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how much do led christmas lights save

by Georgianna Brakus Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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Switching your traditional Christmas lights out with newer LED Christmas lights can save you a surprising amount of money. If you have a typical modest Christmas display on your home, your energy costs would be approximately $10-$15 for incandescent lights, or around $2 for LEDs for the holiday season.

Full Answer

How much energy do led Christmas lights save?

It’s no secret that LED Christmas lights can save lots of energy. In fact, depending on the type of light set, the energy savings can be anywhere from 80% to 95%.

How much does it cost to install LED Christmas lights?

For a jaw-dropping display where people actually make your house a destination to admire your holiday cheer, the costs could be well over $300 with traditional lighting versus a modest $40-$50 with LEDs. The energy savings on your bills all point toward switching to LED Christmas lights.

Are led Christmas lights safe to use?

If the ultimate decorations are your holiday dream, LED lights are definitely the safer solution. LED Christmas lights come in a wider range of colors, are generally brighter than incandescent light strings, and even come in strings connected to dimmers for different lighting effects.

Are led Christmas lights better than incandescent?

LED Christmas lights come in a wider range of colors, are generally brighter than incandescent light strings, and even come in strings connected to dimmers for different lighting effects. Look for warm white to recreate the look of incandescent bulbs. LED Christmas lights don’t produce any heat, unlike incandescent bulbs.

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Do LED Christmas lights save energy?

Yes! LED lights consume 80-90% less energy than incandescent bulbs, and last up to 100,000 hours, versus 3,000 hours for an incandescent. Combine this with the durable construction of LEDs, and savings extend beyond electricity.

How much does it cost to leave LED Christmas lights on?

Using the formula above with the national average of $0.14 per kilowatt-hour and a display season of six hours a day for 30 days, using a strand of mini LED lights will cost you about 52 cents. A strand with the same amount of bulbs, but as incandescents, will cost about $1.81.

How much money do you save with LED lights?

The average LED light bulb that is used 5 hours per day will save $10-$20 dollars per year in energy costs versus an incandescent bulb. LED lights are highly energy-efficient compared to other types of lighting products.

Are LED Christmas lights more expensive?

While newer LEDs do not suffer from this limitation, they are more expensive than their traditional counterparts. Most LED Christmas light strands have fewer bulbs than the average incandescent strand, which means you will likely end up spending more money for a comparable number of lights.

Do Christmas lights raise power bill?

Running incandescents will set you back about 35 bucks over the course of the season, while switching to full LED will cost just a bit over $4. The real savings come if you're using the big C9 lights, however. Running four strands of 25 incandescent C9s will cost over 60 bucks for the season.

Are LED Christmas lights worth it?

Money and Energy Savings According to the U.S. Department of Energy, they use up to 75 percent less energy and last 25 times as long. They also don't require much maintenance. Since LED bulbs don't burn out, they only get dimmer over time; you don't have to fuss with replacing bulbs and fuses.

Do LED lights cost more to run?

Are LED Lights Cheaper to Run? LED lights are definitely cheaper than their counterparts. Not only do LED's consume less energy, but the bulbs also use energy more efficiently, which saves a lot of money.

How much money do LED lights save per month?

According to one data on Statista, if you replace one 60-watt bulb with a 10-watt LED bulb in the UK, you can save €8.83 or £7.81 annually. In other places such as Denmark and Germany, the annual savings were as much as €15 or £13.27. Now, this figure does not look like a lot.

Is LED lighting cheaper to run?

The main advantage of upgrading to LED lighting is that the running costs are significantly lower than traditional lighting such as halogen or incandescent. These savings could be up to 90%.

What is wrong with LED Christmas lights?

LED Christmas lights don't have filaments that overheat and burnout. That's one of the reasons they are able to last so long. But the lack of filaments also makes them safer. Roughly 52 Christmas tree fires happen every year, resulting in over $4 million dollars of property damage.

How much does it cost to run Christmas lights for a month?

How Many Watts do Christmas Lights Use?Bulb TypeWattage per BulbCost of Powering 10, 100-bulb strands (at avg. $0.12/kWh)*Incandescent mini light.41$10.33Incandescent C7 (2”) light5$126.00Incandescent C9 (3”) light7$176.40LED mini light.07$1.761 more row

Why do LED Christmas lights burn out?

When it comes to lens damage, the general rule is if the lens is cracked all the way through to the core of the LED, then either the entire set or on longer stringers, half the set will go completely out. However, fortunately, most LED lenses are very rigid and don't easily crack or break.

The True Cost of Christmas Lights

Are you still using old strands of incandescent bulbs that have seen better days?

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Factors

Amount of electricity used. Looking at the box of regular incandescent lights, they use 40.8 watts per 100 light strand (0.0408 kW). The 100-light strand of LEDs used 8 watts (0.008 kW). You should be able to find these on any box of lights, especially the traditional kind as they can draw too much current if you connect too many together.

