Why I’m loving LEDs

Thank you to GE for sponsoring this post.   All content and opinions are my own, aside from the infographic, which GE provided.

When we bought this house, compact fluorescent bulbs were having their heyday, and we bought quite a few of them for the fixtures here.

At the time, LEDs were available, but they were crazy expensive, and honestly, not very good.

Who wants to pay $50 for a bluish light that barely illuminates anything?

Anyway, we had a lot of CFLs, and as they’d been burning out, we’d been replacing them with some incandescent bulbs we had stashed around here.

I’d kind of forgotten how quickly incandescent bulbs burn out, though! I was used to the CFLs, which were lasting us about 10 years apiece, and I felt like I was replacing incandescent light bulbs every other month.

So, I was super pleased to learn that LEDs have come such a long way in the last ten years.

My first experience with LEDs came when we got recessed lighting installed in our office.

Our electrician assured us that the new LEDs were the way to go, and he was right!

They’re affordable and dimmable, they provide soft light, and they are so, so, so much more pleasant than the tube fluorescent lights we had before.

LED bulbs look totally normal, so I can use them in ceiling fans and other places where bulbs are exposed.

We even have an LED light in our bathroom fan.

I now keep LEDs on hand to replace our incandescents as they burn out and my little frugal heart is very happy at the idea of not having to replace these for years.   Yay!

Here are the main reasons I’m digging LEDs:

The purchase price isn’t much higher than the price of incandescent bulbs.

In fact, you can get a lot of bulbs for less than $5 apiece, especially when you buy a multi-pack.

LEDs stay cool.

Incandescent bulbs give off 90% of their energy as heat, but LED bulbs remain cool. This is really lovely in a small room (such as my bathroom!) in the summertime.

In a small space, you really notice that a multi-bulb fixture can throw off a lot of heat with incandescents.

LEDs use 70-90% less energy than traditional bulbs.

This is a pretty awesome benefit. It’s not often you can find energy-saving alternatives that cut down on energy usage to this degree.

(Imagine if you could get a heat pump that used 70-90% less energy! A girl can dream.)

LEDs last.   And last.   And last.

LEDs promise to last 50 times longer than incandescents and 8-10 times longer than CFLs, which are already a pretty long-lasting bulb.

For instance, this GE LED bulb promises to last 22.8 years at 3 hours of use per day.

Which means I will be 62 years old when it burns out.   Seriously impressive!

I like LED light better than CFL light.

I never could quite get used to the harshness of CFL light, and I’m pleased that the soft white LED bulbs have a gentle, less sterile feel than any CFLs I ever tried.

LEDs are simple to dispose of.

CFLs require special disposal handling when they wear out, but LEDs do not.

There are recycling programs currently available for holiday LED lights, and I would venture to guess that by the time my newly-purchased LED bulbs wear out, there may be recycling programs for regular LED bulbs as well.

LEDs are a green choice.

Because they use less energy per hour of use  and because they last so long before they need to be thrown away, LED bulbs are a more environmentally-friendly option than both incandescents and LEDs.

GE sent me an infographic with some pretty sweet stats about the benefits of LEDs.

(click on the infographic below for a larger view)

 

 

Take the GE pLEDge and get a $1 coupon!

GE wants to encourage all of you to save money and energy by using these long-lasting bulbs.

Sooo, to make the switch even sweeter, GE is offering a $1 printable coupon to everyone who takes the GE pLEDge, which is super easy to do online.

Click here to take the pLEDge!

GE makes LEDs in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, so odds are good that you’ll be able to find an LED alternative for almost any light bulb in your house.

Here’s a handy listing of stores where you can buy GE LED bulbs.

And of course, there are lots of GE LED options on Amazon.

How do you feel about LEDs?   Have you been making the switch at your house?

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