We have written about LED lighting in the past, and there are lots of good reasons to consider it in your home. The recessed lighting options out there can help with energy savings as well as tackling a troublesome air sealing dilemma.
But the big hurdle for me is the light bulb. We use them everywhere in our homes and in places where we really need them like to read or get down the stairs. There have a number of bulbs making their way to market, and one of them is CREE.
It did cost me $12, but my biggest complaint is that I may have to keep the receipt for 10 years if it fails under warranty. If it only lasts 10 years, it will have been a $1.20 a year investment and I expect to spend that much a year to keep it on about 6 hours a day since it uses only 9.5 watts produces 800 lumens. An incandescent might cost $8 a year to burn the same hours and it sure won’t last 10 years.
What does it look like though, since nostalgia and good looks matter and have kept some of us from changing standard light bulbs to compact fluorescents. Go figure, I think it looks like a light bulb. I’m running out of excuses. Even with antique fixtures, something crying for an old Edison bulb I think it looks pretty good.
By U.S. Air Force photo by Edward Aspera Jr. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
NYT reported last month that although there are some early adopters of monitors of electric use in our homes, it is predicted that more than half will have them in the next ten years. Notable in the Times article is a quote from Dan Yates, CEO of Opower: “Simply making energy usage visible can have an impact”. I can believe that; after all, “knowledge is power”, right?
Blending physics, and metaphor, with this age old adage (I can’t resist throwing in some physics), power implies transformation. It is a function of using energy to do work. My point is that energy monitors aren’t worth squat unless we change our behavior based on what they tell us. In fact, since you plug them in, they use electricity, they don’t save it.
Local utilities are offering energy data with things like the green button which we’ve written about in the past. Changing light bulbs to CFLs or LEDs can make a big impact with electric loads. When you use electricity—for A/C or to heat water for example—more efficient systems can make a difference; and so can improving the home in other ways. The gains in insulating and air sealing, proper shading, and good windows can really make an impact on your energy usage as well as your comfort.
I wonder if the adage “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is relevant? Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to keep an eye on your electrical usage, but don’t get caught watching and not acting. Or maybe, “a fool and his money will soon part” fits too.
Expect to see LED light bulb packaging sport a new label this summer. The intent is to introduce some transparency in the market and guard against exaggerated claims in lighting performance.
This should lend some clarity on lumens, (a measure of the light output) how many lumens per watt, helping us better understand the bulb’s efficiency as well as the light color. One of the arguments against migrating away from incandescent has been the quality of the light. Hopeful labeling will help shed some light on this subject (sorry I couldn’t resist). More here at lightingfacts.com
Our favorite LED, recessed down-lighting from CREE, the CR6, has gotten more colorful. Well actually the available trim kits have. Following the footsteps of Henry Ford “you can have any color as long as it is black” the CR6 has until now only been available in white. CREE is offering Mr. Ford’s favorite color, black, as well as “wheat” (I might call it bronze) and plain old “anodized” or silver. Energy efficient, dimmable and long lasting, here is to good looking lighting that works!
Panasonic has released a dandy looking light bulb for the future. It looks a lot like something from the past. Certainly LED light bulbs have their place in our lighting future as they already do in our present. Cree has certainly topped our charts here at GreenHomes America, especially when it comes to recessed down lighting.
As expected, the Pansonic LED Nostalgic Clear, promises a long life at 40,000 hours and significant energy savings at 4.4w over 20W (for a CFL) with an A-Energy rating. At 2700k Panasonic claims the bulb produces a soft warm light, and overall it is fairly compact.
I’ve mentioned the Switch bulb which I think looks pretty neat even when off, but with this one, your interior decorating scheme might be a bit more industrial.
Let’s face it, sometimes you can see the light bulb and who wants to look at some clunky piece of technology from the 1980’s Battlestar Galactica days? I do like the look of the Panasonic Nostalgic Clear.
The frontier is still multi-directional, bright lighting; something as yet not done well by LED lighting overall, and I am sure is lacking in this Panasonic bulb as well. Gerry Negley, Cree’s CTO has said, “I don’t know what lighting will look like in the 21st century. I can tell you it will not be constrained with shapes and technology of the past. It will not look like a traditional light bulb.” Can’t wait to see, but for now give me something familiar to light the way.
