All About Recessed Lighting – The LED Miracle

The LED Miracle

All About  Recessed Lighting – The LED Miracle is about the new leader in residential lighting, the LED Retrofit. The war to determine the lightbulb of the future has been won by the Light Emitting Diode, or LED. The LED was made to look like a 1970’s style recessed light baffle and incandescent light bulb combination.  It has become the new favorite light source for recessed lighting.  The irony is, the LED Retrofit is a twenty first century light made to look like 1970’s recessed lighting can light.  Apparently,  we like this new LED technology as long as they look like the original recessed lights with an incandescent flood lamp and baffle.

LED’s which resemble Incandescent bulbs.

Two views of a 6″ LED Retrofit Baffle Trim.

Compact Florescent Lamps

Just a few years ago however, it appeared as if the cork screw looking, compact florescent lamp, or CFL’s, would be crowned the environmentally friendly, lightbulb of the future. But the CFL’s had some serious flaws, like they were filled with deadly mercury, and were incurably ugly. But the killer for CFL’s was that most were not dimmable, or poorly dimmable at best.  Plus those rumors of causing headaches were always an issue for CFL’s.  Plus the thought of breaking a Compact Florescent Light and having to contract a bio-hazard clean-up professional to remove the mercury, was apparently too much for American homeowners to deal with. So sales for CFL’s have plummeted in recent years.

Compact Florescent Bulbs couldn’t have been  more ugly.  The one on the right is covered in glass like a type A bulb.

LED Lighting Advantages

In the mean time LED lighting has experienced ballistic growth rates in consumer popularity.  But even LED’s have had issues to overcome, such as difficulty diming from full light to softer mood lighting.  At first the LED Industry made non-dimming light bulb looking devices that screw into the socket just like the old type “A” light bulb (see photo).  Unfortunately there simply wasn’t enough space inside the bulb shape look, to include an electrical circuit that would allow LED’s to dim like and incandescent light.  To resolve the dimming problem, the LED Retrofit Baffle Trim was designed so that recessed lights could be updated with LED lights but maintain that 1970’s look.  The extra space provided inside a recessed light canister allowed enough extra space to include a circuit to dim LED lights. It also allowed for better heat sinks to cool the transformer that converts the 120volt AC house current into 12 volt direct current to power the LED light.

LED Energy Efficiency

Invest $24 in a LED Retrofit and save  $23.04  per year  in electricity and bulb replacement costs.

The other qualities of LED lighting such as the lowest energy consumption and longest life expectancy of any other light source available helped solidify the LED as the most economical light available.  Halo, the originator of recessed lighting in the early 1970’s  claims that by replacing a single 65 watt incandescent flood lamp in your recessed light with their LED Retrofit, consumers can save $430 in electricity and $77 in replacement lamp costs over the 22 year expected lifetime of their LED Retrofit Trims.  So economically speaking, purchasing one Halo LED Retrofit for $24 saves $507 over 22 years. That means each and every year the consumer saves $23.04 on a $24 investment, that equates to a compounded annual interest rate of almost 15% per year.

No other kind of lighting can be considered an investment with a 15% compounded annual return over the life time expectancy of the LED Retrofit.

Right Off The HALO LED Retrofit Trim Box

Compare to 65 watt BR30 (incandescent ) lamp

Over the life of the fixture , Energy Savings: $430

Replacement Lamp Savings: $77

Savings based on $0.155 per kilowatt hour and 6  hours average use per day and a 50,000 hours of lamp usage., 65w BR30 lumen equivalent.

*There are many great manufacturers of LED Retrofit Trims. I am not pushing Halo products.  I just happened to have their box  available  with their estimate on the savings right on the box.

 

 

Decorative Options For LED Retrofits

Since Beaux-Arts Classic Products was never a fan of the ugly looking and environmentally toxic  CFL corkscrew looking bulb, we have made it company policy to keep up with  every new size of LED Retrofit Baffle  Trims and all the changes in the lighting market, by making new sizes of it’s popular Victorian recessed light trim to fit with all the various sizes of LED Retrofit Trims.  Currently we make five different sizes of our Victorian trim to dress up the appearance of the new LED Retrofit Baffle Trims made especially for recessed lights.

LED Retrofit Energy Efficient Lighting

The  ENERGY INDEPENDENCE  AND SECURITY ACT of  2007  used performance standards to phase out incandescent lighting, by setting energy standards that  the lights that Thomas Edison  invented would never be able to achieve.  Recognizing these energy standards as unachievable, the lighting industry  in the United States, turned their lighting manufacturing capacity to greener more efficient sources of lighting such as the  Compact Florescent Light (CFL) and the Light Emitting Diode (LED).  Therefore incandescent light bulbs are increasingly difficult to find.

LR-LED-RETRO-131-1 Victorian Recessed Light Trim $30 is made to fit most LED Retrofit Baffle trims from various manufacturers of 3″ LED Retrofit Trims measuring 4-5/16″ OD or less.

Measure across the face of your LED Retrofit Trims, if the outside diameter of the  LED Trims is 4-5/16 inches or less then  the LR-131 will fit  with your LED Retrofit trims.

Dimensions for Victorian recessed light trim for 3″ LED Retrofits.

 

WAC HR-3 LED In copper finish

LR-LED-141-1 4″ Victorian Recessed Light Trim $30  with a 4″ LED Retrofit.  Made to fit most LED Retrofit Baffle trims from various manufacturers of 4″ LED Retrofit Trims.  Measuring 5″ OD or less.

Victorian Recessed Light Trim dimensions for 4″ LED Retrofits.

 

#LED-161 Victorian Recessed Light Trim $35 for a 5″ LED Retrofit.   Made to fit the Halo LED Retrofit Baffle trims measuring 7-1/4″ OD or less

 

 

Measure across the face of your LED Retrofit Trims, if the outside diameter of the  LED Trims is 7-1/4” inches or less then  the LR-161 will fit  with your LED Retrofit trims.

 

Victorian Recessed Light Trim for 5″ and 6″ Halo LED Retrofits.

 

#LED-161 Victorian Recessed Light Trim for Halo 5-6-inch Halo LED Retrofits.

LR-LED-601 Victorian Recessed Light Trim $40 for a 6″ LED Retrofit.  Made to fit most LED Retrofit Baffle trims from various manufacturers of 6″ LED Retrofit Trims measuring 7-1/2″ OD or less.

Measure across the face of your LED Retrofit Trims, if the outside diameter of the  LED Trims is 7-1/2” inches or less then  the LR-601 will fit  with your LED Retrofit trims.

The LR-601 Victorian Medallion is made to fit the classic 6” recessed light canister with LED Retrofit Baffle Trims 7-1/2” in diameter.

Commercial Electric T60 trims with white, nickel and bronze finish options for 6″ decorative trims.

LED-7.75 Victorian Recessed Light Trim $42.  Made to fit most LED Retrofit BaffleTrims from various manufacturers of 6″ LED Retrofit Baffles measuring 7-3/4″ OD or less.

Measure across the face of your LED Retrofit Trims, if the outside diameter of the  LED Trims is 7-3/4” inches or less then  the LR-7.75 will fit  with your LED Retrofit trims.

The LR-7.75 fits Progress 6″ recessed light canisters (Trim #P8079) with air-tite single piece baffles.  It also fits LED trims up to 7-3/4″ in diameter