What many people don’t realize is that, by converting your household lighting from incandescent or compact fluorescent to LED, you’ll have a positive impact on the planet. Everyone know

s that incandescent light is expensive, but it also contributes to your carbon footprint in other ways. Because the bulbs are rapidly consumable in comparison to LED, their manufacture and shipping consumes resources and produces greenhouse gases, which are the chief contributor to climate change. All of the electricity used by an incandescent fixture that isn’t converted to light is radiated as waste heat. In warmer climates, this can radically affect the amount of energy required for air conditioning, again contributing pollution in the form of carbon emissions to the environment.

The United States Federal Government, in enacting the US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, identified inefficient lighting technology as a matter of national security. Since lighting accounts for approximately 20% of the strain placed on American electrical generation capacity, which can be strained during periods of peak usage, it was targeted as one of the areas where stricter laws could make a difference. As a result, incandescent light bulbs are being phased out, with manufacturers required to develop more energy efficient technology if they wish to sell light bulbs in the US.

The most common replacement for the incandescent bulb has been the Compact Fluorescent light bulb. Often seen as the “curly bulb”, it packs an electrical ballast into an Edison screw base, and “folds” the gas charged tube into the shape of a conventional light bulb.

While this bulb is considerably more energy efficient than an incandescent, and lasts a lot longer, performance on both these levels is exceeded by LED source lighting. In addition, CFL bulbs contain Mercury, which is an environmental contaminant and hazardous to human health.

Far and away the best lighting technology from an environmental perspective, Solid State LED lighting is the household light source of the future. For years, it’s been coming. Today, after a decade of steady improvement, the technology is indeed ready to light our homes.

If you’re constructing a new house, you will install a central breaker panel with a service that’s capable of

providing adequate electricity for modern living. High-draw appliances like air conditioners, multiple refrigerators, a chest freezer, space heaters, etc. are in common usage.

If, however, you live in a location where the electrical service can’t be upgraded, or the wiring in your house can’t take any more load, but you want to increase the number of light fixtures, or total light output, consider switching to LED source lighting. In recent years, environmental and cost concerns have caused governments to enact legislation that forces manufacturers to develop more efficient lighting. Light production accounts for roughly 20% of the load on the North American power grid.

Besides the obvious benefit of less current draw, which equals less money spent on electricity, installation of LED source lighting will reduce air conditioning costs, because it produces very little heat when in use. Because of its directionality, it will save you even further electricity because you can put bright, useful light precisely where you want it, without resorting to overhead fixtures that illuminate the whole room. In short, the energy savings provided by LED will be increased by the design flexibility that it affords.

If you chose, you can purchase LED conversion bulbs that will simply replace your existing incandescent, fluorescent tube, or compact fluorescent bulbs. While this option will immediately address power usage issues, bulbs that are direct replacements are more expensive to purchase. You may wish to consider some new luminaires (lamps or light fixtures) as well. A great option for workspace lighting, in locations like the kitchen, is LED light strips. At www.undercounterlight.com, they are available in a can wide variety or color temperature and intensity, and all of the pieces for your job can be purchased individually, or in convenient kits. If you want to perform the installation yourself, you can obtain ballasts which plug directly into the wall, thereby allowing you to connect them to your household electrical yourself.

With the increased efficacy (ability to covert electricity to light) and more flexibility offered by LED lighting, you should experience a considerably reduced current draw, and the associated benefit of lower energy cost.

LED light strips are most commonly us

ed in kitchens, where they install very neatly under cabinetry to light counter surfaces. Though they’re reasonably economical to purchase, and easy to install for even a relatively inexperienced handyman, they contribute greatly to the overall lighting design of the kitchen, which and elevate good decor to great.

These light strips are readily available online. Ledundercounterlight.com has them available in custom color temperature, sold in individual components (the strips themselves, ballasts, dimmers, and wire connectors) or in convenient all-inclusive kits. There’s a video on the website that indicates how easy it is to mount the fixtures with #4 wood screws.

The ease with which the light strips can be installed under counters can be translated to other locations, in the kitchen and in the rest of the home. Excellent results have been obtained by mounting them above cove molding, lighting a ceiling that’s been painted a light color. The appearance is that of a very expensive custom lighting job.

LED lighting can beautify, and it can also be very utilitarian. Problematic and difficult to light areas, like the basement stairs can be safely and economically illuminated with LED. The strips themselves are low-profile, so they won’t easily catch on people and objects passing by. They’re robust, and even if one does get broken, no shards of hot glass or poisonous mercury will be released into your home. As they don’t produce heat when on, there’s no worry about fire, and they won’t cause burns if accidentally touched.

