LED vs. Incandescent: What the Numbers Say
The LED upgrade is the most boring home-energy win there is — which is exactly why it's worth stating plainly, with math instead of marketing. A 60W-equivalent LED uses about 8W. Multiply that across a house's worth of bulbs and years, and the numbers stop being boring.
The per-bulb math
Take one bulb running 1,000 hours a year (a few hours every day) at a US-average rate of ~17¢/kWh:
| Bulb type | Watts | kWh/year | Cost/year | Rated life |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Incandescent 60W | 60W | 60 kWh | ~$10.20 | ~1,000 h |
| LED 60W-equivalent | 8W | 8 kWh | ~$1.36 | 10,000–25,000 h |
That's roughly $8.80 saved per bulb per year, plus never carrying a step ladder for a decade. A five-bulb living-room swap moves about 260W off your instantaneous load — at 5 hours an evening, that's over 1.3 kWh a night, which you can watch disappear from your own bill and, in aggregate, from the grid loads we visualize live on the map.
Our pick
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Philips LED A19 60W-equivalent, Ultra Definition (4-pack)
8W, 800 lumens, 2700K warm white, dimmable, flicker-free. Philips' EyeComfort line is the safe default for main living spaces — colour rendering and dimming behaviour are the two things cheap bulbs get wrong.
- Best for: replacing 60W bulbs in high-use fixtures first
- Check before buying: dimmer compatibility with your switch
Amazon prices shown at publish time; check the product page for the current price.
The strategy that actually pays
- Replace the highest-use bulbs first — kitchen, living room, exterior fixtures that burn all evening.
- Leave rarely-used bulbs until they die — a closet light at 2 hours a year isn't worth the effort.
- Check dimmers — most modern LEDs dim fine, but older dimmers may flicker; check the bulb's "dimmable" marking and your dimmer's LED rating.
- Mind the lumens, not the watts — buy by brightness (800 lm ≈ old 60W), not by the wattage equivalence printed on the box.
The grid-scale view
Lighting once accounted for a double-digit share of US residential electricity; the LED transition is a big part of why that share keeps shrinking. Every swapped bulb is a few watts off your home's draw — invisible alone, meaningful multiplied by millions of homes across the two grids we monitor.
LED mistakes that give LEDs a bad name
- Matching color temperature to the room. A 5000 K daylight bulb in a bedroom feels clinical. 2700 K warm for living spaces, 4000 K for work areas — mixing them randomly is what makes a renovation look cheap.
- Putting non-dimmable bulbs on dimmers. Buzzing, flickering, early death. Check the bulb (and the dimmer) before the switch.
- Comparing lumens to watts. The lumens number is the brightness; the watts is the cost. A "60W equivalent" LED should say ≈800 lumens on the box.
- Sealed fixtures. Some LED drivers overheat in fully enclosed fixtures and fail in months. Look for "enclosed fixture rated" if yours are sealed.
What a room costs per year (3 h/day)
| Room's bulbs | ≈8¢/kWh (QC) | ≈17¢/kWh (US avg) |
|---|---|---|
| 5 × 60 W incandescent | ≈$26 | ≈$56 |
| 5 × 9 W LED (equivalent) | ≈$4 | ≈$8 |
| Saved per room, per year | ≈$22 | ≈$48 |
A five-room home is roughly $110–240 a year for under $60 of bulbs — the rare upgrade that pays back in months.
The honest Québec caveat: in a home heated by electricity, an incandescent bulb's "waste" heat isn't entirely wasted in winter — it slightly reduces baseboard runtime. That's a real effect, but it's small: the bulb's heat is the most expensive and least controllable heat in the house, and it doesn't help you at all in the summer you're paying to remove it. The LED switch is still correct; the math is just slightly less dramatic in winter-heated Québec than the table suggests.
How much electricity does an LED bulb save?
A 60W-equivalent LED uses about 8W — 87% less than the 60W incandescent it replaces. Over a bulb's yearly use (say 1,000 hours), that's 60 kWh vs 8 kWh: roughly $10.20 vs $1.40 per bulb-year at a 17¢/kWh rate.
Do LEDs really last longer than incandescent?
Yes — dramatically. Typical LED bulbs are rated for 10,000 to 25,000 hours, versus about 1,000 hours for an incandescent. You replace an LED every 10–25 years of normal use, not every year.
Is it worth replacing bulbs that still work?
Usually, for high-use fixtures only: kitchen, living room, porch and hall lights that burn several hours daily pay for themselves in months. Bulbs in a closet or basement used minutes a month can wait until they fail.