Lighting is such an important factor when decorating your home. The light affects how you feel and what you can do when you’re in a room. Most people buy a few lamps and leave it at that, or they add some generic recessed lighting. But you can make your home look very special by finding the right types of lighting that make each room a comfortable place to be. If you’re thinking that this will send your utility bills soaring, this isn’t the case. You can replace your lighting and lower your energy bills at the same time. Here are some energy-efficient lighting options to consider.
Use LED Bulbs Instead of CFLs
The fastest, easiest switch you can make is to replace all of your non-LED bulbs with LED bulbs. Prices are much better now than they were when LED bulbs were first released, so the initial costs really aren’t much higher than what you’d pay for another type of bulb. The one issue is that LEDs come in many different combinations of brightness and color. “Color” here doesn’t refer to red or blue but, rather, to warm and cool.
Warmer LED lighting looks more yellow and cozy, and it’s good for areas like your living room. Cool LED lighting is so white it tends to appear light blue in some circumstances, and it’s good for areas where you need a more brightly lit environment, like in your kitchen.
Within those basic categories are even more descriptors and variations, such as soft, neutral, daylight and more. Consulting with a company like Carbone Home Services that installs lighting is a great way to find the best combinations for each room in your home. While not having the best lighting isn’t necessarily a tragedy, it can make rooms feel dark or oppressive, or even too cold. It’s much better to speak with someone first who can show you why certain lighting may work better in one section of your home versus another.
About “Energy-Efficient Incandescents” or Halogen Bulbs
When traditional incandescent bulbs were phased out, another type of incandescent showed up on store shelves. These were called energy-efficient incandescents, but they’re actually small halogen bulbs. Halogen bulbs are known for being hotter than regular incandescents, so it sounds strange at first that they’d be efficient at all. The extra heat means the bulb is drawing more power. However, their benefit lies in their longer life and better ability to handle being turned on and off a lot. This helps you save money on bulb purchases over time.
There’s one more advantage to these efficient incandescent or halogen bulbs. Depending on the bulb and fixture, LEDs can take a while to fully brighten, while the incandescent/halogen bulbs don’t need as much time. Sometimes, that faster increase in the amount of light you get is worth what you pay for the bulbs.
Add Motion-Sensor Lighting Outdoors and Indoors
Another way to make your home’s lighting more efficient is to install motion-sensor lights. You can put these both outside and inside. For example, you might have an overhead spotlight along a path to your garage that will turn on when you move past a certain point on the path. You can place smaller lights indoors, such as in a hallway, so that everyone who enters the hallway automatically has light and doesn’t have to fumble for a light switch. The indoor lights are particularly good if you have family members who can’t turn on lights, such as small children. The outdoor lights are very good for security as once they turn on, you know that someone is outside.
Look for the ENERGY STAR Label
ENERGY STAR is a program from the Environmental Protection Agency in which companies produce appliances and other gadgets that are more energy efficient. When you choose ENERGY STAR products, you’re reducing the amount of electricity you have to draw into your home to power the product. These include downlight fixtures, which are a type of recessed light fixture. You can also find lamps that have the ENERGY STAR label as well as individual light bulbs.
Before you run out to find these items, though, speak with a lighting company first. The type of lighting you use affects how your home can make you feel. With the help of a company that installs lighting, you can find out more about which type of light would work better in certain spots. For example, you may find that strings of lights added under a row of kitchen cabinets are better than a downlight under one cabinet, considering the layout of your kitchen.
Try Task Lighting
This is a highly personal choice, but you may want to try using task lighting instead of lighting up an entire room. If you’re doing something that doesn’t require you to move around a lot, then you only need lighting in the spot that you’re sitting or standing in. A smaller task light could be more than enough for you to see whatever it is you’re working on. Many task lights even throw enough light to make the entire room visible. The bulbs are simply smaller and use less energy.
Some people prefer to have the entire room lit instead of having just a spotlight. However, if you’ve never tried task lighting before, now may be a good time to give it a go. If you’ve used desk lamps before, that’s essentially what task lighting is. However, a lighting company often has more options than the plain desk lamps you used in your school years.
Install Solar Landscape Lights for Summer Use
Solar landscape lighting is a terrific option for pathways around your house and garden during the summer. These have tiny solar cells that absorb energy when the sun is out. They also have batteries that store the energy until nighttime when the lights turn on as the light level outside drops. You’re able to light your garden and patio without tapping into the electrical grid to power or recharge those batteries. This reduces your utility bill.
Despite Portland’s rainy reputation, the metro area does average between 144 to 154 sunny days during the year. You may want to consider having Carbone Home Services install both solar landscape lights and non-solar LED lights. You could switch on the non-solar lights after a cloudy or rainy day. And when the days are sunny, you could let the solar lights go to work. That gives you the ability to light up your home’s landscape no matter the weather.
How We Can Help
Carbone Home Services offers plumbing, HVAC, drain and sewer, and electrical services in Milwaukie, OR, and the surrounding region. You can have lighting that enhances your home’s decor and safety while conserving energy and reducing utility costs. If you’re in the Portland metropolitan area, contact us to learn more about what our company can do for you.
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