City of Bloomington, MN Home Improvement, 25 Mar 2014

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From YouTube: Bloomington Home Improvement Fair: LED Lighting the How's, What's and Where to Buy (2014)

Description

Save energy and money by investing in LED lighting in your home. Check out various fixtures, lighting demonstrations and more by a Harrison Electric, Inc. representative.

A

I just got some information here for on led lighting, because everybody's kind of like hey, what's this led lighting? Why is why am I hearing so much about that? And why can't I find regular light bulbs anymore in 2007 epa started a whole bunch of changes which put lighting manufacturers on the defensive and they're kind of figuring out ways to make stuff work. Better uh 2012 is when they phased out.

A

The 100 watt light bulb this year, they've phased them out ever since, and this year was the last year to set december 31st of uh 2013. So is the last date for manufacturer for the 60 watt, light bulbs, everybody's been saying: well, I've tried the compact fluorescence they kind of worked. I had some of them that worked for a day, some of them that worked for a year and they're supposed to get like six or eight or seven years, and I'm not getting that.

A

Has to with design has to do with build, has to do with how stuff is made. The cool thing is that, while the cfl movement has been going on, the led development has been just phenomenal uh slowly, but truly we're seeing a lot of the stuff come out now.

A

um The the thing that everybody's been trying to do is trying to create a 60 watt light bulb that looks like a 60 watt, light bulb or 40 watt or 75 watt and everybody's. Like I.

B

A

It doesn't look quite right, I'm just going to show you a few of those just to kind of show you what's out there right now. This is something from.

A

A lot of people make something like this there's a design issue with this type of light bulb.

A

One is you're only going to get about 40 watts of light out of this style, equivalent light output, we've been talking about watts and watts and watts for so many years. But what we're really talking about lighting?

A

How much light am I actually getting.

A

Now here's a chart for you a little simple chart that kind of I'm going to try to explain a little more of this. My couple is short.

A

When we talk about a 40 watt, light bulb or a 60 watt, light bulb or a 75 watt light bulb. What we're not? What we're talking about? Well watts talks about power, sorry, but we're really not talking about power. When we talk about light bulbs, what we're really talking about is lumens um a 60 watt. Light bulb, produces about 800 lumens, a 30 850 750, depending on the manufacturer.

A

This is the equivalent of the 40 watt light bulb. This produces. This right here is about a 450 watt light bulb. Excuse me, 450 lumen, light bulb. This puts out, you know the equivalent of what was the old 40 watt light bulb. You can still get the 40 watts, and this was as much as they were able to produce many manufacturers out of this design.

A

The big problem and expense that people didn't like was the fact that we had that manufacturers had to use a lot of aluminum to keep the heat down that cure, so they needed heat sinks and stuff like that which made the light bulb very expensive. This is 40 45 dollars two years ago.

A

Here's something that's from feet: this is an omnidirectional is what they call it. Well, the other problem was we weren't able to put, or the manufacturers weren't able to make light, go in many different directions.

A

This one here is called omnidirectional, so what they've done you can still see the heat sinks and whatnot, but they try to produce light both up and down out of this style.

A

So if you have a table lamp or something like that, you're going to get light shining in all directions, and I'm sorry if it's a little bit bright dim that down. That was the other problem with compact fluorescence. We didn't have the ability to dim or not as good, so these are nearly instant on and you can dim them down um this. One now is available. It's a costco and menards for about eight dollars.

A

Nine dollars- and this is the equivalent you're getting a 800 lumens out of this lamp here- led lamps love any temperature just about until you get really extreme hot outside most of them are rated for outdoor use inside inside a globe fixture any place that you've put incandescent before generally you're going to be able to put an led the heat, it's not going to you're, not going to create more heat from an led than you did from an incandescent.

A

The big reason that we're talking about leds now is that the incandescent light bulb. That's been around forever. 90 percent electricity- that's used to light. Ninety percent actually is creating heat. Only ten percent is actually creating light, so the leds are much more efficient in that respect, because they're creating ninety percent light and ten percent heat for the same amount for what the wattage is so.

