A Low Carbon Life | Post 1 2018 | Light Globes Really Do Matter

For over a year, two ‘light globes’ have been lying around on my desk.  They used to be called ‘light globes’ but I don’t think that’s what they’re called now.  For the purposes of this post though, I’ll just continue to be old-fashioned to call them light globes.

These globes have been on my desk to remind me that I promised someone I would write a post about changing incandescent light globes for sustainable ones.  I was quite surprised by the request, because I assumed ‘everyone’ knew about replacing incandescent light globes with energy efficient ones but, maybe not, so here’s hoping it’s a case of ‘better late than never’ for my enquirer.

Two Light Globes

Advertised Wattage

The image to the left, is an example of how much energy can be saved changing light globes.  The sustainable globe is the very weird looking one at the bottom.  It’s called a corn cob globe; it’s an LED (light emitting diode) and uses 10 watts of electricity to deliver the same amount of light as the 230 watt halogen globe (a type of incandescent) shown above it.  That’s a 95% reduction in electricity use so I recommend we all choose LEDs.  CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) were the first sort of energy efficient light globes but they are being overtaken by LEDs, which are even more efficient and don’t have issues related to disposal (there’s mercury in CFLs).

I believe that 10 versus 230 watts for the same output of light makes changing globes very worthwhile but it isn’t always as easy as it should be, if you have unusual light fittings.

Pendant Light Fittings

These globes both fit in the pendant light fittings in our hall and I had to order the corn cob globes on line so in a future post, I’ll summarize what I found I needed to do to change over all my globes while keeping the same light fittings and not having large corkscrew CFLs or LEDs hanging out of shades – not a good look!

I do as I do because ‘I Care’ so, until next time, Jane