The light bulb revolution is on

If you have gone into your favorite home improvement store lately, you will notice that the light bulb aisle looks completely different. Starting at the beginning of 2012 standard 100 watt incandescent light bulbs were no longer able to be manufactured for sale in the United States. By the beginning of 2014, that also included wattages down to 40 watts. This was enacted under the Energy Independence and Security Act. What this means is that higher efficiency lighting has to be used. Incandescent bulbs use a lot of energy and only turn a fraction of that energy into light. Most of the energy is given off as heat. The two most common replacements are either Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) or Light Emitting Diode (LED). CFLs have been around for a while and are a good alternative. For instance a 26 watt CFL can produce that same amount of light as a 100 watt incandescent light, but uses 74 less watts to do it. Lets assume you change one commonly used 100 watt bulb to a 26 watt CFL. Lets also say that light is typically on 5 hours a day. 5 x 74 = 370 watts/day that you would save. That is over 135,000 watts per year for just one light bulb. Now you may or may not agree with the government’s involvement with this act (that is a discussion for a different blog), but what is clear is the energy and ultimately the cost saving for all home owners. Lighting manufacturers have made it very easy to make the transition from incandescent lighting by using the same base for CFL and LED lights as incandescent. That means you can take the old one out and screw the new one right into the same socket. To learn more about lighting and how it effects Air King’s bathroom exhaust fans and kitchen range hoods, visit www.airkinglimited.com.