbs output about the same amount of lighting brightness as the 100 traditional bulbs.
25 C9 LED bulbs consumed about 2.4 watts
25 Traditional C9 bulbs consumed about 175 watts
If your family is like many out there, simply switching from traditional to LED Christmas lights will pay for the initial cost of the switch in a very short period of time.
LED's - Additional Advantages
Have a burned out light bulb on your traditional string of bulbs? Yes, we are all aware of struggling with that frustration. The whole string of lights would go down if there was just one burned out bulb in these older strings of lights. Even though the newer strings of lights solved this problem, the amount of burned out lights is still quite alarming.
At a 25,000 bulb live or even longer, LED's will likely last you a lifetime without need for replacement.
Also most LED's are made from high-impact plastic rather than either glass or a filament that breaks.
LED Christmas lights are cool to the touch;
Not only can traditional bulbs burn your fingers, they can be a fire hazard, especially in a dried-out tree. LED's can be used without worry of overloading circuits, or creating a fire hazard - or getting your fingers burned for that manner.
Also, many new styles in LED Christmas lights are coming to the marketplace. You can now find them in such shapes as icicles, snowflakes and more. Being controlled by a tiny microprocessor, each string of lights can now do such really cool things as rapidly blinking lights and flashing lights.
What Are The Disadvantages of LED Christmas Lights?
As they progress with technology, this list of disadvantages gets shorter each year.
Expense was one of the negative aspects of early LED lights. Each year LED's drop in cost and are now coming in-line with costs as compared to traditional lights. Although keep in mind that the life-span and savings in operational costs of LED's will more than make up for the cost difference.
More recently manufacturers have addressed the problems LED's had with harsh color qualities, and the bluish hue of the white lights. You will find that the newer LED's now have adjusted colors which are more toward the warm colors, including warmer white lights. The first colored LED lights were extremely harsh as well. That being said, when shopping for new LED Christmas lights, be sure to look for lights with a natural warm glow.
This year we have shopped for Christmas Lights and every string we selected was a new LED type and we feel that this is THE only way to go. If only looking for energy savings, this is reason enough to make the switch.
Looking for other ways to save even more energy in your Holiday lighting? Be sure to turn them off during the day and in the middle of the evening. With the use of a easy to program, inexpensive timer, this is a very easy solution.
LED Lights: A Revolution of Illumination
During the dark, cold days of December, many of us welcome bright, colorful Christmas lights, bringing a very festive appearance to our homes - Also the kids won't let you forget that these lights will let Santa know where you live. Up until now, traditional Christmas lights have consumed a tremendous amount of electricity.
This can be evidenced by looking at our electric bills over the Christmas season due to Holiday lighting. Therefore many energy conscious families have been presented a quandary even though they so love their lighting decorations. Even though energy-efficient LED Christmas lights have been arriving on the store shelves for several years, their acceptance has been slow.
However, these first generation LED's had their share of problems. Lights that were supposed to be white had a bluish tint. As for the colored lights, they lacked the same warm glow of their traditional lighting counterparts. And as is true for any product recently introduced in the sales market, they were costly, as compared to their traditional counterparts.
Manufactures of LED lighting have made great strides in LED lighting technology in the past few years, making LED Christmas Lights appear more like traditional lighting that we all grew up with, allowing the consumer to save a lot of energy over the holidays as well.
LED Christmas Lights - Traditional Christmas Lights
As compared to their more traditional counterparts, LED Christmas lights have several advantages. Reduced energy usage is the most obvious usage. As compared to traditional lights, LED Christmas Lights use a fraction of the energy.
There was a very interesting study made by a major retailer comparing LED's to traditional lighting.
LED Mini-Lights; 60 bulb string; Energy used: 4.8 watts
Traditional Mini Lights; 100 bulbs: Energy Used 40.8 watts
Note that the 60 LED bulbs output about the same amount of lighting brightness as the 100 traditional bulbs.
25 C9 LED bulbs consumed about 2.4 watts
25 Traditional C9 bulbs consumed about 175 watts
If your family is like many out there, simply switching from traditional to LED Christmas lights will pay for the initial cost of the switch in a very short period of time.
LED's - Additional Advantages
Have a burned out light bulb on your traditional string of bulbs? Yes, we are all aware of struggling with that frustration. The whole string of lights would go down if there was just one burned out bulb in these older strings of lights. Even though the newer strings of lights solved this problem, the amount of burned out lights is still quite alarming.
At a 25,000 bulb live or even longer, LED's will likely last you a lifetime without need for replacement.
Also most LED's are made from high-impact plastic rather than either glass or a filament that breaks.
LED Christmas lights are cool to the touch;
Not only can traditional bulbs burn your fingers, they can be a fire hazard, especially in a dried-out tree. LED's can be used without worry of overloading circuits, or creating a fire hazard - or getting your fingers burned for that manner.
Also, many new styles in LED Christmas lights are coming to the marketplace. You can now find them in such shapes as icicles, snowflakes and more. Being controlled by a tiny microprocessor, each string of lights can now do such really cool things as rapidly blinking lights and flashing lights.
What Are The Disadvantages of LED Christmas Lights?
As they progress with technology, this list of disadvantages gets shorter each year.
Expense was one of the negative aspects of early LED lights. Each year LED's drop in cost and are now coming in-line with costs as compared to traditional lights. Although keep in mind that the life-span and savings in operational costs of LED's will more than make up for the cost difference.
More recently manufacturers have addressed the problems LED's had with harsh color qualities, and the bluish hue of the white lights. You will find that the newer LED's now have adjusted colors which are more toward the warm colors, including warmer white lights. The first colored LED lights were extremely harsh as well. That being said, when shopping for new LED Christmas lights, be sure to look for lights with a natural warm glow.
This year we have shopped for Christmas Lights and every string we selected was a new LED type and we feel that this is THE only way to go. If only looking for energy savings, this is reason enough to make the switch.
Looking for other ways to save even more energy in your Holiday lighting? Be sure to turn them off during the day and in the middle of the evening. With the use of a easy to program, inexpensive timer, this is a very easy solution.
About the Author:
Find out how to save on your electric bills by using: LED Christmas Lights. Explore our vast library of green building tips and plans at: Green Living Made Easy.