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They’ve been around for a long while now, so we’re all pretty familiar with downlights.  Whether you’ve had them in your home, seen them when you’ve been out shopping, or perhaps in a bar or a club, you’ll be aware of how popular they’ve been in the last twenty or so years.

The downlights you’re used to are probably the halogen fittings that have been traditionally found fitted into suspended or ‘drop’ ceilings, however, there are certain inherent problems with this type, and they’ve attracted a lot of criticism from lighting designers and from those concerned about the environment alike.

One of the main problems is that traditional halogen downlights simply aren’t up to scratch when it comes to meeting the energy-efficient and cost-effective demands of the discerning 21^st Century consumer. They’re also notoriously unreliable, incredibly expensive and don’t last very long at all.

Fortunately, that’s not the end of the story as far as downlights are concerned, because there’s now a new breed, and it’s causing a marked resurgence in their popularity, in both the commercial and the domestic markets.

LED Downlights

LED lights and bulbs are now beginning to seriously dominate the downlighting marketplace, and quite rightly so. This is due to their unbelievably low energy-requirement which, when combined with an extremely long life-span, makes them an incredibly attractive lighting option.

Add to this the fact that their technology and aesthetics have been developed to such an extent that now, their sizes and shapes very closely resemble those of traditional halogen bulbs, making them totally compatible with existing downlighting fixtures.

The vast majority of LED downlight-compatible bulbs come complete with the ever popular GU10 fitting or ‘cap’, which means that you may only need to replace your existing halogen bulbs in order to enjoy the many benefits they offer.

LED bulbs generally use 90% less power than traditional bulbs, and the downlights are certainly no exception.

The Dimmable GU10 LED 27 SMD, for example, requires just 6 watts of electricity to generate the same 450 Lumens of light as a 60 watt halogen bulb.

As you can imagine, this reduced electricity requirement will bring down your household energy costs quite dramatically, when you decide to replace your halogens with LEDs throughout your home.

In fact, to illustrate how much you’ll be able to save over the course of a year by replacing just 10 x 60W halogen bulbs with 10 x 6W LEDs of equivalent luminosity, check out these numbers:

• Assuming an electricity cost of 14.3 pence per kW/h;
• Running both sets of downlighters for 8 hours/day for 365 days;
• 10 x GU10 LED 27 SMD Bulbs use 175.20 kW/h of electricity and cost £24.58 to run.
• 10 x GU10 Halogen Bulbs use 1752.00 kW/h of electricity and cost £245.81 to run.

Therefore, by merely swapping 10 of one type of bulb for 10 of another, and without making any other changes, you stand to save a massive £221.23 in one year!

You might argue that this is just a scenario involving one type of LED bulb and that, given a different set of circumstances, the savings might not be so incredible, but you’d be wrong, because LED bulbs will often save you even more than 90%, so that should definitely give you pause for thought.

Fitted LED Downlights

Along with the amazing retrofit LED bulbs, also available are the fitted LED downlights that combine both bulb and enclosure in one ultra-convenient, ultra-reliable unit.

They’re to be had in a variety of different types, all of which share a great many of the same great attributes, while certain of them boast certain features that make them very special indeed. 

A number of our all-in-one downlights are fire-rated, which means they’ll afford you and your family an extra 90 minutes’ protection in the event of a fire. Fire-rated products are rapidly becoming the industry standard for new homes and renovations, so even though they’re currently ever so slightly more expensive right now, their price is dropping all the time, and what’s a few pence to invest when lives could be at stake? 

There are also High Powered LED Downlights, those with attractively Frosted light diffusers, as well as those employing the revolutionary COB or ‘Chip on Board’ technology which has great advantages, even over traditional SMDs, of superior thermal performance, a larger cooling area, much improved lighting effects, an extremely high light efficacy and greater uniformity.

This shows just how quickly LED technology is improving, in that developments which just five years ago were considered revolutionary and ground-breaking, are already being superseded by those that are newer and more energy-efficient!

All of these amazing benefits seem even greater when you consider the fact that you’ll be able to enjoy them all for so much longer, too. That’s right, because, like all of our LED lighting products, our fitted LED downlights have a life-expectancy that’s well in excess of 50,000 hours, outlasting the 1,200 hour life-spans of the halogens they’re replacing many, many times over.

In fact, if you were to swap out all of your halogen downlighters with their LED counterparts today, you could forget about having to replace them for more than 17 years. Now, does that sound good?

If you’d like some more information about LED downlights for your home or business, or you’d like a chat about LED lighting products in general, please don’t hesitate to call us on 0116 321 4120 or send an e-mail enquiry to cs@wled.co.uk if you’d prefer.