Deal Seeking Mom

Shopping for LED Light Bulbs + Win a $50 The Home Depot GC!

by


I asked you all last week what your favorite benefit of LED light bulbs is, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that the longevity of them came in first. But the facts that they’re mercury-free, glass-free, don’t give off heat, and use far less electricity were all mentioned repeatedly as well. And check out those savings pictured above!

These were all benefits that I was also excited about, so I was really looking forward to shopping at The Home Depot to check out the selection and learn more from an expert. They provided me with some tips to review before we went shopping.

Shopping for LED light bulbs:

  • Identify Your Fixture Type: With so many bulbs to choose from, it’s important to educate yourself about your fixture and lighting needs before you make a purchase. Light fixtures can dramatically alter the look of a room, so be aware of where shadows will fall and how that will affect the atmosphere. To ensure safety, and the maximum life of your bulb, review the information on the package to be sure you have selected the correct bulb shape for your light fixture.
  • Choose Your Desired Brightness: Watts, a measurement of power, is a common way traditional light bulbs are identified (ex: 60-watt, 75-watt and 100-watt bulbs). Since CFL and LED bulbs use less energy than traditional bulbs, be sure to look at the measurement of light output, known as lumens, instead of watts to select the right bulb.
  • Understanding Color Temperature and Intensity: When selecting an LED light, choose a color of light that suits the mood and activity taking place in your room.

With these tips in mind, we made a quick tour of our downstairs fixtures to assess our lighting needs and then headed out to The Home Depot. Upon our arrival we first had to grab one of the infamous Home Depot race car carts of course…

And then we were met by EJ, our local Home Depot Master Trade Specialist. He was extremely knowledgeable about the LED light bulbs and also shared a number of other tips for decreasing the energy consumption in our home. I never knew there was such a thing as a water heater timer! Definitely something we need to check out further.

I was impressed at the large selection of light bulbs carried by our local store. We have a few fixtures that call for some unusual sized bulbs, but The Home Depot has an even larger selection of LED light bulbs online.

EJ made finding the LED light bulbs we needed a snap, and we filled our cart and checked out in record time. The real challenge was prying the kiddos our of their hot rod to head home.

Next week I’ll share the installation process and hopefully whether we’ve been able to see any savings on our electric bill. But in the meantime, you can win a $50 gift card to The Home Depot!

To enter: Just leave a comment! Do you have any lighting fixtures that call for an unusual size light bulb or wattage? If so, were you able to find a suitable LED light bulb on HomeDepot.com?

This giveaway will close at noon EST on 1/21/11.

The Home Depot works with bloggers such as myself to conduct product reviews. They do not tell bloggers what to say about their products or how to say it. THD fundamentally believes that people should be free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. The Home Depot often provides product – free of charge – to bloggers for review as they did for this post. The Home Depot’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Connie

    l have changed out all my Christmas lights. Now I am working on the lights in the rest of the house. I am going to Home Depot on Saturday. Excited to see what I will find for light bulbs.

  2. Rikki Monfort

    We are also moving slowly at getting them all changed out, no problems yet getting any sizes.

  4. Steph

    We don’t have any problems with sizes, but we have recently changed most of the lightbulbs in our house!

  5. Laura Shepherd

    We have had some odd sized bulbs, but thankfully we’ve found all we needed at Home Depot.

  7. Taryn

    I have big, bright bulbs in my bathroom and round, receded lights in the kitchen. Home Depot has them all!

  9. PS

    Our goal this spring is to add some outdoor lighting. Since we’ll be starting with new fixtures, it shouldn’t be hard to find the bulbs.

  10. Melody

    Thank you-thank you for posting this info about LED’s. I have not been able to convince my hubby to switch over to CFL’s because of the mercury. Until today I have not read much about LED’s and our local Home Depot has a very small selection. I never thought of talking to them or looking online. Changing all our lightbulbs over is our green project now for the year. Thanks for the info.

  13. Rebecca

    Nope. We have all standard light fixtures. Hope we win! We’ve got a real fixer upper house. Old but we love it.

  16. Kirsten

    There aren’t any unusual size bulbs in my house. We use LEDs in a lot of our lighting, but not all. I need to try some out in the craft room, what we have is way to bright for me to work.

  17. Will

    It is amazing how these work, my wife and I love them, we put them in our sunroom and they are really great

  18. MB

    Totally need these! I learned about LEDs and how they are definitely goin to be making an appearance in our home, they are great at throwing light and inexpensive!

  19. Misty

    Nope, no unusual sizes in our home. We are able to find all the LED lights we need quickly and easily at Home Depot!

  20. Kristy OT

    The lights in our house are almost entirely lamps, so standard size bulbs work just fine for us. I’d sure love to fill them up with LEDs!

  25. Maggie

    Haven’t tried them yet, would love to get the GC to switch and see some savings in our energy bill. Our bulbs are regular size, so hopefully won’t have problems searching for them at Home Depot

  28. Lindsay

    We don’t really have anything unusually sized, but we do have a lot of recessed lighting in the house. They have the bulbs we use!

  29. Kim R.

    We just bought one to try out in the basement. Love them! So nice that they don’t get hot. I wish the price was lower, but we’ll buy a few at a time.

  30. Linda C.

    I don’t have any unusual sized bulbs, but we do use CFL bulbs throughout the house and would be interested in trying the LED’s in our floodlamps.