Category: News

LED Christmas lights have been around for a few years and more and more people are starting to use them, but I still drape my home in strings of the old C9 incandescent bulbs.  For someone who professionally concerns himself with energy efficiency, why do I not upgrade?  It’s based on some simple calculations I did a few years ago on the energy usage of Christmas lights…

Let’s start out by stating our conditions.  You hang 10 strands of C9 lights with 24 bulbs in each strand.  Your lights automatically turn on at dusk and stay on for 6 hours.  You hang them up the day after Thanksgiving and take them down on New Years’ eve (36 days in 2016).  A C9 bulb uses 7 Watts while an equivalent LED bulb uses about 1 Watt.  The average price for electricity in Arkansas is 7.9 cents/kWh.

Some quick calculations show that with the C9 strands, you would use about 10 kWh a day or 363 kWh during the season running your ten C9 strands.  This works out to about 80 cents per day or $29 for the whole season.  If you replaced your lights with LED, your usage would go down to 1.4 kWh per day or 52 kWh for the season.  You’ll definitely save some money in usage as your cost is now only 11 cents per day or $4 for the entire season!

With savings like that, why not upgrade?  The difference is in the upfront cost of the lights.  A pack of LED lights costs around $12 ($25 when I first did the calculations years ago) while a strand of C9 lights is only $5.  For ten strands, a $70 cost difference equates to a payback time of almost three years.  Of course, there are other things to consider such as maintenance or color uniformity.  I replace a lot of C9 bulbs because of how easily they break and now they don’t all match.  “Hidden” costs like maintenance can really influence the payback time.  Also, falling prices like we see with LED technology brings the payback down more every year.  Who knows, maybe I’ll upgrade next year?

Analyzing energy usage isn’t always about finding things the client needs to do.  Sometimes it involves helping the client know what NOT to do.  LED Christmas lights are a fun example, but there are factors in a building that may make technology like LED lighting not a good fit.  If you own or manage a building and are considering making changes to save energy, consider hiring Forward Engineers to take a look so that we can give you the confidence to know that your changes will save you money.

Congratulations to Walker Brothers in opening their new Rogers location near Pinnacle.  We were honored to have been a part of the design team for this tenant finish-out project.  One of the best feelings as a design professional is to see your designs constructed and put to use.

Below are a few more pictures of the project.  You can see more of our past projects on our portfolio page.

Back in August I wrote an article on the Future of the 179d Tax Deduction and laid out some of the likely extension scenarios that we would see based on what has happened in the past.  As we approach the end of the year, pressure is mounting to extend these popular tax provisions and Congress is taking notice.

According to Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) there are not any bills currently in progress in the House for extending the 179d deduction.  The house is currently focused on passing a continuing resolution to fund the government until March 2017.  Once this continuing resolution is passed, the House can turn it’s attention to the expiring tax provisions.  Womack expects this to happen in late December at the earliest, but most likely in January.

Womack’s office also reported that if the extension was delayed into the new year that it would be retroactive for any time period between expiration and passing.  This means that if the deduction expires on January 1, 2017 and the deduction is extended on January 20, 2017 that projects completed between the 1st and the 20th could still be certified.  This situation happened the last time the deduction was extended in December 2015 after expiring on January 1, 2015.

In the meantime, check back here for updates on the extension of the 179d tax deduction.  Any projects completed during calendar year 2016 can still be certified for inclusion in your 2016 taxes.  If you have any questions or have a project you think may benefit from the deduction, please don’t hesitate to contact us.