LED Lighting conversion

No, I am not talking about some high-tech electronic thing I did.  Several months ago we switched the entire house over to LED lights.  It took over a hundred light bulbs and a couple hours' time to accomplish this project, but it was worth it.

I was an early adopter of CF bulbs, back when it cost over $10 for each one.  They probably paid for themselves quickly because at the time I was a Southern California Edison customer.  SoCal Edison probably has the highest electricity rates on the planet.



Anyway, every time I moved, I took those bulbs along.  As prices for CF bulbs dropped, I bought more and more.  But although they saved money over time, I hated the light they put out.  They always looked pretty dim, and colors never seemed right.

Indoor lighting LEDs didn't look very good to begin with either, but they certainly improved over time.  Pretty soon the prices started dropping, although they NEVER dropped to the point where I was ready to go out and buy 100 of them from Home Depot.

Home Depot wants $69.88 for a four-pack of these.  They probably cost about $10 wholesale from the Chinese.

I needed 25 of the above type of bulbs, and about 70 more of the standard 60W round bulbs.  It's a big house.  To buy all of them at Home Depot would have cost me well over $1000

Fortunately we belong to an electric cooperative, which is by far, preferable to getting bled out by SoCal Edison every month.  The local electric cooperative has a Demand Side Management (DSM) program, and they had a ton of LED bulbs (also straight from China) that were $3.50 each.  I bought all the bulbs I needed and we swapped over.  It cost about $400, as the can lights were $5 each.

I am really happy with the new bulbs, particularly the can lights.  The previous can lights in this house were incandescent 65 watt bulbs.  I am now using about 1/10th of the energy for the same light output, and the light quality is excellent!