Kitchens by Riland

Most people are of the idea that can only relate light bulbs watt with the common type of ‘pear’ bulb. You are accustomed to the use of a certain watt in a specific location; so every time you need to replace it, you just go out and pick a bulb of the same watts as the one you are replacing. What we fail to realize is that if we are to replace this bulb with a florescent one with less voltage, we will get better lighting. What we should be concentrating on is the amount of output a certain bulb gives off. If this is the case, then we should be considering lumens and not watts in selecting our bulbs.

When lighting manufacturers are labeling their products, they are now in the habit of including the lumens to the packaging. Although it will have to take time to get accustomed to the habit, make it a priority to choose your bulbs in terms of the lumens they are producing. When you compare an eighteen watts florescent bulb to a sixty watt bulb, you will realize that they give off the same amount of lumens. The difference though is in the amount of lumens produced from each watt. The florescent bulb will give off more lumens per watt. This can be used to gauge the efficiency of each bulb. A compact bulb will require three times less the watts needed to give off the same lumens as an incandescent bulb.

Just because the compact florescent bulbs use less watts does not make them energy saving. The only thing that the bulbs do is reduce your light output. For you to purchase energy savers, you should choose the bulb with the lumens you require while the watts are lower.

The number of lumens will only be beneficial in determination of light a bulb can produce. The quality is a whole new topic. The major determinant of the quality of light a bulb gives off is its color. All artificial light is measured in comparison with the natural light. The quality of light given off by a bulb can make the color of something look different from its original one.

If you want to determine how good the lighting is, you can look at its color rendering index. This index will measure the quality of light produced in relation to natural one. The natural light is measured at one hundred. The bigger the index the better the quality of light produced.