C

If you have a lamp shade that says, don't use more than a 60 watt hole. Okay,.

A

uh With that the charge that's a 60 watt bulb that produces 800 lumens you're, going to want to look for something that makes 800 lumens because.

C

I thought it was for the heat produced by a 60 watt bulb.

D

C

I mean I thought the leds were so much cooler. They.

A

Are? Oh significantly, cooler, don't.

E

You want to go by the wattage because they'll say equivalent to you know: 23 watts, 60 block or whatever it is.

A

E

That's what's important because it's the energy drawn is why they say: don't use.

A

It's the energy draw and the heat, depending on the manufacturer, depending on the fixture but but typical.

A

In that respect, yes- and you could have a lot of watts going in there in an led or a comp like fluorescent, but typically an led, I'm going to show you a couple different other styles here.

A

You know this is more of a candelabra style for chandeliers and that kind of stuff. This is the tcp.

A

These ones are 15 to 20 dollars now make a little bit different glass on it. So you get a little bit different effect that little sparkly effect and.

C

You can use the incandescent and those together I mean since it's expensive. I was kind of gradually.

A

I would suggest it yeah once in a while, I would say: do one see how you like it work, you know. Do the next one? um Initially one just got yeah one more light, one more lamp here. This is an old style and I call it old style. This is two years old and it's outdated. At this point.

A

This was phillips yeah, and this was forty about forty dollars two years ago and uh it was kind of weird because it you know you get it and it's yellow and it kind of doesn't look right, but it does produce nice light when it's actually lit and it is fully dimmable um very extremely well made. This was rated number one two years ago.

A

You won't see these probably in about a year because they're they're obsolete at this point and.

C

Now, they're all supposed to last a long time.

A

You're going to get many more years out of them, um phillips took yeah with the cfl's right you're going to get it with the leds. Cfl's had design issues due to the type of manufacturers that were producing them.

A

Leds are getting better because manufacturers are putting them down at a lower, lower, lower cost now and they're the main line manufacturers.

A

This was phillips. Like I was saying this was phillips old light bulb two years ago. This was the best thing on the market.

A

You won't be able to get this one quite yet, but phillips took all their knowledge and all our technology and created this kind of looks weird.

A

But it's um this one is, will be available in a week march 1st it's going to hit home depot.

A

Same size, um oh as far as the ones that snap on you know, I don't know about that. That's a good question.

A

Yeah yeah, maybe a different style lamp, so yeah.

A

This is starting under ten dollars. It's nine nine! Ninety five, nine! Ninety, seven! That's before uh incentives from utility! That's before rebates, that's before anything else that comes out 800.

A

Actually, I'm just.

A

No, that's part of the design that makes this possible is because they took away the expense of the heat sinks by moving the leds out to the outside.

A

It creates a natural heat sink so without having to use as much materials they're able to produce the same type of lighting for less money as a product, putting it in your hands much easier and much less expensive.

A

Right under ten dollars is where there's were there retail prices and then you get potentially rebates from utilities rebates from manufacturers rebates from who knows what? But there will be a few dollars off. I'm sure.

A

This one says 22 on the manufacturer stuff, 22 years, that's based on three hours a day 365 days a year.

A

Take them back to home depot, take them back to menards to lowe's wherever you bought them, they'll, take them back, yeah, there's, electronics in them. I mean these are what they call rojas compliant, so they everything will break down in these, but you should still take care of it. Just like electronics,.

A

It can handle a lot more cycles.

A

They're, essentially using the same technology in these that they use for stop lights. Saplights have been converted to led most stock plates. I'll say that about eight years ago, ten years ago, so you've seen stop lights and how many cycles do they go through on off on off every day, all day, many times an hour they're using the same technologies and same components that makes that work is what makes this work. The electronics are, very, you know the same durability so when they rate stuff, obviously they haven't run these for 22 years.

