LED Home Lighting

Household Halogen Lighting and Energy Saving LED Replacements

Energy saving LED home lighting is without doubt the future of domestic lighting. Though some critics still harp on about cost and comparison with conventional domestic lighting solutions, they miss the point as completely as comparing an abacus with an electronic calculator.

Cost wise domestic LED lighting is the way forward and represents a different way of using light in your home.

The critics are right on one point though - it’s not the same. Low energy domestic LED lighting should be installed, used and thought about differently because the new generation of home LED lights makes possible a whole new world of innovative, adjustable and cost-efficient designs never before dreamed of.

One of the most straightforward ways to begin your move to energy saving LED home lighting technology is by replacing your halogen lamps, since retrofit LED spotlights are fully compatible with the various types of existing halogen fittings (GU10, MR16, ES) and provide a similar form of light i.e. very bright and directional. LED replacements commonly support GU10 mains voltage, MR16 12v low voltage and the new GU24 base introduced for low power consumption light bulbs (this was originally intended to delineate CFL bulbs before LED technology started parking its tanks on the low energy lighting lawn).

Halogen lamps in general, and halogen spotlights and down lighters in particular, are very popular and have become extremely common in many households. Used in lighting clusters in kitchens, bathrooms and hallways especially they can really bring a space to life with excellent light coverage that creates a uniform and clean, bright look.

But like most conventional forms of domestic lighting, halogen spot lamps are terribly inefficient and use far more power than is necessary since nearly all the energy is wasted as heat, which brings with it the further problem that they run incredibly hot and often require fire-rated covers. They also don’t last that well with bulb replacement required after about 2,000 hours of use.

To put bulb life figures into context, if you use a lamp for approximately 4 hours each evening you would use nearly 1,500 hours each year.

Overall then , the running costs (or total cost of ownership) for halogen lamps are certainly nowhere near as dreadful as for normal incandescent lighting, but with rising fuel bills and creeping legislation targeted at energy efficiency this is still Not A Good Place To Be ™.

But there is a very simple solution. Although energy saving LED lighting has yet to fully penetrate the domestic market, it does already provide a simple and very effective substitute for domestic halogen lighting, especiallly in areas such as kitchens, bathrooms and hallways. A quick trip to a large DIY store and ten minutes replacing bulbs is all it takes to install mains or 12v LED kitchen lighting that is equivalent in brightness to old 35w halogen lamps; and in an area such as a kitchen that typically gets a lot of use in most homes that can add up to significant electricity savings just by itself. Energy saving retrofit LED lamps roughly equal to GU10 50w halogen lamps are now commonly available but with output running at 9w instead and nearly all those 9 watts producing light with almost none lost as heat.

Ironically, where energy saving LED home lighting does not yet fully compete (in the area of non-directional table lamps and the like) the increased availability of halogen equivalents for regular GSL bulbs provides an opportunity to replace ordinary household bulbs with halogen lamps while at the same time replacing both mains powered and 12v halogen spot lights with ultra low power LED lamps.

Of course, if you don’t already have halogen lighting installed somewhere in your home then you could consider switching directly to an energy saving domestic LED lighting installation and gain all the benefits of a great look with super low energy consumption and running costs and the smug satisfaction that at least you’re not wasting precious energy (and paying for it)!

Why use LED units as a low energy direct replacement for halogen lamps?

Halogen lamps cannot be easily replaced with standard low-energy CFL bulbs. Not only are the fittings unsuitable, CFL bulbs are bulky and frankly ugly with a poor light quality. They are also with rare exceptions not dimmable. In fact, there are so many problems with CFL light bulbs that they are realistically a non-starter as substitutes for halogen spotlights,

However, both MR16 12 v low-voltage and GU10 mains halogen bulbs can be very simply replaced with either mains or 12v LED equivalent lamps and the benefits are considerable.

For a start, even though the initial costs for low energy LED units are quite a bit higher than for regular halogen fittings, they last a great deal longer; somewhere in the order of 50,000 hours compared to a measly 2,000 for a standard halogen (some mains 240v LED lights now claim in excess of 90,000 hours). That’s a staggering 30 to 50 years from one bulb!! Most conventional bulbs currently available last only slightly over 1 year.

Put another way, whatever the initial cost for purchasing your domestic LED spot lights, divide by 25 (50,000 hours compared to 2,000 gives a ratio of 25:1) to arrive at the true purchase price compared to an ordinary light fitting, as this then accounts for the very low power consumption and replacement frequency of energy saving LED home lighting.

But that’s just the capital cost. You also need to factor in the fact that domestic LED lighting (whether mains AC or 12 volt DC) uses a fraction of the energy required to power conventional lighting. And also consider that whereas regular lamps waste up to 98% of their input energy as heat (not light), LED light bulbs output almost no heat with almost all the energy converted to pure light.

So the real capital cost of switching to LED home lighting is actually a fraction of the upfront figure and you can look forward to years and even decades before you ever have to change another bulb. All the while costing peanuts to run, as fuel and electricity prices continue to ramp up, making those conventional light bulbs ever more expensive to both run and continually replace.

How to replace halogen spotlight lamps with LED equivalent lights

There are a couple of points to consider before you install home LED lighting systems.

