So yes let’s talk about some simple steps to ‘go green’ with our homes, not to the extent of renovating your house but simple little things you can make, starting from, bulbs. Investing into Energy Efficient Lighting is one of the cheapest and fastest ways of recovering the initial investment cost and cutting down your household carbon footprint.
Well, it’s relatively easy to change a light bulb, and it’s even so to know more about how to choose a proper light bulb for yourself, yes, you need to CHOOSE, it’s not simply going to the hardware shop and grab one, there’s more than meets the eye to know how this little bulb can affect you every day.
The usage of a correct light bulb can offer a lot of ergonomic benefits; it could affect your eyesight and also working performance. Spend some time analyzing the packaging before purchase. There is a lot of information to help you in decision making. Here are some guides:
i) Purpose & Light Fixture
The performance of bulbs depends on which kind of light fixtures are they fixed upon, and what purpose are they used for. It depends if it is a functional task lighting, general or ambient lighting. The more transparent the lighting fixture is the higher luminous (measurement of brightness) efficacy.
Shading the light will normally decrease efficacy but increase the directionality and the visual comfort probability. Thus choose a lightbulb based on the lighting fixture design to ensure it delivers the lighting performance you desire for.
ii) User
Different users have different lighting preference according to their own eyes capability. However, lighting plays an important role for the elderly. Insufficient lighting due to the aging of eyes and the physical disability that restricts them from natural lighting could affect their health, such as sleeping disorders and depression. They may require from 2, up to 3 times more intense lighting requirement compared to the general lighting recommendations.
iii) Brightness
The brightness of a source will direct the focus of the user. Do consider the duration of usage as the specific light source as over a longer span of time it may strain your eye instead. Choose to have a contrast setting of light when it is a long duration of work and also remember that desktops or television are also a source of light, thus surrounding ambient lighting is advisable to be dimmed.
iv) Lighting Temperature
One of the characteristics of any light bulb is light color temperature; Light color is measured on a temperature scale referred to as Kelvin (K). Contradicting to common belief, CFL Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs today have a wide range of color temperature available to suit your needs. This is a guideline of choosing light bulb prior to lighting color.
v) Energy Efficient
Buying an Energy Efficient light bulb does not only help you to reduce carbon footprint but your electricity bill too! By choosing to use CFL instead of traditional incandescent, you can save up to 3 times of electricity bill and also avoid frequent change of light bulb. Here’s a table to guide you on the comparisons. As for now, using CFL is good but just ensure that you dispose of it properly. However, as for LED, I believe that the technology is still at test bed, I believe by end of 2013 the product will be mature enough to be in commercial.
Hope these 5 steps helps, remember that buying a bulb is more than about saving electricity hence lowering carbon emission, but it has actually a lot to affect your daily routine, be it on productivity or psychologically, it’s important to emphasize on your lighting atmosphere before you strain your eyes. I did write before on how daylight is important to us as well and various sectors with various applications HERE, however, artificial lighting is nevertheless important too, compared to having a dull lit environment.
