In the days of yore when lightbulbs would burn out on Turkish mosaic lamps, you’d remove the spent bulb, note the wattage, go to the hardware store and pick up a copy. Making things even easier was the fact that virtually every bulb on planet earth was an incandescent, including the mini spotlights in your track lighting. About the only exception was those big long fluorescent tubes in the overhead lights at your office. Oh how things have changed. The introduction of LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology - and to a lesser but still significant degree the Compact Fluorescent Light or CFL - has changed the lightbulb landscape forever, and for the better.

A Short Primer on Contemporary Light Bulbs

Because incandescent bulbs are being rapidly phased out in favor of high efficiency, long life LEDs and CFLs you need to have the right information in order to make a smart selection. Below are the basic considerations you need to keep up front when choosing a replacement bulbs for your recessed lights, mosaic lamps or any other typical household light.

• Output - In the past you could tell more or less how bright a bulb was by simply looking at the wattage. Not any more. Today’s energy efficient bulbs are rated in lumens, which is the amount of actual light the bulb emits as opposed to wattage, which is the amount of energy it consumes. Fortunately most every bulb manufacturer today posts an equivalency chart on the side of the package. This chart will tell you the lumens of the new bulb and the equivalent watts you would have needed in an old incandescent bulb to achieve roughly the same brightness. For instance an 8-15 watt LED bulb produces around 800 lumens. You would have had to buy a 60 watt incandescent to produce the same amount of light.
• Temperature - The color temperature of a lightbulb is its shade of white. Some bulbs emit yellowish light while others emit a light that is blue in nature. These “colors” are expressed by way of the Kelvin or K indicator on the lightbulb package. The lower the K value the warmer the light. And the higher the K value the cooler the light. Yellow and red tones are typically emitted in the 2700 to 3000K range. While cooler light is found in the higher values between 3500 and 6500K. Typically with Turkish mosaic lamps you’re going to want to emit a warmer light, so look for lower K values on the replacement bulb.
• Life Expectancy - There are 2 major areas where new LED and CFL technology leave incandescent lamps in the dust: energy efficiency and life expectancy. We’re already looked at energy efficiency, so now let’s have a look at life expectancy. While CFLs are incredibly long lived (typically in the neighborhood of 8,000 to 10,000 hours) LED bulbs are where the real life expectancy shockers lay. A typical LED bulb will last 15,000 to 20,000 hours. More in some cases. That means that if you install an LED bulb when your child is just learning to walk, that same LED bulb will be working when that child enters college. And might still be working when your child graduates from college. That’s simply astonishing. If you’re choosing a replacement bulb for a walk in closet or the laundry room, (in other words places where the bulb will only be used intermittently), choose a less expensive LED with a life-span of around 10,000 hours.
• Controls - When homeowners today are discussing lighting controls 9 times out of 10 they’re talking about dimmers. Virtually every LED bulb is dimmable and this will help you get even more life out of them, if 20 years isn’t enough for you. The dimmer will also allow you precise control over the atmosphere in the room. Another less talked about type of control is the motion sensor. By hooking your room lights up to a motion sensor you don’t have to worry about hitting the on and off switch. These are particularly helpful in basements where you’re often left fumbling for the switch in the dark.
• Environmental Impact - Just about everything today is filtered through the prism of environmental responsibility, and rightfully so. If we’re to leave our children and grandchildren a world worth living in we need to make serious adjustments to the way we treat that world today. High efficiency light bulbs are a great way for every homeowner to contribute to a measurably better future. That’s because replacing just a single 60 watt incandescent with a 8 watt LED bulb of equivalent brightness will eliminate hundreds of pounds of CO2 being released into the air during the life of that bulb by the power plant supplying electricity to your home. Multiply that by dozens of bulbs in your home and the hundreds of homes in your town and you’re looking at enormous environmental benefits from simply changing the type of lightbulbs that you use.

Additional Considerations

LED and CFL bulbs are the economically and environmentally right choice when selecting replacement bulbs for your recessed lights, track lights, mosaic lamps, pendant lights and more. They’re also an environmentally and economically friendly way to ramp up the holiday spirit, since LEDs in particular come in a variety of colors and make ideal Christmas tree lights. LED string lights are now the standard in most locations and will wind up costing you just a fraction of what incandescent Christmas lights would have cost you to run. One last thing to keep in mind is that LED lights have no filament that can break if you drop it. As such they’re incredibly durable.

Buying replacement bulbs today typically means buying replacement technology. You’re no longer swapping out a 60 watt incandescent in one of your Turkish lamps for another. Instead you’re replacing an energy wasting 60 watt incandescent for an energy efficient, long lasting, equally bright 8 watt LED bulb or CFL.