!44: Deter Neighborhood Crime And Reduce Electricity Expenses With Unique Outdoor LED Lighting

!±8± Deter Neighborhood Crime And Reduce Electricity Expenses With Unique Outdoor LED Lighting

There are many reasons to illuminate the exterior of your home. One of the most compelling is that outdoor lighting is among the most effective ways to protect your property against vandalism and burglary.

Next time you drive home at night, notice how many of your neighbors homes are sitting in complete darkness. To a criminal, an unbroken block of ten dark homes is an enviable target. Criminals will naturally seek out targets that provide the most darkness as a way to hide their activities. Their goal is to be as discrete as possible while stealing what they can. A quick glance at any "Top Stolen Vehicles" list will show you that vehicles that are stolen the most are the ones that are abundant and common. While a new Ferrari may be incredibly desirable to a criminal, the reality is that a thief will choose the 2-year old Cadillac Escalade or Toyota Camry next to it. A thief does not want to draw any attention to what he is doing and being seen anywhere near something rare and noticeable is a bad thing for him. This is the mindset to use when adding outdoor lighting to your home. You want your home to be noticed and to visually distance itself from the remaining homes cloaked in darkness.

Electricity Costs Most people equate more light with more electrical expense. While this may be correct for traditional (incandescent) lighting, LED lighting is a completely different technology. (There is more than enough information on the web if you are curious about the details of LED technology, which we will not address here.)

Here is an actual comparison of traditional lighting for the exterior walls of a home compared to the results achieved after changing the lighting to LED fixtures:

The home was located on a corner and featured (4) floodlights across the front facade and (4) floodlights across the side facade, both sides faced the street. The lighting was set to turn-on at dusk and remain on for 10 hours. Each of the floodlights was 75 watts, adding up to a total of 600 watts for all (8) fixtures. At.12 cents per kilowatt hour the total annual electricity cost for this home was 2, or about per month.

The home was retrofit with (8) linear LED wall wash fixtures that have a combined total wattage of 96 watts. The LED lighting continued to illuminate for 10 hours a day. At.12 cents per kilowatt hour, the resident was now spending per year or about per month. This is a savings of 0 per year.

Replacement Costs Traditional lighting is measured in the average number of hours it will illuminate before burning out completely and requiring replacement. LED lighting on the other hand, is measured in terms of the number of hours the LEDs will illuminate before the light output drops to 50% of its original performance. In other words, whereas a traditional bulb will burn out, LEDs will just be putting out less light.

There are 8,765 hours in a year. At 10 hours per day, the home was illuminated 3,650 hours every year. The 75-watt flood originally used at the home has a life hours rating of 3,000, meaning that if there were no power surges or flying rocks at the home, each bulb had to be replaced at the very least, once per year. The LED fixtures have a rating of 50,000 hours before the light output is only at 50% of the original. This means that the homeowner can expect to his new LED fixtures to "not be as bright as they used to" in about 14 years.

Based on todays pricing (10.26.2011) at a national home improvement chain, the cost of a traditional 75-watt bulb is . Over the next 14 years, the homeowner can expect to spend over 0 in traditional bulb replacements compared to Body for the LED fixtures.

Total Savings of Led Versus TraditionaL Doing the math for the above electricity and replacement costs for the next 14 years, we can establish that traditional lighting would have a total cost of ,568 (,658 in electricity + 0 in light bulbs). Keep in mind that this situation assumes that electricity and light bulb costs do not increase from what they cost today.

Using LED fixtures, the 14 year total comes to 7. (7 in electricity and Body in bulbs). The net savings over 14 years with LED versus traditional is ,981.

A Final Consideration Remember how we said that standing out from the crowd is a big deterrent to a criminal? Something else that the LED lighting in the above scenario has over traditional lighting is the ability to change to whatever color you want at the touch of a button. (That button can even be located on your mobile phone or computer if you'd like.) This means that holiday and special event lighting is now easier than ever. It's easy to light your home orange for October; red and green for November/December; blue for winter; pink for February; pastels for April; red, white and blue for May and July. And the best part is that colors in LED lighting actually use even less electricity than white! What better way to put your home off-limits to criminals than by illuminating your home while also creating a colorful exterior? Keep in mind that while the lighting colors may be bold, they are not permanent alterations to the exterior. Your home continues to look like it did on the day you bought it as soon as the sun comes out.

So why aren't you using outdoor led lighting? In conclusion, outdoor lighting is a great way to make your home safer to its occupants and to deter crime. Using LED lighting guarantees reduced electricity costs and zero in replacement bulbs. LED lighting can also give you the added benefit of easy colorful lighting for holidays and special events. Now is a great time to make the transition to LED lighting for your home.