When it comes to your landscape lighting needs and desire, does efficiency trump style? That is a personal question, and only one you can answer, but I will provide some statistics for you.

LED’s, or Light Emitting Diodes, generate a warmish white light that is cool to the touch, at 2800 Kelvin temperature. Using a 2,000 square foot home as the measurement, and 340 watt a day for 6 hours, @ 10.64 cents per kilowatt hour, LED’s come in at 80.2 watt per comparable system, a 75% savings!

With Standard lighting fixtures averaging $762.50 versus LED’s at $1412.50, you save money on the original purchase at the outset. But transformers for standard run $1,070.00 versus $647.50 for LED transformers. And the cost of lamps for standard: $1,560.00. For LED’s: $0.00. Nothing, Zip!

Electricity for standard” $1447.04 versus $341.33 for LED’s.  Now that’s what I call energy efficient lighting. Total savings for using LED’s : $2,401.33. That’s four times the cost differential on the original purchase. Plus, it is better for the environment, and you get about 40,000 hours of use on the system before the LED’s fade away. That’s over 18 years! You could give birth to a child, and send them to college in that time frame before you have to think about changing your landscape lighting.

So what’s the downside? Style selection, no doubt. There is just a heck of a lot more outside landscape lighting fixtures on the market, in a plethora of styles like traditional, transitional, gothic, Victorian, Mediterranean, etc. So if you have an older, more traditional home, you probably don’t want modern LED light systems as part of your décor.

Of course, when the electric bill comes, you may sing a different tune. As I said upfront, it is a personal decision.