Use this LED savings calculator to figure out how much money you can save by installing LED house lights to replace incandescent lights.

The calculator assumes an average incandescent bulb lifetime of 1,000 hours and an average LED house light lifetime of 50,000 hours. You can change this if you wish based on the advertised lifetime hours of either the original or replacement bulb, or both.

Remember, there may be better uses for your money than buying energy-saving LEDs, if the high cost of the LED lights doesn’t justify the amount of money saved on electricity. In general, an LED used less than two hours a day is probabliy not your best energy saving investment.

For compact fluorescent (CFL) lights, see my CFL savings calculator.

I’ve assumed an electricity cost of $0.23 per kilowatt hour based on the average electricity cost across the US.

Your electricity cost, in $/kwh
Wattage of incandescent bulb being replaced
Wattage of LED to replace the incandescent
Cost per incandescent bulb (for when bulb burns out)
Cost per LED replacement bulb
Incandescent bulb life (hours)
LED bulb life (hours)
Number of bulbs of this type being replaced
Number of hours/day light is in use
Savings per year
Payback in years

 

One of the conclusions you can draw after using this LED savings calculator is that an LED light purchase really only makes sense where the light being replaced has a substantially higher wattage and is left on several hours a day, unless of course you find a cheap and high quality source of LED house lights.

For example if you are replacing a CFL with an LED and the light is only used a few hours a week, you might as well let the CFL keep working until it dies, and only replace it then, rather than imagine you'll save money right away by switching to an LED.

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