Great news for all us energy geeks! Now Philips has an LED bulb that puts out 1100 lumens – in technical terms, that’s a bucket load of light! For comparison, most of the other screw-in LED lights I’ve been commenting on put out the equivalent of a 40w-60w light bulb, maybe 600-800 lumens. For more info, see this press release on Engadget.
Note, the Engadget folks were WAY off in the lifetime. These bulbs last 25 times as long as a conventional bulb (as shown in the press release).
A friend dropped me this email yesterday, asking for some advice (slightly edited):
We spent a lot on oil last winter. We have a 23 year old heat pump which gives us A/C in the summer, but no heat any longer. I had a proposal from the installer for a new 14.5 seer heat pump replacement.Here is the question: how much more efficient will that unit be compared to our old unit? We are not convinced that it is worth the cost, so we thought you might give us a ball park estimate of potential savings. Bottom line is enough: does this sound like a good decision?
This is such a great question, that I wanted to share it, and my answer, with the rest of you.
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