LED vs Incandescent Christmas Lights

I'm sure you've seen the new Christmas lights for sale in retail and hardware stores in the past few years. Sure, they might be expensive and you've wondered who on earth would be buying them when they could pick up the same strand of lights with incandescent bulbs for much less. Well, there are several reasons to get rid of your older incandescent Christmas lights and replace them with LEDs.

LEDs last much longer than incandescent bulbs, allowing you to use them year after year. They're also very damage resistant and don't break when dropped or stepped on like glass incandescents do. LEDs are coated in plastic rather than glass, so there's no danger of being cut by them or electrocuting yourself because of a broken bulb.

Incandescent Christmas lights can generate quite a bit of heat. In fact, nearly all of the energy they consume is wasted as heat, rather than light. Higher wattage bulbs can be a hazard to small children who might touch them and burn themselves. LEDs consume 90% of the energy that incandescents do to create the same amount of light. Thus they run cooler and save energy which means you'll be paying a little less to decorate the tree or your yard every year.

With any electrical product, there is always a risk of fire. Incandescent Christmas lights are more likely to cause a fire, especially with a live Christmas tree. The heat generated by incandescent bulbs can dry out a live tree, and a dry pine tree can go up in flames in no time. Incandescent bulbs, as mentioned earlier, consume and waste a lot of energy. When consumers make the mistake of plugging in too many strands of lights together, if the circuit breaker doesn't trip and deactivate the circuit, the bulbs can draw so much current and cause an electrical fire. LEDs, as mentioned previously, consume very little energy in comparison. As such, there is minimal risk for them causing an electrical fire.

Yes, I know LEDs are more expensive compared to traditional Christmas lights. However, isn't it worth it to reduce your energy consumption, the risk of fire and not have to replace your lights every couple years? In order to sweeten the case, I point out that some hardware stores offer to recycle your broken or used incandescent light strands and give you a discount on new LED Christmas lights. Sounds like a sweet deal to me!