Journal
The question of LED vs Halogen in bespoke kitchens is one which often crops up during the design process. Choosing lighting was once a relatively simple task. Now it’s a minefield.
My name is Andrew Petherick. During the day I am Director of Business Development at Guild Anderson. For the rest of my time I am Director of Turning the Lights Off at Bridge Farm in Somerset.
My family, the teams we work together with, and the families we design bespoke kitchens and domestic spaces for (mainly in Wiltshire, Somerset, Hampshire and Dorset), are all collectively fighting on multiple financial fronts in these unpredictable times. Knee deep in children, dogs, horses and the inevitable bills which come with them, we all have a dizzying array of financial challenges to keep us on our toes.
Many of the bespoke kitchens we have designed for clients run an Everhot or Aga range oven. Some run Sub Zero fridges and Wolf ovens. A small selection run both. All of our kitchens however run lights, and some (myself included), are still crossing the threshold between LEDs and halogen (we will cover the degree courses now required to choose the correct light bulb in a future article).
If the newspapers, markets and Britain’s current political armageddon are to be believed, powering any kitchen appliance over the following winter is going to cost us all dearly. And given our company’s focus is to help modern families live harmoniously in period country houses, we thought it might be prudent to look into the most used kitchen appliance of all, lighting. In particular I wanted to know how much money is actually saved by swapping over permanently to more expensive LEDs entirely and whether the energy I generate walking around the house turning my children’s lights off is actually worth my time.
So, if the question is LED vs Halogen in bespoke kitchens, what’s the answer? The figures are really quite compelling.
Light Bulb Type | 5w LED Spotlight | 50w Halogen Spotlight |
Light Bulb’s Projected Lifespan (Hours) | 25,000 | 2,000 |
Cost Per Bulb | £9.99 | £1.50 |
kWh of Electricity Used Over 40,000 Hours | 125 | 1,250 |
Cost of Electricity (@ £0.15 kWh) | £18.75 | £187.50 |
Bulbs Needed to Last 40,000 Hours | 1.6 | 20 |
Bulb Expense to Last 40,000 Hours | £15.98 | £30.00 |
Total Cost for Buying and Running the Kitchen Bulb | £34.73 | £217.50 |
The long and the short of it shows you will save around £180 for every kitchen halogen bulb you swap over to an LED over the 40,000 hours predicted lifespan of that LED. There are 8,700 hours in a year, so if your kitchen lights are on for half of that, then in general this is a saving of around £180 per light over 10 years or so (£18 per year). With the average Guild Anderson kitchen sporting 20–30 lights, our clients would save £540 a year, just from having LED kitchen lighting and not halogen.
Transferring this to my youngest daughter’s bedroom, who has five lights, this represents a saving of between £50-90 per annum depending on how long it takes me to turn her lights off. This is not far off how much pocket money she gets.
This isn’t the only saving though. Of far greater impact is the massive reduction in energy required to power LEDs in the first place, which is around 1/10th of the power needed to power a halogen bulb. And therein lies another huge topic for another article.
If we all swapped over we’d be richer, and our planet would be relieved, partly, of one of the monkeys on its back. I’m off to the shops (once I’ve got my degree in choosing light bulbs).
If you are interested in discussing your bespoke kitchen design, please contact our team at
design@guildanderson.co.uk or call us on 01747 820449
