Watts Or Lumens With Home Lighting?

Thomas Edison’s electric light bulb, that is, the incandescent light bulb, has been in existence for over one hundred years. In fact, the availability of electric light changed how residences and various other locations were illuminated in the United States and other parts of the world.

However, the measurement of how brightly the light bulb illuminated tended to be represented on light bulb package labeling in the United States in watts. This labeling practice is changing.

In 2011, the new labeling will state how bright the light bulb will shine when lit in units called lumens instead of watts, as recently disclosed by The Federal Trade Commission of the United States. Watts measure energy usage, and lumens measure brightness.

In the past, with incandescent light bulbs, watts tended to give an indication to consumers of how bright a light bulb would shine. The higher the wattage, the brighter the bulb would illuminate.

Modern day energy efficient light bulbs provide more lumens while using less energy. This fact is exemplified by a typical 60 watt incandescent light bulb that provides 840 lumens. By comparison, an energy efficient compact fluorescent bulb that provides 60 more lumens than the typical aforementioned incandescent light bulb, that is, 900 lumens, consumes 47 fewer watts, or 13 watts.

Wattage consumption is reduced with the energy efficient compact fluorescent while brightness is increased when compared to the 60 watt incandescent light bulb. Clearly, using watts as a measurement of how brightly a light bulb will shine may no longer be an accurate measure. Using lumens as the unit of measurement to represent bulb brightness when illuminated is a better indicator.

Before energy efficient light was available, shoppers used to consider the wattage of the bulb, among possibly other light bulb qualities. It is true that watts is a term commonly known among consumers in the Untied States, and less well known is the term lumens, although with the upcoming changes to label packaging, lumens is destined to also become a familiar household term.

Evolving are the options for home lighting, as time progresses and technologies advance. As a consequence, the need to provide more accurate labeling of light bulbs has arisen to reflect a more accurate representation of light bulb brightness as well as marketplace changes.

Ben Smith enjoys writing about lights for the home. He contributes informative articles about home garden lighting and other types of home lighting to relevant websites.