Few people can have escaped noticing that conventional incandescent lighting is rapidly being phased out and that the preferred (over Compact Fluorescent Lamps) alternative is LED, which is widely regarded as the way forward to a environmentally friendly, low cost lighting future. The question though is: where to start?

Now you might think that it would just be a matter of swapping every existing incandescent light bulb for an LED equivalent, however I really would suggest that you don’t go down that route. For a start the up-front cost would be quite steep, but perhaps more importantly it would jeopardize the likelihood of a successful outcome.

Getting to grips with LED lighting doesn’t happen overnight – this is a completely different technology to incandescent lighting and requires a bit of getting used to before you can get it just right for your own needs. But stick with it and the end result is superior quality lighting that also happens to save massively on electricity costs.

So the best advice is to start with a space where the lights are switched on a lot of the time, or that has more lights than other rooms, or simply where the lighting could do with some improvement. This gives you the best chance possible of seeing tangible early results in terms of cost saving and/or quality of lighting.

It is important not to be discouraged when you take your first step trying something new such as LED lighting and these criteria for selecting a start point should help. If you decide that for you the place to start is the kitchen then you’re in the majority. Because kitchens often have a great deal of lighting that is switched on much of the time this tends to be an obvious choice (the opportunity for a fairly inexpensive makeover also figures).

The typical modern kitchen often uses quite a number of halogen lamps, either mounted on tracks or recessed into the ceiling. These waste a phenomenal amount of electricity as heat and are simplicity itself to replace with retrofit LED equivalents. Just pull the halogen lamp out and push in an LED rated to produce the same level of light. For GU10 LED bulbs that’s it, but for MR16 low-voltage lamps you should also purchase an LED driver to replace the 12v transformers previously used.

The same idea (straightforward replacement) also applies to lights installed atop, underneath and inside wall cabinets. Alternatively, add some lighting to these areas if none already exists since LED strip and miniature spot lights are simple to fit, being both light in weight and flexible with respect to being cut or connected to suit any configuration. A common technique is to accent plinths and covings, or if fitted to a kick board to pick out the floor.

There are 3 main points to bear in mind when considering LED lighting.

1. Quality counts. It’s only natural to count the cost but what really counts with LED lighting is quality and the two are mostly related. Cheap products may look like a bargain but they won’t perform as well or produce the savings you should expect (recall that incandescent bulbs cost little to buy but ultimately represent a terrible waste of money when you calculate the true “cost of ownership”). Look out for respected brands such as Sharp’s Zenigata or the Cree Evolux.

2. True cost. Or what is known as TCO (total cost of ownership). Over a period of 50,000 hours a single LED will incur zero replacement costs and cost as much to run as it costs to buy. Over the same span a halogen lamp will need to be replaced at least 25 times and is likely to incur 1,000 times its purchase price in electricity costs. Even if an LED costs 20 times more (and many do) it’s cheaper just on replacement costs alone and orders of magnitude cheaper on electricity costs.

3. Usage. LED lighting is most effective if you use multiple light sources of varying intensity and color ranges. Although very bright, they tend not to project light as far as incandescent lights do, so one of the most common ways to resolve these characteristics is to simply reflect the light off a nearby surface. This produces a diffuse light that fills the space and neatly kills two birds with one stone.

To find out more check out these articles that examine the subjects of kitchen lighting fixtures and kitchen cabinet lights in more detail.