A

You know with on off switching, but they do run them in factory settings. They do run them with epa standards, energy, star compliance to get those to you know they can't just print that on a box, if you will so they need to put it in there with some reasonable lab testing, and they do that to produce that and yeah and they've had compact fluorescent leds in my house and yeah. The leds are way out lasting the compact fluorescence.

A

When you talk installations and how long they last so obviously you're going to find a few off brand manufacturers and the leds aren't going to last as long but there's some when you get down to a phillips or a tcp or a sylvania who's, putting out leds. Now those are mainline manufacturers, their equipment's good, their warranties are good. The warranty on this alone is three to five years.

A

Most manufacturers are going to be three to five years, so if it goes out within three to five years, you're going to be able to take it right back and replace it any question any more questions on this style: okay, yeah. So these do offer a lot more cool stuff.

A

um There's a couple: wonderful things that led's also produced for us that you can't exactly do with incandescents.

A

But because leds are so small and so.

A

So simple to manufacture, produce light to produce the same amount of light that we do with some other things.

A

I'm just going to show you a couple different samples here, but this is a white white. This would be like you could use this for an under counter light. Use it for a toe. Kick you could use it for up lighting you'd use it almost anywhere the channel literally, is you know, quarter inch or less, so you can install this just about anywhere.

A

To create a neat effect.

A

You know, and they can produce this. This is.

A

I'll get to that in a sec, good question.

A

This is a white white. This is a 5 000. I believe five thousand kelvin, let's get to a warm line. Here's a comparison, this one's a little bit less leds per strip, but this one is going to be closer to an in the warm white feeling that you get from an incandescent.

A

Half the amount leds, but as far as the light is actually different, it's a warmer color warmer feeling.

A

You're gonna have to worry less because you're using so much less power, so.

A

Yeah, this is a low voltage. It's powered it's an ac power transformer. Putting a lower voltage to this. Some are going to be ac. Some are going to be dc depending on the manufacturer, depending on the fixture, but.

C

A

Yeah, there's just a little bit of difference and there's going to be various manufacturers with this.

A

I'm going me give you a cool one here, so this is something that you can't do with an incandescent that you can really, and you can't do with the compact fluorescent, but you can only do with an led.

A

And this you know so, if you want to have this color this color, this color, this color all colors and have a separate driver to power different components, you could actually do that again different manufacturers, but this is something you can't do with an led or a compound. All right, excuse me can't do it with an incandescent or an alley. Are compact fluorescent or incandescent? Excuse me.

A

It's going to be tougher right now, with this style of lighting, I'm going to show you one. That is that I do suggest, and it's made by made under different manufacturer names. This is the same same multi-color, but this is double the leds in the same space.

A

So so you get more. Do they come.

F

In longer strips than that,.

A

Oh yeah yeah um there's one.

F

E

They really last a long time, the red one there got the fourth or fifth one inch into the green. The green.

A

Yeah, I think it's just the cord blocking yeah. Oh.

B

Yeah, oh no yeah.

A

It's been wait, a minute, yeah there's been a sample, that's been around been beaten up and all that kind of stuff twisted and this you definitely can't do with an incandescent light bulb.

A

But if you really wanted to do something like this, so there's your you know: durability, test per se.

A

uh You know you couldn't even I couldn't even put a meter on it and read it it's it's so small.

A

The transformers are actually getting much much better they're they're, no longer the magnetic style transformers.

A

um Well, I won't say not all manufacturers, but a lot of more a lot of the manufacturers are now making electronic transformers so that they're, actually the the drivers or transformers, are actually matching the load, so they're actually reducing wattage when they don't need to be driven as hard, so they're, actually not using as much power.

A

But this one here.

A

A

That energy star yeah you're, going to see energy star logos on everything.

F

Because I used to like the lights, just the lights.

B

Because they are.

F

B

A

Yeah, I'm going to show you this one too. Now this one exactly, you want to just want to stretch that one out and kind of reach it back across the room. There.

A

So there you go now this one here, uh it's a available many places, but it is a home depot also available at home depot. This is outdoor rated. You can literally put this if you had a koi pond and you want to light it up.

