Hall of Triumphs

For some reason I had assumed that all of the lights in my home were already LED light bulbs. When I finally went and checked I realized that many were still incandescent, a few were CFLs, and a few were LEDs. Between inside and outside lighting fixtures and lamps, there are probably about 50 lights in my home, and I realized I was wasting a ton of money and energy on lighting. It took me two trips to the hardware store and an online order or two to find the right type of bulbs with the right size connections that worked for the various rooms in my home. I didn't keep perfect track, but I would imagine that I spent about $200 to $250 on new bulbs. As I mention in the main page about lighting on this site: · I replaced all of my recessed lighting with LED bulbs that use about 10.5 Watts and have a K temperature of 2700 Kelvin. · I replaced all the basic light bulbs in my house with LED bulbs that use about 9 or 13 Watts and have a K temperature of 2700 or 3000 Kelvin. · I replaced all of the exposed or decorative light bulbs in my house with LED candelabra type bulbs (make sure you know what base size you are looking for) that use about 3 Watts and have a K temperature of 2700 Kelvin. Here is a picture of the assortment of bulbs I ended up using: In the end, all of the lighting turned out great, and my wife and I only chose to bring back incandescent bulbs in two places where we wanted very subtle lighting (two lights in the baby’s room, and the four bulbs in the fixture above our dining room table). The first electricity bill we got after the switch showed impressive changes. My electricity usage dropped by 28% from this same month last year and it looks like I saved about $20 in monthly supply charges by simply switching to LEDs. This means that I’ll easily earn back the cost of the LED bulbs in less that 1 year, way before I’ll need to purchase new ones (about 20 years). I’m not going to lie. I feel just a little triumphant.