Home Renovation Part 10: Lights

We have a high sloped ceiling in the living room. It was always difficult to replace burnt light bulbs there. I wanted to have a light source that I will never (well, not frequently) have to replace. I also wanted to have an efficient light source, because the living room lights may be turned on for a long period of time even when nobody is sitting in the living room.

I found that Cree is making LED light bulbs with an expected life of 50,000 hours (about 20 years of normal home use), they are at least twice as efficient as CFL, last 4 to 8 times as long, turn on instantly, can be dimmed, have a high color rendering index (CRI), and contain no mercury. You can find the specification here. Based on this information, I picked the Cree LLF LR6 light bulbs for all new recessed ceiling light fixtures in my home (living room, kitchen, office, master bedroom). These light bulbs fit most 6" standard recessed cans. You can find the list of compatible cans here. I used an eyeball trim for the ceiling lights in the living room to compensate for the sloped ceiling. I picked the 3500K light temperature, because the 2700K light is too yellow for my taste (and my wife liked it better as well). The Cree LLF LR6 light bulb has an integrated white trim.

Note that the Cree LLF LR6 requires compatible dimmers, because its current consumption is lower than what many dimmers need to operate. I picked the Leviton IllumaTech model IPI06-1LX dimmer for my home. It looks good and it works well. However, it can dim the LR6 lights only to about 25% of the maximum based on visual observation. It cannot dim it lower. My architect called Cree, and they told her that they recommend a different dimmer, Leviton 6683-A. I have no experience with it.

I bought the Cree LR6 light bulbs and the eyeball trim from www.lightingonthenet.com. I do not think that these lights are currently (summer 2008) cost effective yet for homes, because your savings are spread over 20 years, and you pay a higher purchase cost today. They are likely to be cost effective for businesses that need 24-hour light, which means that they will reap the savings over a much shorter period of time.

Note that this was the first time that my contractor and his electrician installed LED lights ever. I had to specify the cans and dimmers specifically. I also had to purchase the LED lights myself, because most electrical suppliers do not carry these lights yet, or they charge a much more than I can find on the Internet.

The LED lights proved challenging to the painters. In one instance, the painter pulled one of the bulbs straight down instead of twisting then pulling to release the retaining clips. The result was that the spring retaining clips were bent out of shape, and the bulb fell from the can. In another instance the painter just pushed the LED light up into the can instead of pushing then twisting. This light fell off the can when someone dropped a heavy package in the 2nd floor. It was quite spectacular.

2012-07-15 updates:

Four years later, none of the LR6 lights went bad. This is significant, because we have about 30 of these light bulbs, and if there were flaky, at least one of them would have been gone bad by now.

Two serious reason and one not-so-serious to install LED lights:

1. If your light is hard to reach, replace it with a 20-years lifetime bulb.
2. The kitchen is the hottest place in your home. Adding a 1000W of heat from incandescent lights does not make sense.
3. LED lights make a fascinating conversation piece.

Regarding the economics of LED lights: please do your own math. You must pick a high-quality LED light with a long lifetime and good output to make it worthwhile.