Choosing an LED lightbulb

LED light bulbs are much more energy-efficient than the old incandescent bulbs or even the compact fluorescent bulbs.  When your old bulbs burn out, it’s easy to buy LED lightbulbs that will fit in your existing fixtures and the price has come down a lot.  What do all the numbers and information on the package mean?​

• Replacement wattage is the wattage of the incandescent bulb the LED bulb is meant to replace.  A 75-watt bulb can be replaced by an LED bulb with a 75-watt replacement rating (and it will use about 10-12 watts of electricity).  Using a bulb with a similar replacement rating should give you similar brightness and won’t exceed the maximum power rating for your fixture. 
• Wattage is the actual power used by the LED bulb.
• Lumens is a measure of brightness.  More lumens means more light, and the higher the number of lumens per watt, the more energy efficient the bulb is.
• LED bulbs also have varying frequencies to give a different feel to the light they emit.  The articles I read suggested that “warm or soft white” bulbs (3000K or below) are good for bedrooms and living rooms.  “Cool white” bulbs (3100K to 4500K) are good for task lighting, garages, basements, and bathroom.  “Daylight” bulbs (above 4600K) are good for workrooms or other areas where you want good strong light on your task.  The K stands for “kelvins”, which is the unit used to measure the correlated color temperature.  Here’s a link to an article that provides a little more information and some photos to show you what the light looks like in a room.  

http://www.westinghouselighting.com/color-temperature.aspx