Conclusion

Using these numbers, it would be reasonable to say that each 100-light strand would save $1 in electricity per year. Costs will vary, but I saw a set of 100 of cheap incandescents for under $3 at the megastore, while the cheapest 100 LEDs cost closer to $12. The means it would take nearly a decade to break even on purely a electrical savings basis.

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How much energy does LED Christmas lights save?

It’s no secret that LED Christmas lights can save lots of energy. In fact, depending on the type of light set, the energy savings can be anywhere from 80% to 95%.

Do all LED Christmas lights have the same quality?

Keep in mind, though, that the longevity of your LED light set will depend upon the quality of the LED Christmas lights you buy. Not all LED lights are the same - there's a wide range of quality.

The Test

To figure out how much each string of bulbs cost, I bought both a string of LED lights and a string of regular lights and plugged them each into my wattage meter for several days to see how much energy each used. Consumers are charged for electricity in a unit of measurement called the kilowatt hour (kWh).

Calculating the Cost

Let’s put those into terms we can all understand. Let’s imagine a household is a fairly light user of Christmas lights. By that I mean they put their lights up two weeks before Christmas, keep them up until one week after Christmas, and keep those lights on for four hours per day.

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Defining your bulbs

There are two primary types of commonly used Christmas light bulbs, regardless of light source. First there are "C9" lights. Those are the big, old-fashioned bulbs that look like nightlight or electric candle bulbs. These are mostly used outdoors, hanging from awnings and rooftops.

Calculating your usage

Every person has their own patterns for Christmas light usage. Some of us start hanging lights the day after Thanksgiving and don't take them down until well into the new year. And there are those that only start lighting up their apartment a couple weeks before Christmas and undo their decorating that night.

A typical Christmas apartment dweller

Considering the number of variables, there's a lot of factors in figuring out energy costs. So, let's take a typical apartment Christmas light user we'll call Shannon. Shannon lives in a standard two-bedroom duplex apartment. Shannon loves Christmas and she's pretty festive, so these are all the incandescent lights she has hanging around her place:

So what are the energy savings?

In our example, Shannon's incandescent lights are on for a total of about 540 hours during the season. And Shannon, being an average American, pays about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour (KwH), the national average.

But wait, there are more costs

Sure, a heavy user saving about $25 a year is great, but if you're about half as festive as Shannon, you're only saving about twelve bucks. Still about the cost of dinner, but does that relatively small number mean you should dive into the LED section of the hardware store?

So, are you really saving money?

The bottom line is, if you have perfectly good, non-broken incandescent lights, you're going to wind up spending more money upfront just to replace them than you'd save by using LEDs. Yes, they'll wind up paying for themselves in energy savings, but that will take several years.

How many strings does a Christmas tree have?

When comparing outdoor Christmas decorations, the typical light user will use 1 to 3 wreaths, a garland, and a total of approximately 10 strings to wrap their outdoor trees. After calculating total wattage we can see that electrical usage is minimal.

What to use instead of light strings?

Extension cords - instead of using light strings to add length to your display, utilize extension cords in less visible areas. Switch to LED - this is especially useful if additional sources of power need to be considered for illuminating large amounts of incandescent lights.

Do LED lights save energy?

Does energy savings on the electric bill support switching to LEDs? Yes! LED lights consume 80-90% less energy than incandescent bulbs, and last up to 100,000 hours, versus 3,000 hours for an incandescent. Combine this with the durable construction of LEDs, and savings extend beyond electricity. Repeat purchases in LED lights are reduced drastically, multiplying savings year after year.

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1.LED Christmas Lights: How Much Will You Save In Energy …

Url:https://electricityplans.com/led-christmas-holiday-energy-efficient-save/

16 hours ago  · Using these numbers, it would be reasonable to say that each 100-light strand would save $1 in electricity per year. Costs will vary, but I saw a set of 100 of cheap incandescents for under $3 at the megastore, while the cheapest 100 LEDs cost closer to $12.

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16 hours ago 7 rows · LED Christmas Lights - 237 watts - $9.00 per season. That's a dramatic difference! And when we ...

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24 hours ago  · If you switched to LED lights, the cost to run those would be about $2.00, for the same amount of operating time. So multiplying those savings over 10 years, shows you could save $90. Obviously, this number will vary depending on how elaborate your decorating habits are, and what kind of products you use.

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18 hours ago  · I found that the LED bulbs used much less electricity, using about .0022 kWh per hour compared ...

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1 hours ago  · You might want some help unraveling your new Christmas lights. LED Christmas tree lights offer an average of 88% energy savings compared to traditional incandescent lights, which also sharply reduces your holiday electricity bill if you’re running multiple strands of lights for several hours a day. If you want some hard numbers, we’ve got them.

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30 hours ago You might consider going LED. A bit pricier than traditional Christmas lights due to a more complicated manufacturing process, they use 80-90% less energy than incandescents. These fabulous cutting edge Holiday Lights don't have exactly the same look as what you are used to so you might consider getting a couple of sets to try at first.

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