LED might be the lighting buzzword of the moment, but LEDs aren’t exactly new, you will find LEDs in the digital clock on your microwave, in your television remote control, in your alarm clock, they are, in fact, everywhere. What is new(ish) is the technology that allows LEDs to be used for domestic and garden lighting.
An LED is a light emitting diode, which is a solid state conductor, working on the attraction of opposites. Two materials are placed either side of a chemical, one of the materials is electron rich and the other is short of electrons; when power is supplied, the material that needs electrons takes them from the electron rich material, and then there was light! The composition of the chemical in between the two materials determines the colour of the light emitted.
LED lighting, and that includes LED garden lighting, beats other sources of artificial light hands down, and here’s why:
- LEDs do not contain mercury
- LEDs have an extremely long life (11 years at 12 hours per day)
- LEDs cost 80% less to run than other light sources
- LEDs are cool to the touch and, therefore, safer at low levels
- LEDs do not present a fire risk, because they are cool to the touch
- LEDs produce coloured light without the use of a filter
- LEDs produce directional light, it goes where you need it and nowhere else
What more evidence do you need, coloured lights with a long life that won’t burn little fingers and that don’t cost the earth or a fortune to run, LED garden lighting is the only sensible choice.