Some Great Ideas for Eco-Friendly Indoor Lighting
One of the best, lowest cost, and easiest Eco-Friendly lighting upgrade is to change all the incandescent light bulbs in your house with Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL). These bulbs are now commonly available in Lowes and Home Depot, as well as Wall Mart and Target. They usually cost a little more than regular incandescent bulbs, but they will save you a lot of money over the life of the bulb, and it will more than pay for itself a few times over. For example – just replacing one 100-watt incandescent light bulb with one 32-watt Compact Fluorescent Bulb can save at least $30 in electric costs over the life of the bulb. Compact Fluorescent Bulbs typically have a lifetime of 5 years, which is much longer than most incandescent bulbs. Another often overlooked eco-benefit is the CFL bulbs run cooler than incandescent bulbs, and this can help to save on your summer cooling bills as well.
Another great Eco-Friendly lighting option is to purchase some solar lights for indoor use. Any home or garden store will sell solar light kits, which are primarily meant for landscape lighting. There is nothing preventing you from repurposing these lights to indoor use. Depending on the model you choose (hanging lights are ideal), you can just let them charge in the sunlight by a window during the day, and then use them at night – for some environmentally friendly lighting. There are also special purpose built solar lighting systems which are not beginning to be sold for homes which include a battery unit and a large solar panel which is typically placed on the roof of your home. These units can provide free light to several rooms of your home. Admittedly there is more work involved in installing these systems – but once installed they can actually add value to your home, and will help you to shave some money off your utility electric bills for years to come.
LED Lighting (Light-Emitting Diodes) is the newest thing to hit the Eco-Lighting market. LED lights are even more efficient and environmentally friendly then compact fluorescent bulbs. While there aren’t a lot of LED products on the market yet, Philips Corporation is an early leader with a new line of LED bulbs that are available in limited areas.
No matter what type of Eco-Lighting that you select for your home, be sure to look for the Energy Star logo. Energy Star qualified bulbs use approximately 75% less electric than conventional lighting bulbs. In addition most Energy Star qualified lighting produces up to 75% less heat.