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If you’re looking for a lightweight, easy to wire, easy to install lighting solution that looks great, produces a superior quality of light, and uses energy effectively, you need to discover LED light strips.
LED light strips are most commonly used in kitchens, where they install very neatly under cabinetry to light counter surfaces. Though they’re reasonably economical to purchase, and easy to install for even a relatively inexperienced handyman, they contribute greatly to the overall lighting design of the kitchen, which and elevate good decor to great.
These light strips are readily available online. Ledundercounterlight.com has them available in custom color temperature, sold in individual components (the strips themselves, ballasts, dimmers, and wire connectors) or in convenient all-inclusive kits. There’s a video on the website that indicates how easy it is to mount the fixtures with #4 wood screws.
The ease with which the light strips can be installed under counters can be translated to other locations, in the kitchen and in the rest of the home. Excellent results have been obtained by mounting them above cove molding, lighting a ceiling that’s been painted a light color. The appearance is that of a very expensive custom lighting job.
LED lighting can beautify, and it can also be very utilitarian. Problematic and difficult to light areas, like the basement stairs can be safely and economically illuminated with LED. The strips themselves are low-profile, so they won’t easily catch on people and objects passing by. They’re robust, and even if one does get broken, no shards of hot glass or poisonous mercury will be released into your home. As they don’t produce heat when on, there’s no worry about fire, and they won’t cause burns if accidentally touched.
LED light strips are an environmentally friendly, beautiful way to put light where you want or need it.
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That’s not to say that most people want to spend a whole lot of money in their garden sheds, either on the lights themselves or on electricity to power them.

Which is what makes LED’s ideal.  Progress in solid state lighting technology in recent years has been fast.  They’re now the fastest growing replacement technology for inefficient incandescent lighting, which is being phased out in North America and Europe over the next few years because of the load it places on the electrical grid.  In colder climates, it’s simply not possible to use compact fluorescent outdoors, because they perform very poorly at low temperatures.

LED bulbs with an Edison screw base are available for retrofit into existing fixtures, which makes upgrading quite easy.  They also have a much smaller energy requirement, which makes it possible to build them into much smaller lighting instruments.  For workspace applications, like your garden shed, light strips such as the ones sold by www.ledundercounterlight.com are an ideal way to unobtrusively place energy efficient LED fixtures.  Increased light output, directed where you need it means your potting shed can be used for far more than storing garden implements and harboring insects.  Per hour of use, The LED strips will cost much less than other types of light, and provide more useful illumination.  They’ll last up to thirty times longer than incandescent bulbs, which means less waste.  They contain no hazardous materials like Compact Fluorescent’s do, so which makes for a better environment, both inside and outside your shed.

We don’t just sleep in our bedrooms, we relax in them.  We read in them.  We sometimes watch TV.  They also serve as the dressing room, and even sometimes perform double duty as an office.  Bedrooms need a lot of lighting options, which is not to say that they need a lot of light.  Simply installing a big, bright ceiling fixture will not provide the desired result.

Good bedroom lighting designs incorporate a number of discretely lit areas for different activities.  Most of the room’s lighting needs to be highly directional.  Reading light needs to be behind the reader, who most likely will be sitting in bed.  The wrong light, or wrong placement of the light, can actually cause physical pain and repetitive stress problems.  Light for dressing or applying makeup needs to be bright, and emulate the daytime for color rendering.  Closet lighting should be able to be used without disturbing someone else who is in the room sleeping, reading, or watching television.

Combine this need for many different lighting instruments with the fact that many older homes have limited electrical supply available in the bedroom, which makes retrofitting an expensive proposition if your energy requirements exceed the capacity of the wiring.  In cases like this, LED lighting becomes the best choice.  Because of its high efficacy, you can deliver a great deal of lighting potential without putting strain on your household electrical system, while at the same time saving money in energy costs.

Today’s LED lighting fixtures are attractive, versatile, and dimmable.  The nature of LED means that they can be designed to be very directional, so you can light an area for a specific purpose with minimal spillover to other parts of the room.  The advent of low-voltage light strips, which are very small and easily hidden, means that it is becoming possible to incorporate lighting right into furniture and other fixtures, so that they aren’t visible when they’re not on.  DIY light strip kits that plug into the wall and require no wiring can be found online at www.ledundercounterlight.com

How do we reconcile this need for light with concerns surrounding increased energy cost and the environmental impact of excess energy consumption?

Solid State lighting technology in the form of LED source bulbs could well be the answer.  A few short years ago, LEDs cost far more than they do today, and their light output was a fraction of what it is now.  At the current threshold of about 100 lumens/watt of electricity used, LEDs offer the highest efficacy of any available lighting product.

Coupled with the fact that LED lighting is attractive, available in a wider range of color temperatures than compact fluorescent, and the bulbs are extremely long lasting.   LED is quickly becoming the premiere choice for home lighting.

If increased security and safety is on your agenda, we don’t recommend lining the walls and floors of your home with lights that look like aircraft or theatre emergency lights.  A better solution would be choosing key rooms in which to place lights, so that they are useful in combination with your overall lighting scheme, and when they are left on serve as good “emergency” visibility lighting.  In your kitchen, incorporating some counter lighting beneath the cabinets will enhance the overall usability of the room, when accompanied by your overhead lights.  After hours, you can leave them on, knowing that the per-hour cost is far less than lighting of other types.  Your home will benefit from the appearance of occupancy that the lighting presents, and you’ll benefit from increased safety on your midnight forays about the house.

