Lighting Your Home: LED vs CFL

Incandescent bulbs are thankfully becoming a thing of the past in terms of price, output, and performance so in an attempt to shed some light on the issue I will explain the difference between switching to Compact Fluorescent (CFL) or LED light bulbs in the home.

Firstly you should set your goals by bearing in mind a few factors that go into differentiating your options: price, lifespan, Brightness and wattage. Do you want to the longest-lasting bulb? Do you want the most efficient bulb? Do you want to stop changing bulbs for 15 years? These days, there’s an option for each of these concerns.

The incandescent bulb is a dinosaur and in comparison to more efficient and longer-lasting options the only positive attribute is the price. With just a little foresight you’ll realize there are better options out there that cost just a little more. If you want a bulb that’s going to last for extended periods between replacements, you’ll want to go with the LED featuring a lifespan of 60,000+ hours versus the CFL’s 10,000 hours and the incandescent bulb’s 1,500 hours. Considering the bulb’s low energy expenditure, the cost over its 60,000-hour lifespan is significantly lower than either of the other bulbs. Simply put, if using as little energy as possible is your goal, the LED bulb is for you.
Of course, the standard LED is generally not as bright when compared to the traditional bulb. The LED also has the major drawback of featuring a very direct field of light, which makes it most useful only when aimed directly at what you want to light. Standard floor and table lamps equipped with an LED tend to offer streams of light aimed at the ceiling, which may not help with that book you're reading. There are some very creative people bringing logical solutions to all of these problems so don’t rule out the LED bulb just yet. It is a very underdeveloped product with enormous potential yet to be seen and in time will become the light source of the future.
Now lets talk CFL which burns comparably bright to a standard incandescent, but still costs less over the long term and more efficient. An advantage the CFL has over the LED is an upfront-cost that is considerably lower and far closer to the incandescent. In fact, if overall cost is your only concern, the cost of new LED bulbs may be more than you want to spend. Over the life of an LED, you are only going to see dramatic savings over the CFL if you are in an area that has high energy costs.
While the CFL is twice as expensive as the incandescent upfront, the former buries the latter in a pile of long-term cost. Each individual setting, not to mention the user’s view’s on energy conservation, is going to call for a unique bulb.

Lightcom – www.light-com.net

by: Jai Turner