Recessed Lighting
If you’re going to remodel your home, or just looking for an easy renovation, recessed lighting might be something to consider. It’s an easy way to update your home, can be part of a green remodeling plan, and also can be a budget renovation solution (it has a huge visual impact to cost ratio.) The electrical experts at Stafford Home Service will definitely be able to help you. Even if you think there’s no way recessed lighting could work in your home, the Stafford will find a way.
Recessed lighting has a nice clean look and can be very effective at making small rooms feel bigger. Rather than installing chunky light fixtures, that take up room and clutter spaces, Stafford Home Service can install recessed lighting in your home for a simple, sleek look.
Recessed lighting can be installed in any room and is a great way to highlight works of art, mantels, photographs, or an interesting painted wall or Italian plaster feature. Another useful way to use recessed lighting is for task lighting: Reading areas, desks, and various work spaces can all benefit from recessed lighting. Imagine your desk free of hot, inconvenient lamps –with a flick of a switch your desk can be washed with focused light from recessed fixtures strategically placed for maximum effect.
There are four bulb options available for recessed lighting:
- Incandescent
- Halogen
- Low-emitting diode (LED)
- Compact fluorescent light (CFL).
Incandescent bulbs:
Incandescent lights are the standard lights with which we are all familiar. They have the least expensive up-front costs of the four options, are the least efficient, create more garbage and run very hot. They will also be phased out, according to federal law by 2012-2014 [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.00006:].
Halogen bulbs:
Halogen lights are also incandescent, but they last longer and provide a greater quantity of light, per watt. They are a step up from standard incandescent but have all the same fundamental problems and will also be phased out along with standard incandescents.
LED bulbs:
If your looking for a Green lighting option, LED lights are the way to go. According to energystar.gov, an ENERGY STAR qualified LED uses, at the bare minimum, 75% less energy than incandescent lighting and also reduces maintenance costs, by lasting 35 to 50 times longer (and more) than incandescent lighting and about 2 to 5 times longer than fluorescent lighting. LED bulbs also contain no mercury (which CFL’s do.) By using LED lighting you won’t have to replace bulbs more then once every several years (or more), which, in the long-term, is good for your pocketbook and the environment. (not to mention if you have limited mobility and have difficulty replacing bulbs)
Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL):
CFL bulbs are another green solution. An ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) will save about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months. It uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.” (www.energystar.gov) Stafford home Services uses Energy Star qualified products. The toxic mercury contained in CFL’s is an issue, but is offset by the infrequency of replacement and proper waste disposal programs that are currently in effect across the US.
While LED or CFL recessed lighting fixtures are far more efficient than a standard incandescent fixture, they are a significantly higher up-front investment. Keep in mind, If every American home replaced just one light with an ENERGY STAR light, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, about $700 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the emissions of about 800,000 cars. (www.energystar.gov).
In conclusion, recessed lighting is a great option for any room in any home. With options for every price range the possibilities are endless. For your next renovation project, let Stafford Home Service install Energy Star qualified products in your home.
