Can Your Interior Lighting Fixtures Save The World?

Read this information, and discover how your choice of lights and lighting affects your room design and colors, your pocket, and the environment.

Alright, so saving the world may be a tall order for home lighting fixtures - but your choice of lighting fixture, and bulb, can have a significant impact on the environment - and, on a personal level - on your finances.

This page isn't just about eco-friendly and energy efficient light bulbs - it is about giving you practical information on interior lighting fixtures.

The lighting you choose can affect your whole room design and color options. Your lighting can affect your finances - some home lighting fixtures are much more expensive to run than others. And lighting that is expensive to run, also uses more energy, and costs the environment too.

So, take a little time out, and think about these practical considerations while you plan your lighting design.

Find Energy Efficient lighting at Lumens. Stunning in design and performance, less polluting and saves you money.

How Lighting Affects Color in Your Room

Choose the Right Bulb Fitting

• When buying bulbs for your interior lighting fixtures, also check the fitting on the end - there are several different fittings available. It is very annoying to get home - and find you have picked up the wrong one!


• The standard is a bayonet, with 2 sideways prongs, that you fit with a push and a twist.


• Newer light fittings take bulbs with screw fittings, this may be a standard ('Eddison') size, or small ('small Eddison') size.


• Halogen light bulbs come with 2 prongs, which can either be thick or narrow.


• So, take a little time to note down which bulbs your chosen light fitting requires.

Consider Energy Use (....and your electricity bills)

• It is worthwhile considering the energy use of your chosen interior lighting fixtures - which also means, how much it will cost you on your electricity bill. I know of a few people who may have changed their mind about their preferred lighting design - had they known how much it would end up costing them in electricity.


• If you choose energy efficient bulbs and interior lighting fixtures - you can also feel very virtuous, that you are helping to cut global warming and save the world.


• Ordinary tungsten light bulbs are not very eco-friendly, and are quite expensive to use. They also have the shortest life. The light is created by a heating element, (tungsten) - which deteriorates every time it heats up and then cools down again. So, if you switch one of these bulbs on and off a lot, it will actually 'blow' faster than a light left on for longer periods of time.


• Halogen spotlights are the least energy efficient and eco-friendly - and can be very expensive to use - around 10p/KwHr (UK). So, be aware of this if you are planning on using a number in your interior design scheme. They use the most energy - and in some case can add a huge amount to your electricity bill. Often, this is because you may need to use a fair number of bulbs in your interior lighting fixtures to achieve the lighting effect you want.


• UPDATE: You can now get energy saving halogen light bulbs - so no need to worry about the cost if you take advantage of these. They only cost from about £1.50 (UK), and will use around 30% less energy than a standard halogen light bulb. So what are you waiting for ....?

• Obviously, by the very name, eco-friendly, or energy efficient, light bulbs are the most eco-friendly, and - hurrah - the cheapest to run. The price of energy efficient light bulbs does vary between makes and stores. In my experience, it usually pays to buy a quality one.


• The design of the light bulb can be quite unattractive if you go for one of the square ones, but I quite like the newer, spiral shaped ones. If you have modern interior lighting fixtures, the bulbs can give quite a funky look.


• The bulbs are cheap to run - generally they use 80% less electricity than normal bulbs. They also last longer - on average 6 times longer than normal bulbs - and anywhere from 3 to 12 years.


• One bulb could save you £100 (UK) over its lifetime - so even though you pay more upfront, you will save money in the long term.


• Personally, my only problem with energy saving light bulbs has been getting a bright enough light from them. When you buy an energy saving bulb, each shows the actual wattage (eg, 20W) and the light of a normal light bulb that it is meant to be equivalent to (eg. 100W). In my experience, these never seem quite as bright as their 'normal' alternative - but I have recently found one that I am happy with.
  
  It is a 20W (100W equivalent) spiral shaped one. It does take a few minutes to warm up and get bright, but once at full strength, it does light up my interior hallway (no windows) nicely! It's a bright, clean light, with a warmish tinge. It's where we use the computer, so where I am sitting right now, as I write this website - so it does the job! The light is on for hours at a time - so we need it to be cheap - and even better if we can help stop global warming too!


• If you are wanting to try out energy saving light bulbs too, I recommend you start with a 20W (100W) equivalent. I am sure you won't be disappointed. If it does prove too bright, you can always scale down from there.


• List showing energy-efficient wattages and their 'normal' equivalent:
  • 9W = 40W normal equivalent
  • 11W or 12W = 60W normal equivalent
  • 18W or 20W = 100W normal equivalent

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