Maybe you’ve seen this already, its’ been floating around the web, but I Love this picture. Some of us go for broke when it comes to holiday decoration. I’m only lightly (sorry) using the metaphor “going for broke”.
We celebrate this time of year as the skies grow darker earlier and the season shortens for cultural and religious reasons and just plain fun. I’m more in the Ditto camp, but we do have a Christmas tree.
Out of curiosity I used a nifty device called a Kill-A-Watt, and I metered my own Christmas tree at home. We like the old school lights, the big bulbs and the bubbling ones. One year we left a strip plugged in lying on the couch and burned a hole in it.
Well, my little tree with a few strips of lights big and small draws about 320watts. I have an electric tea kettle that boils water with less wattage. I can make coffee with that. A co-worker’s tree with LED lights draws about 20watts.
I’m probably not going to change. I like the light from the tree. It makes me happy. I suppose although it’s not efficient, it helps heat my house. (Yes, heating my house in Maine with light bulbs is not necessarily the smartest economic move I’ve made!)
Question I have now is “how about all the other things with clocks and lights, plugged in but not doing anything.” Mike has mentioned “smart” power strips in the past. This might be a good stocking stuffer for some (well if you have a big stocking I suppose). Our TV’s and their electronic entourage, sit around waiting to entertain drawing power with their clocks lights and standby modes. Set top boxes and DVR’s can have a huge draw and can be worse than a good refrigerator!
We make choices with our home and what we do to run the things in them, and it’s good to make informed ones. Using energy costs money. Wasting energy costs even more. Maybe the “Ditto” family has some extra cash for the presents under the tree instead, or a week in the Bahamas. What would you do with the money you’re wasting needlessly on phantom loads? Oh, don’t forget: air leaks, spotty insulation, old inefficient heating equipment, leaky ductwork….What does your holiday wish list look like?
There are a couple of interesting LED recessed (or sort of recessed!) lighting fixtures that we’ve tested recently that are worth sharing. I wouldn’t consider either one the CREE-killer (the CREE CR6 is still my head & shoulders above the rest favorite residential LED fixture). But each might be a workable option in some situations.
First is Cooper Lighting’s ALL-PRO LED. This product provides another options for “wet” locations, and at a lower price point than the HALO fixture previously reviewed here. The dimming seems to work.
A couple things I don’t like are the 3000K rating which means it’s in the very white (some say blue) color range. For comparison the CREE CR6 is a much warmer looking 2700K. The other big downside for me is the 81 “color rendition index” compared to the CREE 90. A higher number means things look truer to their natural color to the human eye. At a rated 14.6 watts, it’s very efficient, but not as good as the CREE.
Price wise, this is comparable to the CREE and cheaper than the HALO. If you need a wet-rated fixture, this is a worthy choice.
Next up is the Commercial Electric Light Disk. The light quality is similar to the above product at 3000K and a CRI of 80. OK, but not on par with the CREE CR6. However, it does have two big advantages going for it. It is brighter that either the CREE or the Cooper products. Not hugely so, but brighter.
And the big feature in it’s flexibility is the ability to fix in either 5″ or 6″ cans or, uniquely surface mounted right on a 4″ junction box–a surface mounted fixture with a recessed light look. There might be some very useful applications for this, from closets to simple retrofits would you want a sleeker modern look to replace a clunky looking surface fixture.
We’ll keep evaluating and reviewing as the technology evolves, and we’ll keep you posted on anything interesting.
With the new light bulb regulations hitting the 100-watt bulbs in January (lower-wattage bulbs will be phased in later over the next few years), Bob Tedeschi has a good article in the NY Times about different light bulb options, and based his his preferences, what works where.
There’s no need to panic–we won’t be living in the dark!
[And a long-term follow-up--still love those CREE CR6 for recessed lighting, LED or otherwise. It's just darned good!]
We had seven visitors this Memorial Day weekend for what’s become an annual rite—my wife’s family runs in the Burlington Marathon. With the extra people, and the need to keep them fed, including with the pre-race, pasta-fueled, carbo-loading, I found myself thinking how to stay cool in the kitchen. And how to save energy. [If I can brag a bit on my daughter, this is also now an issue since she has embraced baking and is doing amazing things. Her baking is also impacting my waist size!]
