We have been installing 100% LED landscape lighting for over a year and a half now and we don’t see any sense in turning back. Just like you no longer see horse and buggies parked along the road or gas lanterns hanging on the streets for light, times change and lighting has FINALLY changed.
We are often asked why we have made the change and so many others have not. The answer is this, we have found very good LED products that we truly believe in. The manufacturers that we purchase from have backed their products with warrantees that prove their commitment to their products and therefore, we know that the products that we are installing are of the highest quality. This way we can say with confidence that these products, though they cost more up front, will actually save our clients money over the long term. Others are sitting back and waiting for this technology to be “proven over time”. Here’s the problem with that, while their waiting, their clients are paying more for lamps, service and energy. The contractor isn’t loosing anything (right now) while waiting. The end customer however is paying plenty for that contractor to come out each year and replace burned out lamps. The customer is the one paying 75% more for electricity to operate those lights as well.
We would rather go ahead and trust in the technology and our manufacturers who we have been doing business with for years. We’ve sold their other products for years and have never had a warranty issue, why would we think differently now?
LED lighting uses 75% less energy and lasts about 40,000 hours. This means that there are no lamp replacement costs for a very long time, usually between 15 and 20 years, depending on how long the lights are operating each day. When taking the costs of annual lamp maintenance and energy into account, the LED lighting system actually ends up costing about 50% LESS than the typical halogen lighting system.
The two primary questions I get are; what about the color and what about the output of the LED? Here are a couple of our LED projects that we have installed. These are 100% LED projects and you can be the judge of the color and intensity of the light that these LED products can put out.
These are mostly 4 watt LED fixtures that we are using in these projects and the most we use, to illuminate very large oak trees, are 12.5 watts and they do a GREAT job.
Now I would be remiss if I said that we had 100% success with these products. We have had a few fixtures that didn’t work but the manufacturer took care of it and we’ve had a LOT more issues with halogen lamps over the years than we have with the LED products that we’ve been installing.
LED lighting is here to stay and we would rather lead the way than try to catch up later and cost our clients a lot of money along the way.
