Once again it's that time of the year when people seem to be at their best, holiday programs and ads fill our TV screens, and we anticipate gaining at least one or two more pounds (if we're lucky!). One of the biggest parts of the holiday celebration is the putting up of Christmas lights. Everyone wants to have that house that is so beautifully lit it stops people in their tracks, but that can be a hard thing to do once you've considered the amount of energy used during this time of the year on those holiday lights alone.
According to a study conducted by the Washington State University Energy Program the average cost of lighting up 5 standard C-7 light string with 25 incandescent bulbs for 150 hours uses up 500W and costs around $6.20. That's almost $27 for very few lights. Most houses probably use up 2-3 times that. So how can you display the holiday spirit and save energy at the same time?
The solution to this problem is LED light strings. While incandescent bulbs use many watts of energy to light up one string of lights, an LED string uses as little as 2.4 watts for 25 bulbs, with a maximum consumption of 210 watts. You can save even more energy by hooking the lights up to an Outdoor LED countdown timer. This timer has a built in photocell so you have the choice of selecting dusk-to-dawn operation or a programmable mode with a 1 to 9 hour countdown after dusk. E.g. you can set the lights to turn on at dusk and have it turn off automatically after 4 hours.
In addition to being energy efficient, these LED light strings are much safer to use, as they use up less heat making them cool to the touch. This is possible because the lenses on the LED lights, such as a pure white C6 bulb, are made out of solid epoxy which is nearly indestructible. Outdoor LED light strings come in strings as long as 8 feet (with 4 inches of spacing between each bulb), so you don't have to worry about limiting your Christmas displays. The lights can be used both indoors and outdoors, creating the beautiful holiday environment you're looking for without leaving you with the guilty feeling of wasted energy.
These days LED traffic countdown timers are easily noticeable on the street traffic due to their power saving and cost effective nature. A great number of streets worldwide have switched to LED traffic lights and have brought a revolution in the lighting industry. this is great for the environment as well.