The average U.S. home contains 40 light sockets, by switching to energy-saving light bulbs you can cut down on energy costs by replacing Conventional Incandescent Light Bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) or Light Emitting Diodes (LED). The upfront cost for CFLs and LEDs is generally higher, but over the life of the product CFLs and LEDs are cheaper to run in the long term and use less energy to generate the same lighting.
Type of Energy
| Incandescent
| CFL
| LED
|
|---|
Heat Emitted
| 85 British Therman Unit (BTUs) per hour
| 30 BTUs per hour
| 3 BTUs per hour
|
Replacement bulbs per 50,000 hours
| 42
| 5
| 1
|
Watts
| 60
| 13 to 18
| 6 to 8
|
Recycling CFL Bulbs
CFLs contain on average 5 milligrams of mercury and must be properly recycled. Local Recycling sources for CFLs are Home Depot and The Energy Saving Outlet Store in Green Brook.
British Thermal Unit (BTU)
A BTU is how heat energy is commonly measured. A BTU is a measurement of how much energy is needed to heat one pound of water.
Light Bulb Calculator
Utilize the Light Bulb Calculator to compare the energy used from an Incandescent Light versus a CFL light.