In Perspective - Exterior Lighting

Have you ever gone out in the morning and noticed that the porch light was left on over night? When I drive home at night I notice lots of houses with their porch lights on. But when you start adding up the kilowatts you may be surprised. A 150 watt light bulb left on for 10 hours uses 1.5 kilowatts and a 100 watt bulb uses one kilowatt. With electric prices averaging around 10 cents a kilowatt hour the money adds up. A 100 watt light left on 10 hours a day for 100 days will cost you around $10.

So how can we lower or eliminate those costs. There are a few handy little tricks. First is a motion sensor for your exterior light. They come in complete replacement fixtures or screw-in switches and range in price from $25 to $150 with some extra fancy fixtures well over $200.

Another option is the CFL light bulb. The bulb wattage is about 25% of what an incandescent bulb uses. In the case of that 100 watt light on for 10 hours for 100 days would only cost about $2.50. The CFL’s will last longer on average about 10 times longer but when the temperature drops down into the 30's take a minute or two to reach full brightness. It is also possible to mix some CFL’s with some motion sensors and allowing you to save even more money as the electric prices continue to rise.

Something new that is reaching the home market is the Light Emitting Diode light or LED. These bulbs are still a bit expensive but last about 10 times longer than the CFL’s while using about only about 10% of the electricity of the CFL. An LED spot light equivalent to a regular 50 watt spot light only uses 2 watts and will last almost 20 years. There is a trend to create a wide variety of LED lighting including replacements for fluorescent tube lighting.

One of my favorite outdoor lighting solutions for lighting doors, walkways and decks/porches are the solar lights. I use a solar spotlight set for lighting entrances to my house. These lights are not as bright as regular light bulbs but give enough light to illuminate steps and makes it easy to insert keys into the doors. The come in sets using one to three spotlights. I have a solar three-spotlight set that lights the front door, side door and the garage door and another for the rear door and deck area. I have even installed a set for interior night lighting and I am installing a set for the basement. The only cost for the lights is the purchase of the light itself. They have operated continually for over three years and even work when there is that occasional power outage. This lesson was learned having lived through numerous hurricanes.

All in all, lighting makes up a large portion of our electric usage. Some measure range from 25 to 30 percent. So every little bit of savings will help offset those increases that continue to nibble away at our paycheck.