Even in the heat of the summer, you can cook, stay cool, and minimize the fighting the air-conditioner has to do. There are a few simple strategies. Reduce the heat you produce. Remove the heat you do produce. And chip away at the other energy-savings via efficient lights, appliances, and behaviors as you would elsewhere in the home.
Don’t generate as much heat in the first place.
If you don’t heat up the kitchen, you don’t have to cool it down. Here are some things you can do, none of them hard, all of them useful.
Grill outside. People love this! And if keeps you from heating the stove, oven, and room!
Try to limit pre-heating the oven. You can’t do this which some baked goods where rising might be impacted. However, you make find that getting the oven up to temperate doesn’t take as long as the recipes might suggest. And if you’re cooking that baked macaroni and cheese, you don’t really need to wait for the oven to heat all the way up—although you may have to leave it in a couple minutes longer.
Don’t “peek” if you don’t need to. Opening the oven door dumps heat into the room, drops the oven temperature, and increases cooking time.
Shut the oven off a few minutes early. An oven will retain the heat for a while after you shut it off, and the food will continue to cook.
Check the oven door seal, and clean it with a bit of degreaser if needed. A good seal keeps the heat where it should be.
Boiling water for that pre-race pasta? Keep the cover on! And as tempting as it is, the don’t peek rule applies here. The water will boil faster AND you’ll reduce the amount of steam and hot water vapor you dump into your house. Speaking of pasta, you may be able to get good results reducing the amount of water you use, as suggested in the NY Times article. Some folks even suggest turning the heat off after adding the pasta and returning it to a boil. I’ve done this with rice with good success.
On the stove top, match the pan to the element. Don’t use a small pan on a large element because much of the heat just goes into the room. (Induction stove users—you’ve got an advantage here!)
Sometimes a small toaster oven will do as well as a large oven—and require less energy and dump less heat in the process.
Evacuate any extra heat if you can.
Here’s where an exhaust fan with a good range hood comes in handy. If it is vented to the outside—as it absolutely should be if you have a gas stove or oven—you can remove the heat and cooking-related moisture from the house. Remember, as you suck air out of the house, you’re bringing in air elsewhere, and you don’t want to do that if the air is hotter and more humid that you like. In this case, though, it’s well worth the trade. [BTW, this same principle applies in the shower—get the steam out rather than using your A/C to cool in and remove the humidity.]
Safety first. Any time we’re talking about exhaust fans, I like to remind people that they be vented outside and NOT into the attic. And you should make sure you test your combustion equipment (including water heater and furnace) to make sure the exhaust fan doesn’t impact proper venting.
Other smart things–they add up.
Kitchens often have a lot of lighting, including recessed lights and track lighting. Incandescent, including halogen lighting, actually use most of their energy creating heat, not light. A kitchen full of mini-space heaters disguised as lights will be harder to keep cool. Switching this to CFL or LED lighting (see previous posts on the CREE CR6, for example!) can move a huge difference.
Run your dishwasher only when it’s full, and don’t use the “Rinse/Hold” feature for just a few dirty. It uses several gallons of hot water each time you use it.
Do the dollar bill test—the seal on your refrigerator door should snug hold a dollar bill in place when closed. If not, the seal may need to be replaced.
Mom was right. Don’t stand with the refrigerator door open FOREVER. Minimize the time with the door open and the number of times you open it. This saves energy in its own right. And remember, refrigerators don’t magically create “cool”. They remove heat from inside the compartment, and dump it—and waste heat—outside, which just happens to in your kitchen.
You probably don’t have a lot of flexibility with your current appliance locations, be it generally makes sense to keep the refrigerator out of bright sunlight and away from the stove—remember, you’re trying to keep it cool. Keep it in mind if you’re remodeling, though.
You can also explore more general cooling tips for not just the kitchen, but your whole house.
And to really find the trouble spots in your home — and to be sure they’re addressed with the right solutions, we recommend that you get a comprehensive home energy audit.
You know I’m a fan of the CREE CR6 LED light. Mostly because it performs great. And partly because it’s energy efficient.
Standard incandescent lights waste about 90% of their energy use on producing heat instead of light. Think about that in the hot summer months every time you turn a light on!
Well, the folks at CREE found a good way to demonstrate this using the Easter Bunny.
Think about that as we head into the summer cooling season. You pay to waste electricity on inefficient lighting. And then you either sweat or pay again to remove the extra heat with your air-conditioner. A double whammy.