A

You could actually run this inside a koi pond or something like that with the correct installation, of course- and this is a dimmable product.

A

We can get it down to about 10 percent, it's a little bit heavier duty and you could try to twist this in knots and it's going to be okay. Kick that right back up.

E

A

Yeah this is you know, so if you want to do something different, we're no longer limited to a light bulb with leds.

A

B

A

So this is a product that, like I say it's you can install this under a cabinet. You can install it outdoor. I've actually seen installations done for like in a commercial application for a mini golf course, so they could use a little have have the everything lit up at night. uh It's actually double sided tape on the back and I've actually used standard electrical staples to hold in place.

A

You know just around it, yep just don't drive through it. It is. It is electronics.

A

I don't know, I don't recommend it either way.

A

Yeah it's. This is running at 24, volts, 24., yep,.

C

A

uh Halogen is kind of our happy medium right now. Halogen is.

A

They're using that as a gas inside of an incandescent, now you're getting more light with less energy or the same light with less energy. Excuse me with the halogens halogen's going to be with us for a while um they're less expensive than than the led is right now. So it's kind of a happy medium. If you will.

E

Leds don't work well for large parking lots or parking garages.

A

They're getting better, I'm actually seeing a lot more out there.

A

They have to do it different than you would a traditional installation, but like a lot of parkways instead of having the the 40 35, 40, 45, foot, lights, yeah and then pouring all that light down to get led down they're, putting up a 20 foot light to get to get the light on the ground, so they're getting the light where you need it instead of light everywhere. So it's being more specific for sidewalks and parkways, and that kind of stuff.

A

Yeah to push that much light down right, yep, so that's a design that actually brings me right into this.

A

It's actually a change of the design or change of uh change of installation and standard fixture nobody's used to this or seen it home depot or somewhere. Many have many have this exact same fixture in their house today, cool thing about led.

A

A

Get down about there is that it looks like an incandescent fixture looks like the same fixture that's been installed, but this fixture.

A

A

So when I talk about changes that are coming when we talk about led, instead of replacing a light bulb as we're talking about we're going to replace light fixtures, instead of replacing a light bulb every.

A

Six months or every year.

A

We're going to replace light fixtures now, once let's get to 20 20 to 25 years, replace it once and done.

A

um One of my kids graduate from college is about the time when you're going to be replacing the fixture and that's about when this may be going out of style.

C

A

It'll be replacing a fixture, we won't, uh I won't say never, but sooner than later, the actual light bulb concept is slowly fading away. uh Light bulbs that you know that last only a few years or ten years or the days are numbered.

A

They're real close, it's just technology changes. It's just learning uh this one is twelve and a half watts. This one is ten and a half watts side by side. In a fixture like this that had actual sockets in it, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but so this one I mean you're saving almost.

A

It'll, probably shorten the life a little bit. It's it's gonna, be a manufactured by manufacturer.

A

uh Deal on that. One.

F

A

Yeah, it's going to depend on the style and that's one thing we're going to you're going to want to look for depending on the application one might not even fit in the fixture, because these are some of these designs are bigger. Well, some of these are just are physically bigger than a standard light bulb.

A

You know yeah, so so everything is going to change a little bit. So it's going to be a fixture, dependent or application dependent type.

C

G

Can we yep.

C

Recess but anyways and one goes on and off, is that a heat thing.

B

C

A

Regular bulbs in it yeah yeah, it's a heat thing, yeah.

A

It's built into the fixture yep yep yeah. Technically, it's called the click zone that clicks on there's a it's, a heat, sink that if the fixture gets too hot, it turns off the power. It's a design.

F

In my savings got the candle off of my pulse and the vibrations caused quickly.

A

No I've, no, no.

B

A

uh Well, I can only speak from experience on this one. I have two children that run around my house all the time and I've replaced compact fluorescence two to three times well yeah and then I put in leds and I haven't replaced them since so I can speak from experience in that leds.

