Last updated on August 20th, 2024 at 12:18 pm

Reducing the Cost of Office Lighting

Like many small businesses I’ve been watching the news recently about the cost of electricity going up and wondering how I can save money by reducing the amount of power that I use.

I considered using low energy bulbs like I have at home but to be honest I’ve never been very happy with the quality of the light that these bulbs give out, plus the fact that they seem to take a long while to warm up and after a while the amount of light seems to get less.

Doing a bit of research I wondered about other forms of lighting and came across LED light bulbs.  These are unlike other forms of light bulbs in that they are “solid state” and give out light as soon as they are switched on at a reduced amount of power.  I’ve used LED spotlights on my car and know that they give out a good amount of light so I thought I’d give them a try.

The only problem is that LED lightbulbs are relatively expensive (although they are rated for a long life).  I looked in the local lighting and DIY stores but those that I saw were in the region of £16 for a single ES type bulb. While the bulbs use less power than a normal bulb I did a quick calculation and worked out that the payback period was over two years which was a long time before I saw any “profit” on the cost of buying the lights.

I was about to give up on the idea when I saw a listing on Amazon for LED lightbulbs (affiliate link).  Looking at the website I realised that their prices were very competitive and with free delivery ad a 28 day money back guarantee I thought “why not give them a go?”

Counting up the number of bulbs in the office I decided to try just a few to start with and order them.  Fitting them was very easy as they were a direct replacement for the ES27 (screw) fitting bulbs that were already in the lights and I turned them on while holding my breath (as I always do when I replace bulbs).  I was amazed at just how quickly the lights came on – it may have been just an impression but they were instantaneous and even better was the brightness of the light.  Looking at the box the 9W bulbs were marked as the equivalent of 70W bulbs but as you can see from the picture below they seem much brighter (the one on the left is an LED light, the one on the right a normal bulb).

And, as you can see from the figures a 9W bulb only uses about 13% of the electricity so the savings start as soon as you turn the lights on – the LED bulb uses the same amount of electricity in an 8 hour day that a normal bulb uses in a single hour !

Taking this into consideration I’d recommend looking at LED bulbs, and if you are taking a look at the bulbs on the link above (and before you ask, this is an affiliate link from which I get a small commission if you do decide to purchase if you by having clicked on the link at no extra cost to you),  alternatively search on Google for LED bulbs.