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Most
people aren't in the habit of buying light bulbs on a daily
basis and even if you're pretty well versed, you don't
really want to spend to much time thinking about it outside
of very large installations. Once you like the color of the
light, brightness of the light, and lifespan (a measure of
quality), it comes down to price. Let's be honest, we're
all price sensitive especially when dealing with a higher
priced item like LED lights (you'll save considerably over a
5 year window though). It's important to make sure we're
comparing apples and apples when shopping for LED lights and
there are a few tricks out there on the market to careful
of.
Let's
first talk about the brightness of the light. In any given
space, there's a certain amount of light "quantity" that's
needed to sufficiently light the area. This is a measure of
lumens so what we really want to look at is the cost per
lumens when comparing bulbs. Even wattage (a measure of
energy use) doesn't exactly help since a 3 watt LED might
produce the same number of lumens that a 60 watt
incandescent or 13 watt CFL produces. There can even be
difference in lumen output between two 3 watt LED lights
from different manufacturers based on their design,
efficiency, and ultimately, quality. Once you have nailed
down the color temperature of the light (3000K for example),
then look at the lumens versus the cost. Why do we bring
this to your attention? For a simple reason. Our LED
lights consistently out-price other LED lights on a lumen to
lumen basis. If you find a legitimate LED light with a
better cost to lumen proposition, send it over. We don't
expect too many of these emails. This brings up another
important consideration.
Life
expectancy. If a 3 watt LED light bulb is cheaper per lumen
but it only lasts 15000 hours, what's the point. Our lights
consistently clock over 50000 hours and since the primary
cost of an LED light is the bulb itself (since energy cost
is greatly reduced), it makes sense to then compare LED bulb
pricing based on the expected life expectancy of the bulb
for like wattage energy use. Some bulbs will talk about 5
year warranties which leads you to believe the life
expectancy is high but life expectancy of a light bulb is
based on hours used. There's a huge difference in years
expected from a bulb if it's used 3 hours a day versus 12
hours a day (obviously). When you look at these longer
warranties, they are generally limited and a bit part of the
limit is a cap on hours used per day. These caps can be
ridiculous in terms of real world experience unless your
business plans making sure the bulb is only used 4 hours a
day. There's a reason these unreasonable caps are put in
the warranty. They're not the worth the paper they're
written in. We went the other way. We offer an unlimited
warranty for 2 full years. This way, you have a legitimate
warranty to protect you in case of early failure. Keep in
mind that they period to recoup your initial LED bulb
investment is probably from 6 to 18 months depending on
hours used, cost of energy, and rebates, etc. We wanted the
warranty to completely cover your recoupment period plus an
expected 100% more time on average. Of course, our bulbs
average 50,000 hours since they are solid state and we even
have a way to replace just the chip and not the bulb itself
at much less cost.
You have
to look at all these elements when price shopping or you're
not getting an accurate comparison. Once you look at lumens
per dollar, longevity, and total price, we'll generally beat
any other option out there. You can get a free
quote for your lighting situation at our
LED
light quote page.
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