As well as painting my office at the weekend, the builders are also going to fit some new lights for me. I’ve gone for GU10 down lights but instead of fitting halogen GU10 lamps, we’re going to fit LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamps instead. These are much more efficient than halogens - they’re more efficient than compact fluorescent tubes too! Each LED lamp draws only 1.8 Watts of power but emits the same amount of light as a 20 Watt halogen lamp. I bought both the light fittings and the lamps themselves from BLT Direct whose website can be found here. The other advantage of LEDs is that they last over 50,000 hours so it will be a long time before one of them needs changing!

LED lamps technology is developing rapidly with more and more powerful lamps becoming available all the time. At the moment they are particularly useful for display lighting because they use such little power and don’t generate much heat. Although the manufacturers don’t recommend using LEDs to light an office because of they still cannot match other bulbs for brightness, we decided to try them anyway because I could always have an extra desk lamp if necessary. These lamps are still relatively expensive at the moment but it’s worth it because they last so long and the energy savings compared to normal bulbs is so great. These lamps pay for themselves in about 131 days through energy savings alone. If you don’t believe me, look at the calculations below.

To power eight 50W halogens for 8 hours a day where electricity costs 10 p/kWh costs 8 x 0.05 x 8 x 0.10 = £0.32 per day

To power eight 2W LED bulbs for 8 hours a day where electricity costs 10 p/kWh costs 8 x 0.002 x 8 x 0.10 = £0.0128 per day

Saving = 0.32 – 0.0128 = £0.3072 per day

Cost of bulbs = £5

Payback = (5 x 8)/0.3072 = 130.2 days