Living Green

Meredith at the Fun Times Guide to Brentwood, TN has got her story and the basics of LED Christmas lighting, so be sure to check out her post before you delve into this slightly more in-depth look at those new-fangled LED light strings.

4 Things You Should Know Before Buying:

White Doesn't Mean White
If you run out and purchase 20 strands of white LED Christmas lights, lovingly arrange them on your gutters, bushes, etc, take a step back and have someone plug them in, you're likely in for a surprise.

As you can see in the above picture, they're not the same color as those incandescent white mini-lights you're used to. As a matter of fact, they have an almost eerie glow to them in my opinion. You must be sure to buy WARM or SOFT white LED strings.

• Be sure to note, unfortunately, that strings of warm or soft LED lights are nearly twice as much as the regular cool or "pure" white LED's. Supply and demand I guess...damn capitalism.

Rest Easy with No Risk of Fire
As opposed to traditional strings of Christmas lights, LED's are cool to the touch. If you're going green this holiday season by bringing a live tree into your home, that means that LED lights will propose NO risk of fire.

As an added bonus, the lack of heat from those Christmas lights will keep your tree from drying out, requiring less water and longer life of the tree.

LED Christmas Lights Save ALOT of Energy
According to fun-led-light.com, the average incandescent mini-light uses 5 watts per bulb. An entire string of LED mini-lights uses around 4 watts...yeah, I said the entire string! Do the math on that one.

Prepare to Pay
LED Christmas lights are much, much, much more expensive than traditional Christmas lights. As Meredith said in her post, a strand of 50-60 white LED mini-lights will cost you around $10.

Almost that same price will get ya 400 incandescent mini-lights. Yeah, they save energy, but at that price, you're not likely to save enough energy to break even on cost...not in one season at least.

Pick up your warm/soft LED Christmas lights from Inirgee.com or HolidayLED's.com. You could also grab some from EnvironmentalLights.com and take advantage of a discount with the purchase of multiple strings.