A Well Lit Home Saves Energy
It’s a minor change, but I’m a big fan of LED lighting. When we purchased the Broughton Street House many of the light fixtures had traditional incandescent bulbs, and some halogen. Incandescent can make a beautiful soft white, so I completely understand the choice, but in the last decade LED has really come into it’s own with bulbs that are either tuned to a specific color temperature, or that are actually tunable by the home owner to reach the specific color temperature you want. We can have a well-lit home that is also very energy efficient!
One of our favorite blogs for interior designs for hosting recommends 2700k lighting, and we definitely agree. Here at our primary residence we’ve switched most bulbs to 2700k LED, with the exception of locations where I’m using open filament LEDs for an antique look. For the Broughton Street House, we’ll be using 2700k, and luckily for us Home Depot sells multi-packs at a very economical price in almost every bulb size.
Replacing Bulbs
Starting at the carriage house, there were 10 overhead canister lights in the kitchen area, living room area, and over the bed. It’s going to be easy to have a well-lit home when there are so many fixtures to work with! There are more in the bathroom, but I actually want to experiment a little further before replacing those because in bathrooms 3000k color temperature is sometimes appropriate to mimic daylight for dressing and makeup application.
A Well-Lit Home Actually Saves Energy
So we achieved our goal of a well-lit home
, but there’s more. LED lights last longer than incandescent light by far, usually 12,000 hours or more compared to 1,000 hours. So, less maintenance and less waste. Even better, they are more efficient. You might not realize just *how* much more efficient, though. In this case, we replaced 10 65W bulbs that burn out every 1,000 hours with 10 9.5W bulbs that should last 12,000 hours. Using an average Georgia power cost and because Home Depot sells these things in multipacks that bring the cost down to around $2 each, replacing these bulbs pays for itself in about 2 weeks.Over the course of a year we save roughly $937 based on energy savings and bulb replacements. Not only will the Broughton Street House be well-lit, it will be energy efficient as well!
It’s definitely worth the time to get out the ladder and make the swap. Over the course of the next several months we’ll be replacing all incandescent and halogen bulbs throughout the Broughton Street House. It reduces cost, reduces heat produced by the bulbs, and reduces the maintenance we have to do over time. Most importantly, the Broughton Street House will be well-lit. Energy savings, efficiency, and a better guest experience.