Do you find that your home’s indoor air is extremely dry? Are you frustrated by dry skin and sore throats during the winter time? Do you need something a bit more comprehensive than the small humidifiers that you can buy at the local hardware store? If you own a central air unit/furnace combo or a heat pump, then you also have a network of ducts installed in your home. A whole house humidifier may be just what you need to ensure that your air is optimized when it comes to the humidity level. Dry air can disrupt your comfort and aggravate health issues.

Diverse and impressive changes have been taking place in the lighting world this month. Read on to discover the fun and innovation!

In Lighting News…

Across the web, there was a consensus that LED holiday lights were the thing to have for the holidays. Not only are they energy-efficient, long lasting, and durable, they can also be interactive. We’ve seen families across the country creating Image via USA.Lighting.Philips.com

Other Cool Stuff…

In the last days of November, New York City residents were surprised by a light show atop the Empire State Building, synchronized to Alicia Keys’ “Empire State Of Mind.” The building’s new LED lighting system has over 16.7 million color possibilities, compared to the old system, which had only 10.

You probably know the iconic Pixar lamp – we usually see it hopping around before our movies start. Well, three students from Victoria University of Wellington have created a real-life replica of Luxo Jr., called Pinokio. With six servo motors, a webcam, some Arduino, and a bit of processing, the lamp came to life. Check out this video:

How about you? Any big lighting changes in your life this month? Please share!

Prefabs provide on-site, off-site and other hidden advantages. For instance, faster installation at the job site reduces the project duration. Prefabs have the potential of cutting the installation time by almost a half. In addition, the project will require fewer workers in the field resulting in a big reduction in labor costs and improved profitability.

There’s also a significant savings on labor, which can be very expensive and in short supply. The prefabrication process is considered more of a manufacturing function so the contractor is able to achieve success with fewer workers. The workshop can make use of semi-skilled workers and apprentices, unlike a construction site where an electrician is required to perform the installation.

Fewer materials and less activity at a job site mean that the project is completed faster with a reduced opportunity for accidents and delays. In addition, by delivering all the individual components to the workshop for assembly, the level of material handling is narrowed. This equates to an easy-to-manage supply chain. Fewer materials reduce clutter, waste disposal, and the need for extra storage space.

The workshop provides the best environment for producing the assembly fast without the interruptions that might be found at a construction job site. Further, the production of prefabs is not affected as much by delays from other trades, bad weather, and other construction project hold-ups.

Electricians spend less time working at dangerous heights and precarious positions, hence reducing safety risks. Prefabs allow contractors to reduce the need for as many licensed electricians on the job site. This can result in greater productivity and profitability.

Increased competition and high labor costs have caused declining profits for many electrical contractors. However, with the use of prefabs, profitability can be improved by reducing the labor and time spent at the construction site. Additionally, fabricating electrical assemblies in a workshop makes it easier to stay on budget and hit your project timelines.

CCT indicates the hue and tone of white light emitted from a specific bulb or fixture. It’s measured in Kelvins (K), which is similar to degrees in Celsius. Different temperatures on the Kelvin scale represent different colors. For example, light at 2000K-3500K looks more orange/yellow and is called ultra warm or warm white, and as temperature increases in Kelvins, color changes to more of a “paper white” known as natural or neutral white (between 3500K and 5100K) and finally into a bluish-white known as cool white (5100K+).

As a light source’s color temperature increases, brightness often increases. While shopping for LED lights, pay close attention to the color temperatures that are available for any one bulb or fixture. Choosing a warm white bulb with a color temperature around 3000K might mean sacrificing some brightness. Whereas, if you choose the natural white version, it’s likely that it will have a higher output.

Any room can benefit from light strip, globe bulb,

In order to understand nanometers, you must first understand the electromagnetic spectrum and wavelengths. The electromagnetic spectrum is the entire range of invisible and visible light, and a wavelength is the distance between peaks of light waves. Wavelengths are measured in nanometers, which are simply units of length that indicate colors of light within the spectrum. Nanometers will tell you how red, green, yellow, purple, etc. a light source really is. These measurements start lower at ultraviolet and increase from green to blue, yellow, orange, and then red. The wavelength of a colored light can be found in the light’s specifications table.

MR16 beam angle in degrees (left to right): 36, 24, 15

Fixtures or bulbs that emit wide beams, such as BR LED bulbs for can lights are great for areas that require a lot of light, such as basements, kitchens, or living rooms. Narrow beam angles like those from can lights with MR LED bulbs are best for highlighting decor or small areas. Globe bulbs, such as G30 LED vanity bulbs, have 360-degree beam angles, which means that they throw light in all directions. Globe bulbs are the perfect choice for centralized light fixtures.

There are many reasons and advantages of LED street lights over HPS, Metal Halide, and any other HID light used in the street lighting industry. These advantages of LED street range from cost savings, higher quality of light, and overall better efficiency.

LED is quickly becoming the “go to” light for all uses; residential, commercial, and industrial. From fully replacing and retrofitting LED is seriously becoming the majority within the world of lighting. The following list is going to cover 4 major advantages of LED street lights over HPS and Metal Halide, hopefully it shines some light on the true benefits of LED for even Metal Halide, you get results that show LEDs actually really do pay for themselves. If you use your lights often, making the switch to LED street lights may even pay themselves off within a few years.

If you’d like to see how much you could save, check out the diminishes over time. This is a highly important thing to note because with greater lumen depreciation comes added costs of maintenance.

Lighting fixtures such as HPS and Metal Halide have lumen depreciation that happens much earlier in their life and much quicker throughout the bulbs life. Whereas an LED takes a longer time to start depleting in it’s lumen output and much slower lumen depreciation than HPS and Metal Halide does.

While not all LED suppliers and manufacturers, MyLEDLightinGuide.com offers LED fixtures and retrofit kits that can produce at a very high MyLEDLightingGuide retrofit kits can run as high as 151 lumens per watt. While the typical retrofit kits on the marketplace (on average) run at only around 110 lumens per watt.

This is just a prime example of how powerful lumens per watt can be. The more lumens per watt you get, the less watts you will need to produce the same amount of light.

So, let’s compare the “average” retrofit kits compared to a Metal Halide light. Remember, the “average” retrofit kits run at around 110 lumens per watt. Compare that to a Metal Halide light that runs around (on average) 90 lumens per watt.

So just by these numbers we can start to see the power LED lights have and how they need less watts to produce the same amount of light that a HPS or Metal Halide light does.

In addition to #3 on this list, LEDs also provide a higher quality of light measure by the Color Rendering Index (CRI). Here’s two images that should do the talking:

Street Light Conversion From 400W Metal Halide to 120W LED using a LED Retrofit Kit (before)

As you can see after the 400W Metal Halide was replaced by the 120W LED fixture, the light produced is much brighter and illuminates a greater area. On top of that, it is using way less energy (400W down to 120W)!

Brighter and greater illumination can greatly increase safety and reduce crime by the simple fact of being able to see more throughout the night. Better illumination also creates safer roadways by not leaving any dark spots that may cause issues for drivers during night time driving.