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While some homeowners may balk at the idea of buying an energy-saving lightbulb that costs $20 to $40, to some businesses it's a no-brainer. Walmart, for one, has discovered that not only do the long-lasting bulbs reduce energy costs but the company can also save more than 30 percent on maintenance because the bulbs don't need to be changed nearly as often. In fact, Walmart expects to save more than $3,500 a year in maintenance at just one store parking lot in Kansas. Multiply that by the number of Walmarts and you're talking real money.
"If you think about a 20- to 40-foot tall parking lot light pole, you need a bucket truck and electrician to replace those lamps every two years. Now these will last us 10 to 12 years," Charles Zimmerman, Walmart's vice president for international design and construction told the Wall Street Journal. "The big payback number is on the maintenance."
Of course, the typical homeowner can't take advantage of such economies of scale but there are other advantages to using LEDs at home. For example, if you have a light fixture in a hard-to-reach place such as the top of the stairs, investing a little more in the bulb will allow you to take a lot fewer trips up the ladder. LEDs are also good for outdoor fixtures such as floodlights because they aren't affected by the cold.
In advance of the phase-out of inefficient lightbulbs that begins in January, Consumer Reports has been testing replacement LEDs and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. We test for brightness, warm-up time, light distribution, color rendering and other factors that matter to consumers. Our top-rated LED is the Philips Ambient LED 12.5W 12E26A60 60W 409904, which is a 60-watt equivalent, but it's not right for all applications. There are plenty of other choices in our Ratings and tomorrow we'll be adding tests of 100-watt equivalent bulbs.
—Mary H.J. Farrell
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