Most of the common solutions to this problem increase the amount of light available on the work surface, but cause other issues.  The most elegant solutions, up until recently, have been very expensive.

Because they are long, up to 48 inches in length, use less electricity than incandescent lamps, and are easy to install, fluorescent tubes have been used to illuminate counter surfaces.  The problem is that these tubes are obtrusive.  Hiding them requires installation of a large valance strip which extends the cabinet downward, making the workspace underneath less useful.  As an additional disincentive, the light quality provided by Fluorescent tubes is often harsh and prone to flicker.  They’re associated with industrial installations, which can be undesirable in your residential design.

Incandescent “pot lights”, either high or low voltage, can be recessed into the bottom of the cabinets.  While this solution is much more elegant than fluorescent tubing, it does bring with it the problems of incandescent light.  It’s much more expensive to operate than other types of lighting, and can actually give off enough heat to change the ambient temperature in the room.  Also, recessing the fixtures into the cabinets, while looking great, actually reduces their interior space.

The newest form of lighting, currently being installed in kitchen cabinets in previously unprecedented volume is Light Emitting Diode, or LED technology.  This “Solid State” lighting is so described because the light is produced without a physical filament or charging of gas particles.  LED make great lights for areas like kitchen counters because they can be configured in strips, wired in series, and hidden away under cabinetry with very little effort.  The light they provide is highly customizable, and its efficacy (amount of light produced in comparison to the amount of electricity used) is much better than any of the alternatives.

LED source lights will last for 30000 hours, or more.  This is approximately 30 times as long as an incandescent bulb.

Compact Fluorescent Lights last only about ¼ as long as an LED bulb, and contain materials like Mercury, which is bad for environment.  LED Bulbs don’t contain any hazardous materials, and can often be recycled.

LED lights have a much higher efficacy than their incandescent and fluorescent counterparts, which means that you will pay less on your electric bill for the same amount of light.

LEDs give off much less heat than other lights, so you won’t have to tolerate a room that is uncomfortably warm, or turn up your air conditioning, because of your lights.

If you purchase light strips from ledundercounterlight.com, you will benefit from the considerable experience the company has in providing LEDs specifically for household lighting projects.  They offer a range of products proudly manufactured in the USA.  Light strips, ballasts, dimmers, and connectors are available individually, or in conveniently prepackaged kits.  You will get exactly the right components for your job, and you will get exactly the right result from your components.

LED lights are available in a wide array of color temperatures, from a cool white that illuminates exceptionally well, to a warmer white that emulates traditional incandescent light sources.

LED lights are an exceptionally good choice, especially in situations where you want to direct light onto a work surface, like on a kitchen counter.  You know it, and the results are going to be so attractive that everyone who sees them will be intrigued.

When consulting real estate professionals, you’ll find that most advise that the smart money is in kitchen and bathroom renovations, because they tend to have a bigger impact on resale value, as well as ease of sale, than other improvements.

And then there are the intangibles – some people will be attracted to a certain type of décor, while others are repelled by it.  This is why real estate agents will recommend removing most of your furniture and personal effects from the house, and choosing a very conservative color scheme before putting it on the market.  The theory is that it will better show the house, and potential buyers can envision it as their own when it’s more impersonal looking.

In the kitchen and bathroom, neutral colors are recommended, as well as classic designs whenever possible.  If you’re even thinking about resale, it’s best to avoid too many trends.  LED lighting, however, can be used to illuminate countertops and other recessed spaces effectively, making your kitchen appear more functional and spacious.  Most people buying homes will be impressed by their classic look, and intrigued by the new technology.

Because light strips from ledundercounterlight.com are reasonably priced, easy to install, and vastly more efficient (up to 75%) than either incandescent of fluorescent lighting, their appeal is very likely to translate to a quicker sale, and maybe even a higher selling price.

They’re very simple to install, even if you have very little experience with tools.  When you purchase your lighting, you’ll get enough LED strips and wiring connectors to do your job.  In most situations, even attaching to your home’s electrical system is simple enough that it can be handled yourself.

The strips themselves are mounted to the underside of your cabinets with #4  ½” wood screws.  You can even use tape to temporarily mount them while you make sure they’re in the best location for your kitchen.  The light strips are very unobtrusive, and can hide easily behind a valance strip near the front of the cabinet or further back where they won’t be seen by anyone in a standing position.

The wiring is easy, too. The light strips are self-terminating, and placed in series, starting at the ballast.  The wires can be discreetly mounted under the cabinets, or you can drill holes into the cupboards and hide them, especially when they have to run between cabinets and might be seen.

In short, you need little experience and very few tools to install your LED undercounter lights.  If you’ve planned your installation correctly, it’s possible to get everything up and running in an afternoon.  By doing it yourself, you will have beautified your kitchen, increased the value of your home, and given yourself something to brag about when company comes over.