Switch to LED Holiday Lights

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If you plan to use lights to decorate during the holiday season, make the switch to LED (light emitting diode) holiday lights. LEDs have been rapidly improving in quality and efficiency. They are now the norm in bicycle lights, many new flashlights, and holiday string lights. LEDs have a long life (30,000 to 50,000 hours), and, unlike CFLs and other fluorescents, they don’t use mercury vapour.

Affordability

LED technology offers substantial energy savings potential. While some other LED lighting fixtures remain on the costly side, holiday lights are competitively priced with conventional light strings. LEDs also last up to 10 times longer than conventional bulbs and are more durable, with no filaments or glass bulbs to break.

Cost savings

Decorating your home with LED lights could reduce holiday lighting energy use by up to 90%. A typical 50-bulb incandescent strand of lights uses 250 watts and an equivalent 70-bulb LED strand uses only three watts. For a house that operates holiday lights for six hours a day through the month of December, with an energy price of 8.27 cents per kilowatt hour, six strands of incandescent holiday lights would cost over $23 to power versus a mere 28 cents for LEDs. By replacing the incandescent strands with LEDs, it would save you $22.79 in energy costs for the month.

Health & comfort

LED holiday lights are aesthetically similar to conventional holiday strings. Some people even prefer the brighter, focused light. More importantly, LEDs do not give off heat like conventional decorative bulbs, reducing the risk of fire.

Environmental considerations

Consider reducing the importance of lights in your holiday decoration or eliminate decorative holiday lighting altogether. Interior spaces in particular can be made festive without the use of lights. Decorations made of cloth that can be reused from year to year, or biodegradable decorations, are sustainable choices for making your space festive.