Having realised just how much electricity the bulbs in our house use, I’ve spent a good deal of time, popping back and forth from B&Q buying Energy Saving Light bulbs to replace some of them. I started with the outside security lights and found that you can now buy the latest halogen bulbs that save about 30% energy.
I was horrified to discover, when I climbed the ladders to take out the old bulbs that each one in the 10 that circle our house, are 300W each. This meant when the night security lights are triggered by people walking outside (or Tia as she climbs the fence), then 3000w of electricity suddenly drain from the national grid and add many pounds to our electric bill. So after a bit of a chew (nothing is ever simple) I changed all the bulbs from 300w each to new 130w bulbs. Apparently these new 130w bulbs give the same light as 200w bulbs, so having decided to drop the light intensity at the same time, we should now save nearly 60%.
Not stopping there, I also changed the lights in the living room, bedroom and office now that you can get dimmable energy saving bulbs. So in total, 6 * 100W bulbs have now been replaced with 6 * 20 W bulbs.
Because we had already changed all table lamp bulbs for energy saving ones, the only lights left in the house were the GU10 spot light bulbs in the hallway, kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, landing and main bedroom. The last time I counted there were over 70 of these and at 50w each if we have them all on, (which is quite regular) that is 3500W!
This week I ordered up some of the very latest LED GU10 dimmable bulbs from HomeWatt and I have to say I am amazed at just how good they are. Very bright warm light, they are an excellent replacement for my old 50w GU10 Halogens and having changed 25 of them this week, it means instead of using 1250 Watts, I now use only 150W if they are all on which is a massive saving. The bulbs are still a bit on the expensive side, but when you take into account how long they will last and how much electric they will save, they come out as a good investment.