First, the low power consumption of LED lamps means they use tiny amounts of electricity - a replacement for a very bright dichroic MR16 12v bulb rated at 35 watts would be less than 5 watt - so become familiar with the ratings for LED lamps. Update: Less than 2 months on and the common replacement for a 35w halogen lamp is now a 3w LED. To keep pace with the rapid rate of development in this area check out this review of LED replacements for halogen lamps.

Note: you might have noticed the term “Dichroic Halogen” used a fair bit to describe some halogen bulbs - if you don’t know what it means, it simply refers to the special reflective coating used on MR16 halogen lamps that reflects more heat and light and helps keep the lamp body cool.

This very low power consumption means you also need to consider transformers (for low-voltage systems) and dimmer switches. Regular dimmer units and 12 volt transformers require a minimum load and unless you are driving a lot of 12v LED spot lights there won’t be sufficient load and you will need to replace existing transformers and dimmers with special 12v constant voltage LED drivers (as LED transformers are termed) and LED dimmer switches if dimmability is an issue.

A typical unregulated 12 volt transformer is designed to push out 12v when attached to a “normal” load such as 6 x 25w; if you decrease the load down to the tiny amounts that LEDs soak up, the output voltage is likely to increase. This can easily and rapidly lead to premature failure of your expensive 12v LED bulbs, so be aware and ensure that you are using regulated transformers or drivers that will not exceed the expected voltage. A solution that many adopt is to simply leave one halogen bulb in the circuit as this will normally

Second, the light emitted from LED lamps is pure in colour. Unlike traditional light bulbs which give off a wide spectrum of light, LEDs emit a single color so you should check the color will be suitable for your intended purpose.

White light can vary between “cool” white and “warm” white, giving either a closer approximation to daylight or to a conventional incandescent light source. The bulbs themselves contains a cluster of about 20 individual small LED units and can thus be manufactured to produce any given mix of color by varying the colors of the individual LED units.

The basic point is, try and see your intended purchase in use before you buy. These bulbs are not (yet) especially cheap and do last for potentially decades.

If you already have mains powered GU10 halogen lamps anywhere in your home then you can experiment right now with energy saving LED replacements, since it really is just a matter of unscrewing your old halogen lamps and replacing with retrofit LED equivalent fittings.

For MR16 12 volt lamps a transformer is already required to run each conventional low-voltage halogen bulb and these may need to be replaced with an LED “driver” (the term used to describe an LED transformer, confusingly also sometimes called a constant voltage controller) in order to power 12v LED spot lights.

Once all the transformers have been replaced with one or more LED drivers then again it is simply a matter of pulling out the old halogen bulbs and substituting equivalent 12v LED replacement spot lights in their place since the actual fittings are identical.

Phillips, an established global leader in lighting technology are “betting the farm” on the new generation of home LED lighting that is only now starting to become available to consumers.

Phillips now offer this MR16 12v 5w replacement spot lamp that works with an existing 12v AC transformer and can be dimmed.

LED Cabinet Lights

A common way to illuminate display cabinets, kitchen dressers, open shelves and the like has up till now been with 12v low-voltage slim-line halogen downlighters, typically using the small 10w halogen capsule bulbs. These certainly provide excellent crisp lighting but suffer from the problem that halogen bulbs get very hot. There are now plenty of slim-line LED alternative downlights that provide comparable light quality but generate negligible heat.

These slim-line LED cabinet lights are widely available for both mains and low-voltage fittings and provide plenty of choice in power, ranging from 1w thru to an ultra bright 8w, with fixtures covering surface mounted (6mm depth is common), recessed, round, square and rectangular in a variety of sizes. Each unit typically contains 12 to 20 SMDs (surface mounted diodes – a cluster of individual LEDs) and offer a choice of colors, including color changing.

Best of all, cabinet and other forms of display lighting tend by nature to be awkward to get at for changing bulbs, but with the extremely high lifespan of LED cabinet lights you can more or less fit and forget.

Replace halogen lamps with energy saving LED home lighting to save money and help save the environment.

Anyway, that’s it. Job done. Now just switch the lights on without worrying about what it’s costing you or the harm it’s doing to the environment. How simple was that?

Simply replacing those halogen spot lights you’ve got in the kitchen and bathroom (and wherever else you have these ubiquitous little devices installed around your home) with low power consumption LED spotlights (either mains GU10 or 12v low voltage MR16 or MR24, dichroic or non-dichroic) will save you big money down the line as energy prices just keep on climbing.

Not only that, home LED lighting opens up a new world of lighting ideas that were until recently simply not possible.

You don’t have to make huge sacrifices to save on household energy bills or to reduce your carbon footprint. Energy saving LED lights have very low power consumption, very low heat output and a very long life.

Furthermore, you don’t have to switch to LED home lighting all in one go. You can quite easily combine a mix of low energy LED and halogen spot lights in order to reduce the initial outlay and also blend the light levels.

This is straightforward with GU10 mains powered lamp fittings since you can mix and match halogen and LED lamps at will to suit your requirements.

With 12v low voltage MR16 fixtures, you would be best advised at present to use separate circuits (unless it clearly stated that both types of lamp fitting can be attached to the same circuit - as is often the case with for example 12v LED garden lighting). Although it might appear to be extra effort to use dedicated wiring for your 12 volt LED lighting this does set things up nicely for further down the line if you choose to go the next step and generate your own electricity.

You want low cost, energy saving, money saving, minimal evironmental impact and highly reliable? LED home lighting is the way to go.