Exterior Lights

Costco was running a special on LED flood lights last week, so I took the opportunity to buy some replacements for the halogens powering my outside floods.

Costco had the LED flood display right there at the entrance. How could I resist? True, I would have stumbled across them anyway, since I can't help but meander the lighting aisles whenever I'm in Costco, Home Depot, or Lowe's. Chalk it up to occupational hazard. Gone are the days of just running into a hardware store for a box of nails. Nope, this LED guy's gotta check out the LED lights. One of these days, they might even have LED replacements for the particular style of candelabra lamps in my dining room fixture.

I bought the new LED flood lights in spite of my gut feeling that they wouldn't pay for themselves, due to the low annual usage. That's the nice thing about impulse buying -- stoke the ego, full speed ahead, reasoning be damned. How could I, an LED man, still employ halogens on my premises?

I bought two FEIT BR40 floods spewing 1,065 lumens apiece, with a 110° beam angle, at 2,700K. They burn 19 Watts, according to the packaging, and can replace 100-W halogens. I also bought two FEIT BR30 flood track and recessed lamps, sporting 750 lumens, a 110° beam angle, and 2,700K. At 13 Watts, the BR30s are touted to replace 65-W halogens. Both products are supposed to last 22.8 years. I find it curious that all LED lamp projections are for 22.8 years. They don't claim round numbers like 20, 22, 23, or 25 years, but 22.8 years. I'll be close to 80 years old by the time my recent purchase hits 22.8 years. Let's see if they (or I, for that matter) make it.

A dual flood lamp fixture, controlled by a combination photo sensor and motion detector, illuminates my driveway. It comes on after dark if there is activity in the driveway. The light stays on as long as the system detects motion. The light continues for a couple of minutes thereafter before turning off. My wife and I are not the night owls we once were, so these lights don't get much of a workout. The back yard has a similar setup. The only difference is that it is controlled by a switch and motion detector. It operates about as much as the driveway light.

Now, it's time to calculate my financial folly. I bought the BR30s for $5.99 each and the BR40s for $10.99 each. The utility rate in my neck of the woods is approximately $0.18 per kilowatt hour. The table contains the calculations.

Cost of ownership: LED flood lamps.

Lo and behold, I am still financially better off with the LED lamps, despite their higher acquisition costs. This does not even include a finite number of additional halogen lamp replacements. At low usage, with the numerous on and off cycles, the halogen lamp most likely would not make it for more than five years. In 22.8 years, I will have saved $50 with the BR30s and $60 with the BR40s. Adding an allotment for replacing the halogen three times in between drives the savings up another $10.00. And I thought my investment didn't make sense. Move over, Morgan Stanley.