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Archived Posts For
Monday,
June
17th
2013
Monday, June 17th 2013
New, Improved! LED Light Bulbs Save a Century’s Collection of Light Fixtures
For over 100 years, the medium base lamp has been the standard light fixture. Ballrooms and bars, farmhouses and roadhouses, gas stations and police stations all have dozens of medium base lamps in them. Generations of people all over the world grew up in the warm glow of these incandescent lights. After a century of service, a challenger has arrived in LED light bulbs. Limitations in early LED light bulbs slowed their adoption, but recent improvements make them an excellent choice, with very real advantages over the competing compact fluorescent light bulbs.
The medium base was standardized before WWI, and there are now over 100 years of accumulated light fixtures made for it. While some may be just old junk, many others are handsome and well-made, good for decades more useful service. Some are genuine works of art, adding grace and beauty to our lives, including the famous Tiffany lamps. Most homes and offices contain dozens of medium base light fixtures, prohibitively expensive to replace. LED light bulbs can extend the life of these fine old lamps into a new century and beyond.
LED light bulbs offer advantages and choices not available with either incandescent or compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. The low energy use of LED light bulbs (a fraction of either of the other two), and their very long life (several times that of a CFL and 10 or more times that of an incandescent), are well known; but LED light bulbs also provide more choices. They come in a variety of light colors, from the warm white familiar to us in incandescent lights to the daylight white similar to the fluorescents of the office space and various colors. They are also available in a variety completely different from anything incandescent or fluorescents are capable of: color changing. Perfect for parties or just to add interest to a room, there are several LED light bulbs available which can change through the spectrum of colors in programmed patterns, or just shine in one selected shade.
Recent innovations have made LED light bulbs an even more attractive choice. True 75W and 100W equivalent bulbs are now on the shelves. Better, these high output bulbs are omni-directional, meaning they shine in every direction except through the base itself. Now, LED light bulbs really do cover the range of the common incandescent bulbs we all grew up with.
All LED lights have several advantages over CFL’s. LED’s last several times as long. Their lives are not shortened by being switched on and off (CFL’s are). LED’s do not contain mercury, and so may be safely disposed of. They come on at the flick of a switch, with no delay; and they have a consistent color, with no off color tones.
Taken altogether, the advantages of LED light bulbs are conclusive. The best way to bring millions of perfectly sound old light fixtures into the 21st century is to screw in an LED light bulb to replace that trusty old incandescent.
Contributor: Joel Zenzic
Posted By: Mary Wecker
By Mary at 10:09:39 PM
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