A

There's no component, there's very little components in here that actually have vibration issues.

G

A

Yeah yep: this is a replace a 60 watt replacement. So it's an 800 lumen lamp, so you can replace it with you can almost, except for the ones that have the the thing that snaps on the top.

A

It's a bulb and it's a bob and a socket right now with leds.

A

What they're saying is dimming so right now, if you have a three-way uh you're, gonna wanna, instead of having the three-way capability putting in a dimming a touch dimmer or or um a dimming module, you know a lamp. This is a this right. Here is a lamp dimmer, so you could. You could actually put this in front of your lamp when you plug it in.

A

It's going to be dependent on the fixture um or on the lamps. Excuse me.

A

The newer dimmers for the leds have the adjustability in them. So instead of dimming down your traditional all the way down to zero or to five or ten percent you can, you can set it based on the lamps that you're installing. So you can tweak it so, instead of dimming down to say the five percent you're dimming down to 30 percent power consumption, which just makes your it just sets your low and high differently, so it that is going to depend.

A

But this, oh sorry, this right here is an example of a lamp dimmer where the lamp would just plug you'd plug this into the wall and then you'd plug in the lamp to this.

A

So you'd put it so you put in I mean this is a version of doing this, so you'd put in so you'd literally. If this was your lab.

A

Plug that in here and then you plug this into the wall.

A

And then this provides your dimming so where your three-way you're going to have a dimming application.

C

So that's how I get it on my freeway.

A

Or any new lamps that are made are are going to have not any, but a lot of the new lamps are going to have the dimming built into them a dimming module, it's a touch dimmer, so they might have three different levels.

A

I've been doing that, for I don't know, 20 years now, it's just getting more and more common.

A

Any other questions.

A

Yeah this installs like a standard light fixture yep, oh yeah. I probably should give you a cost on this one um just to kind of set your.

A

Just at you, at a level of kind of you know, this is a common style fixture and typically these. These are a fixture like this in an incandescent is fifteen twenty dollars at home. Depot menards lows in place like this, uh so with the leds and everything inside of it, this fixture actually sells at costco for thirty dollars.

A

So it's not like we're jumping a million dollars here at this point, because this is a pretty.

A

This puts out the actual box.

A

A

Yeah so 1800, so that's consider you know.

A

That's like 260 watt bulbs or.

B

A

Watt 100 watt and a 60 watt together or 275s, or not quite 275s, but so the lumens that this puts out are pretty close. You know we'll call it 260s that'll get a 1600, so this is actually putting out more than 260 watt bulbs. Would.

A

No, I got to keep looking this one up, because I don't want to get it wrong.

A

28 watts, 28 watts, is comparable to what you would normally be 120 watts or not comparable to, but what you would have done not two years ago.

F

So so this travels partially.

A

One of them, like I said this- is there's more applications today than there was two years ago. There's more applications two years ago than there was five years before that it just things are changing so quickly that we're getting so many different choices. Now um you know so replacing the light bulb. It might be easier just to replace the fixture and be done with it. Yeah they're doing it with flood lights.

A

Now, with them emerging motion, sensors dusted on recessed lights, yep recessed was one of the first ones and those were incredibly expensive when they came out four years ago. We're talking 135 dollars per light in a recessed flight, and now that's under 30.

A

it's under 30 dollars. I mean the fixture is completely different. It doesn't have all the heatsink stuff on it because it doesn't need it. They redesigned them, so they're, less expensive, they're, just as good, if not better,.

A

Depending on the manufacture but yeah real close to 60 to 65 to 75 somewhere in, there is what they're aiming for.

A

Not as dramatic no yeah this, like I say two years ago, forty dollars its replacement is going to be under ten.

A

That's in two years, we're not going to see you know this, isn't gonna get leds, aren't gonna, really you're, not gonna, see the lamps really get below five dollars in a long time, if ever okay, so I think we're at a real good point in time, where cost versus installation versus energy savings you're going to save a ton on electricity on leds.

B

A

Any other questions.

B