October 2013

Domestic LED lighting is Cost-effective Right Now

Of late I've been looking in the lighting sections of supermarkets in search of usable LED replacements for compact fluorescent and incandescent lamps for normal room lighting, but to no avail.

Until yesterday, that is, when I stumbled across this little beauty in my local Aldi store.

This is a Medion MD14536 11W LED lamp (equivalent to 75W incandescent, 18W compact fluorescent), 1055 lumens, 2700K colour temperature, rated lifetime of 35000 hours. Their light output is around 100 lumens per watt. And all for a princely £9.99. The only drawback is that they are not dimmable.

An equivalent Philips 18W compact fluorescent with a 6000 hour lifetime sells for a fiver on Amazon and gives around 60 lumens per watt.

10W (60W incandescent, 810 lumens) and 5.5W (40W incandescent, 470 lumens) are also available.

My experience of modern CFLs is that they rarely last their rated lifetime. I'm lucky if they get to half of it in my residence. CFLs I purchased over a decade ago were much more reliable.

LED lighting at this price is cost-effective right now. A real bargain!

Postscript, October 14th

My local Asda now has 12W (60W incandescent, 810 lumens, 25000 hour rated lifetime) LED lamps for £16. Not such a bargain.