An Amazingly Simple Guide to Deciding if LED is right for you.

Deciding whether or not to use LED lamps in your Landscape Lighting system is actually quite simple.

If you are installing new Landscape Lights, including the purchase of new Transformers, then the choice is easy. You should almost certainly use LED bulbs and LED Landscape Lighting Fixtures. While the cost of the LED bulbs is higher than the cost of conventional Halogen bulbs, they draw considerably less wattage, which allows you to purchase lower wattage (and lower cost) transformers. The savings in transformer costs will offset the increased cost of the LED lamps, and usually works out about the same price as using halogen bulbs along with higher priced transformers. So for the same initial cost you get the improved performance life of LED lamps, which typically have a 40,000 to 50,000 hour life. Most conventional Halogen bulbs only have a 2000 hour life span. Also, LED lamps drawing 3 to 5 watts save in up to 80% in energy costs over halogen bulbs drawing 10 to 75 watts.

If you want to add more fixtures to your existing Landscape Lighting system and have reached the maximum capacity of your landscape lighting transformer, then LED lamps are a great solution. If, for example, you currently have (8) 35 watt fixtures, for a total of 270 watts on an existing 300 watt transformer, you cannot add any more fixtures without lowering the bulb wattage. Changing your existing fixtures to 3 watt LED bulbs will now give you a total of only 24 watts of load. You could easily add many additional fixtures with LED lamps, and utilize your existing transformer.

If you have fixtures in locations that are difficult to access, then changing bulbs can be a real chore. Using LED bulbs with their 40,000 to 50,000 hour life span will virtually eliminate service calls to the fixture due to lamp failure.

If you want to lower your energy usage, then LED lamps will use up to 80% less energy to operate. However, they currently have a relatively high price compared to Halogen bulbs (as of 2010), which means that you will not realize an overall savings for many years. As the cost of LED bulbs comes down this will be a much more attractive option.