Replace Flood Lights With LED Equivalent – Saves LOTS Of Electricity

Be it for outdoor use or indoors, you’ll save lots of money when you replace flood lights with LED equivalent bulbs. It’s easy with a direct LED replacement for your existing standard PAR38 style flood light bulb that has the same E26 medium base.

(I am updating this article to reflect current technology upgrades and product manufacturer availability).

I have replaced all of my outdoor flood lights (standard tungsten incandescent flood lights / spotlights) with LED bulbs. It was years ago. No issues since. Even in our weather extremes, cold temperatures dipping down to 20 or 30 below.

Replacing flood lights with LED will greatly reduce energy usage! This is especially important to me because I’m running off-grid solar power (with a battery bank). But that’s not the only reason…

Up until this LED floodlight bulb technology was developed, I had been using the typical 150 watt (tungsten) flood light, or spotlight combination. They were consuming many hundreds of watts, which quickly add up to many watt hours! Since the time when I installed solar panels (and a battery bank for nighttime energy reserves), I have been very energy conscious of electricity consumption. These LED replacement bulbs have solved one of my energy concerns…

Energy Savings in Watts

A typical LED flood light (example below) with equivalent lumens as its incandescent counterpart, only consumes about 10% of what a typical incandescent flood light uses. That’s a 90% savings differential!

Typical Flood light: 150 Watts
Example LED flood light: 15 Watts

This is not only good news for general energy consumption savings, but if you have solar off-grid power, then it’s very significant! But there are more reasons:

LED Brightness Comparison

Brightness is expressed by a technical term called ‘lumens’.

Lumens

A ‘typical’ 150 watt incandescent flood light puts out about 1700 lumens.

The LED equivalent flood light replacement that I’m currently suggesting is specified to put out 1600 lumens. It only draws 15 watts.

Waterproof PAR38 LED, Dimmable, 5000K Daylight, 1600 Lumens
(view on amzn)

Beam Angle

This particular LED flood light LED replacement bulb has a beam angle of 40 degrees. The light beam is ‘pushed’ out by way of the reflector design. It seems to be a good spread for outdoors – effectively directing the light further (as opposed to a very wide beam). Also, “for most domestic household ceiling fitted appliances, a beam angle in the 30-40 degrees will be sufficient given the standard height of ceilings and the range, spread and number of light bulbs in the area”.

Color Temperature

This refers to how the cast of the light appears to your eyes – in gradients from warm to cool (reddish/yellow to blue/white).

As is with many manufacturers, this LED flood light bulb comes in various color temperatures. The linked recommendation above is 5000K (Daylight), which I believe is great for security purposes (related article linked below on color temperatures). There’s also a 3000K (warmer light) version.

[ Read: Best Color Temperature For Security Lights ]

LED Flood Light – Life Expectancy

This is a statistic where the LED really shines. The life expectancy of the LED bulb is tremendously longer than a traditional incandescent bulb!

Typical 150 Watt Incandescent Flood Light: ~750 hours
LED Flood Light (above): 25,000 hours

Dimming

100% – 5% dimming capability with a LED-capable dimmer (which will also dim incandescent).

No-flicker or strobe, no humming or buzzing.

 [ Read

‘RAB Stealth’ Outdoor Motion Light Review

Motion Sensor Light Location and Best Height

LED Light Bulb Cost Savings Over Incandescent

Security Lighting – Tips and Considerations

11 Comments

  1. I also have switched over to LED since my home is totally solar powered. Another reason I switched over to LED lighting is that incandescent bulbs give off a lot of heat which my home air conditioner has to remove- Texas is hot enough in the summer.
    My final energy saving goal is to find some way to teach my wife, kids and grandkids that a light switch on the wall can also turn lights off when they leave the room.

    1. No Joke,
      Saw an amazing thing yesterday. The washing machine will actually function without a light being ON in the room. Though I’ve tried to “enlighten” the wife to this fact, it never seems to happen unless I turn off the light. Ha!

    2. Someone has to be making a plug in, energy efficient, space heater by now. Something to look into.

  2. My wife and I have pretty much switched most of our indoor lights and all of our outdoor lights to LED’s. I have installed solar powered motion sensor LED lights around the house. Love them. The lights are so bright and white that when they come on at night, they almost scare me. They sure help when going out to the sheds. No more stumbling around in the dark. Noticed a drop in the power bill to.

  3. Another side benefit to LED lights is they don’t draw bugs like regular light.

    1. Good point. Bugs tend to be attracted to the infrared heat coming off a incandescent bulb, whereas a LED bulb is quite cool.

  4. My wife likes incandescent lights for 2 things: to read by (GE Soft White bulbs) and above her mirror in her bathroom where she applies her make-up. In my house, these areas have incandescents and I have spares on hand. LED’s are used everywhere else in and outside of my home. My wife is the Queen and if the Queen ain’t happy, Ain’t nobody happy. I became a convert to LED lighting decades ago.

  5. Ha Ha…. My take on that has always been…. If Momma ain’t happy nobody’s happy, if Dad’s not happy, nobody cares….

  6. Last year I changed out my main flood light to an LED floodlight. I was tired of getting the ladder out to replace that bulb every year, it was two stories high. It always went out at the beginning of fall when it starts to get dark so early. Wow, what a difference in brightness. I can actually see well past the driveway into the yard. I don’t remember the lumens, but my old floodlight was 500 watts, and this thing is so much brighter. At the time I was too lazy to determine the difference, so I went with the brightest LED floodlight I could find. Glad I did. As funds become available, I will be replacing the remaining two floodlights with LED floodlights.

  7. I switched almost EVERY light in the house over to LED. I know a lot of you are hesitant after going through that “just as good as Edison bulbs” thing , but LED’s are TRULY BETTER! They use a FRACTION of the electricity Edison bulbs do, give off better light, often switch-PROGRAMMABLE for full spectrum light or “soft white” light, and USUALLY last longer. I say “usually” because the claims of ten years, thirteen years, and the like for bulb life are flat out lies. Yes, they do last longer than Edison bulbs. No, they DO NOT last thirteen years! The longest I’ve EVER gotten out of an LED is a little over eight years. Generally, the lower the lumen output of the bulb, the longer it will last. The bulbs in my outdoor floodlight fixtures are a noticeable exception. They’re 150W equivalent, 27W actual, but are holding up really well.

    LED floodlights are far and away brighter than their Edison ancestors. I’ve actually had pretty good luck with these. I have three fixtures with two bulbs each. I’ve only lost one of them in over eight years.

    There are even LED replacements for certain fluorescent tubes. The energy savings were enough for me to swap out my shop lights with fixtures using ballasts that will fire an LED bulb. In this case, the power draw of each fluorescent tube was 27W, while its LED replacement draws 9W.

    There IS ONE DOWNSIDE to LED’s. They generate A LOT of radio noise! If you have a ham radio shack or listen to the radio over the air, don’t locate an LED bulb near the radio. Indeed, the light in my radio shack and the six eight-foot fluorescents in the barn are the ONLY old-school bulbs left on Rancho Whybother!

  8. Ditto on the led switch over, 8 or 9 years now, 2018 bought these led porch lights 4 total they are automatic (come on at night,etc) from Costco paid 14 dollars for the whole fixture still going strong. NOTE…The only downside is a powerful emp event will kill the led so remember to shield your backups. Tmac would know more about this but I had read that the current led bulbs on the market have a lot longer usage life compared to those from about five years ago. In my shop when I replaced the old heavy, noisy, expensive tube lights with led the shop and garage were like ten times brighter and my light bill for the whole house change over dropped at least 25 % . As they say “a no brainer”.

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