5 Tips for Buying LED Bulbs From a Lighting Professional

Make a smarter choice and improve the look of your home after dark with these guidelines from a lighting designer

David Warfel 1 March 2020

Houzz Contributor. Expert lighting design specialist.

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A flood of new LED products has made choosing a light bulb more confusing than ever. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Simply follow these five steps to select the right LED bulb for your needs and enjoy better light at home.

David K Warfel at LightCanHelpYou.com

1. Select your brightness
Most LED bulbs available to the consumer are labelled with an equivalent incandescent bulb wattage, such as ‘60-watt equivalent’. This can be quite helpful, as you simply need a higher or lower number for the wattage equivalent if you want more or less light. As a basic guide, a 60-watt-equivalent LED bulb should have about 800 lumens, which is a technical measurement of the amount of light leaving a bulb. Lumens can be a handy comparison but should not be the sole factor you consider.

London Bay Homes

It makes a big difference where you put a light bulb, and that impacts brightness or lumen choice as well. In this airy living room built by London Bay Homes, low-lumen bulbs in the chandelier keep glare to a minimum, while higher-lumen bulbs in the ceiling downlights push light where it’s needed.

TR Design-Build Firm

If a lamp is needed for soft ambiance at night, such as the table lamp in this pool house bedroom by TR Design-Build Firm, choose a lower-lumen bulb. Too many lumens in a small fixture can be uncomfortable to the eye, so save the high-brightness bulbs for large fixtures and recessed downlights.

Need expert help choosing light fittings and bulbs? Find a lighting designer and supplier near you on Houzz to find the perfect combination for your home

David K Warfel at LightCanHelpYou.com

2. Choose your colour temperature
A bulb’s lighting facts will use the term ‘colour appearance’, which is another term for a light bulb’s ‘colour temperature’. This helpful metric is measured in degrees Kelvin, with lower colour temperatures being warmer, or amber-toned, and higher colour temperatures being cooler, or blue-toned.

Living Edge

I recommend colour temperatures based on two factors: the colours of the space and the time of day the lighting will be most used. Homes with natural warm timbers, stained flooring and wood furnishings look best with bulbs that have a colour temperature of 2,700 degrees Kelvin (warm light).

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houseology

A crisp-white colour palette and light-coloured furnishings will keep spaces looking cool and bright. In those rooms, 4,000 degrees Kelvin may look good in the daytime but can negatively affect sleep patterns if used after dark. I lean toward 3,000 degrees Kelvin, a slightly more neutral white, for this family of colours.

David K Warfel at LightCanHelpYou.com

3. Check the facts
Understanding the label that’s present on most LED bulbs, which specifically details these lighting facts, is similar to understanding nutrition labels or medication facts. It may not be much fun to decode these facts, but a little knowledge can guide you to a better choice.

PURE Design Inc.

Typical LED bulbs will state 13.7 years of life, based on three hours of use per day, while a few will list 22 years or more. Longer-life bulbs can be replaced less often, saving you money in the long-term. Expect to pay a little more upfront for longer-life or specialty bulbs.

Tip: Before purchasing light bulbs, check your light fittings and lamps to find out which type of bulbs are recommended.

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David K Warfel at LightCanHelpYou.com

4. Think like a designer
Designers go beyond the lighting facts label and look at colour rendering, dimmability and direction of output, each of which can have a major impact on the quality of light in your home.

Arevco Lighting

Colour rendering, or CRI, is a metric that helps reveal how true, or realistic, colours will appear when lit by the bulb. Bulbs that list a high CRI, 90 and above, will be the best of the bunch and reveal the beauty of your furnishings, flooring and finishes better than the average LED bulb. Homes with subtle variations in colour and mixtures of natural materials will look best with bulbs that have a CRI of 95 or above.

Direction is not listed on the label, though many manufacturers put tags on the packaging that read ‘omni-directional’. Check the shape of your lamp or light fitting; if it has a solid section for heat sink or electronics, the bulb will push more light in one direction.

The Designory

‘Warm dim’ and ‘warm glow’ are a few of the names given to bulbs that shift colour temperature when dimmed to mimic incandescent bulbs. This means the bulb can change from 2,700 to 1,800 degrees Kelvin, giving your home a pleasant candlelit-style glow that is perfect after dinner and in the evening.

Tip: If your light fitting or lamp has an internal colour like these copper pendants, this will likely affect the colour temperature of light cast throughout your room.

David K Warfel at LightCanHelpYou.com

5. Trust your vision
Your eyes are unique, your home is unique and your brain is unique, and with all the LED bulbs on the market, it should be no surprise that personal tastes differ. Once you have completed the steps above, buy a bulb, put it in your lamp or light fitting and see how it looks. If it does not look good to you, if it throws more light on your ceiling than on your book or if it buzzes in a distracting way, return it to the store and try something else.

Your turn
Do you have any tips for choosing the perfect light bulb? Share them in the Comments below, like this story, save the images, and join the conversation.

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