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Home » Home & Garden » DIY Ideas » When LED Christmas Lights are NOT The Greenest Choice

When LED Christmas Lights are NOT The Greenest Choice

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LED-christmas-lights.jpg What’s the easiest way to make your Christmas decorations greener?

Most people would say, “That’s easy, use LED Christmas lights instead of normal mini lights.”

But then again, most people might actually be wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a HUGE fan of LED lights…but I still don’t have them on my house this year.

Why not?

 

Because I had 25 perfectly good strings of regular incandescent mini lights that still worked (which is about how many strings of lights are on my house right now). I think the better choice is to use what you have instead of send it to the landfill only to replace it with energy efficient LED lights.

 

Are LED Christmas Lights Worth The Cost?

Maybe… but maybe not.

In this DIY diffused party light project, we talked about how to find LED Christmas lights for around $10 per 100 light string, but if you need them from a big box store, you’re going to pay at least $15 if not $20+ for a string of 100 led lights.

If I were to replace all of my Christmas lights with LED lights, it would cost me over $400…and that’s IF I could find them for $15/string. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of cash laying around.

Thanks to this nifty Holiday Lighting Energy Calculator that came to me via Earth911, I can tell that my Christmas lights are costing me $.55 at 5 KWH per day, versus $.05 at .5 KWH per day if I were to switch to all LED lights.

 

How to Save TONS of Money and Energy with Incandescent Christmas Lights

One word: TIMERS.

You may notice that 5 KWH is still rather low for 25 strings of Christmas lights. That’s because I have them on this 6-outlet electro mechanical timer from Intermatic (which I’ve had for 6 years) which only lets them run from 5pm to 11pm every day.

You can buy timers for your indoor Christmas lighting as well. Not only does this regulate your energy use, but it can give the illusion that you’re home, even when you’re not… making the holidays a little bit safer this year.

What you want to keep in mind when planning timers for either outdoor or indoor lights is location. You want to try to get your lights to plug into the same area so you have to buy as few timers as possible.

Get creative, I’m sure you can think of all kinds of clever ways to hide those extension cords. I sure did!

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Jeffrey
Jeffrey

I think every little step toward living green is an awesome one… but eco-snobbery sucks! My goal is to help newbies learn the most important steps toward living green — individually and collectively. Personally, I strive to have as little impact as possible on Planet Earth while I'm here.

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Filed Under: DIY Ideas, Home & Garden Tagged With: Christmas, conservation, decorating, energy savings, incandescent light bulbs, LED, lighting

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JeffreyI think every little step toward living green is an awesome one... but eco-snobbery sucks! My goal is to help newbies learn the most important steps toward living green -- individually and collectively. Personally, I strive to have as little impact as possible on Planet Earth while I'm here.

Jeffrey: View My Blog Posts

JoshuaAs an advocate for good health, I usually try to choose the 'greener' option over other more dangerous and/or wasteful options. Generally, if it's bad for your health or the planet, I try to avoid it. In my effort to live green... on a budget, I like to find new (healthier) budget-friendly ways to do things -- from eating and cleaning to recycling and home decorating. My goal is to help you take the chore out of living green by sharing fun new ecofriendly ideas that you can try today... or any day! My all-time favorite way to live green is to repurpose items and give them a new use -- I've written a lot of useful DIY articles.

Joshua: View My Blog Posts

LynnetteMy experience with living green consists of taking baby steps (like making one big change each year as my New Year's resolution) -- because I've seen too many people burn out on trying to 'Save the Planet'. I share a lot of Simple Ways To Go Green, as I find new and successful strategies that have worked for me. While I'm baby-stepping my ecofriendly habits in life, you will find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).

Lynnette: View My Blog Posts

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