With this article, we’ll help you determine what lumens/brightness are right for your outdoor lighting application. Please continue reading!
We understand it can be hard to find the right light bulb for your application. Should it be warm or cool? LED or CFL? With so many choices, choosing the best can be extremely difficult. Here are some tips to make it easier. We’ve put together a listing of the lumens you need across different lighting applications for any area. No matter what you need for your home pathway, stairs, landscape, garden, or even for more commercial uses, such as around your residential or business property, cuntyard,playgrounds, or for streets,you will get an idea here.
Lumens: What They Are and Why They Matter?
Lumen indicates how bright a LED bulb is or the intensity of its illumination. Presently, we use the lumen to quantify the light output of LED bulbs. When seeking out the brightest LED bulb for your outdoor lights, for example, it may be necessary to find a bulb with the highest lumen rating.
Watt:What is It? Do higher wattage lights produce more light?
In the past, we had a convenient way of buying an ordinary light bulb: judging it by its watt rating. The higher the wattage, the brighter the bulb.
Watts are units for measuring power consumption, or how much electricity is consumed by a light bulb. The power needed to produce light in one second is 100 joules for an incandescent bulb of 100 watts.
We can therefore conclude that a 100-watt bulb will be brighter than a 50-watt bulb since it consumes more energy per second.
One of the problems with using watts to measure how bright a lamp , is that watts can only accurately determine how much we have to pay for the electrical bill.
In contrast, lumens measure the intensity of light – and not the amount of electricity a lamp consumes.
Why Should Lumens Be Used Instead of Watts?
Now that LEDs are proving to be a viable lighting technology, measuring light intensity in watts becomes less relevant.
Since LEDs are more efficient than incandescent bulbs, they require less power to operate at the same brightness level.You can replace a 250-watt incandescent bulb with a 30-watt LED bulb with the same brightness.
As the world gradually moves toward energy-efficient lighting, the watt would eventually cease to exist as a scale for brightness. To ensure that your outdoor lighting works properly, it is better to specify the lumens you need, instead of estimating the wattage.
What Are the Right LED Lumens and Watts for Being Energy Efficient?
Once you’ve learned that it is more sensible to specify brightness in lumens, how could you be sure you’ve got the right light intensity?
There are still a lot of people who measure light output in watts, so don’t worry if you’re still used to doing it that way. The following cheat sheet will help you specify the lumens you need for your LED outdoor lighting.
Lighting Type | Required Lumens |
Wall lights | 50-185 lumens |
Pathway lights | 100-200 lumens |
Garden Light | 600-1,800 |
Motion sensor lights | 300-700 lumens |
Step lights | 200-400 lumens |
Flood light | 700-1300 lumens |
Landscape lights | 50-300 lumens |
Street Lights for communities | 5000 lumens |
Roadway Lights | 6,400-18,000 lumens |
High mast lights | 25,000-100,000 lumens |
When you purchase a CFL, LED or any light bulb, look for the word “brightness” on the packaging to find its lumens. Then check if the lumen amount corresponds to what you’re looking for in outdoor lighting.
Manufacturers’ specifications will also tell you how many lumens the lamp produces. If you are purchasing solar-powered LED street lights, solar-powered garden lights, or any outdoor solar lighting, this will be important to you. Light fixtures are typically integrated LEDs or LED modules.
What is the optimal LED lumen count for upgrading/replacing my existing outdoor lighting?
Here is a conversion table you can use if you don’t want to buy new fixtures and simply want to replace existing lights with LED bulbs.
Conversion between Watts and Lumens (For 2023)
IncandescentEfficiency: 15-25 Lm/W | CFLEfficiency: 40-70 Lm/W | Metal HalideEfficiency: 80-105 Lm/W | LED ReplacementEfficiency: 100-160 Lm/W | Lumens Needed (LM) |
50-75W | 12-15 W | 5-15 W | 5-8 W | 750-1,200 |
80 W | 19 W | 25 W | 17 W | 2,550 |
100 W | 23 W | 35 W | 20 W | 3000 |
250 W | 65 W | 100 W | 30-40 W | 4,500-6,000 |
300 W | 80 W | 125 W | 40 W | 6,000 |
400 W | 100 W | 150 W | 50-60 W | 7,500-9,000 |
500 W | 150 W | 250 W | 75-80 W | 11,250-12,000 |
600 W | 175 W | 320 W | 100 W | 15,000 |
1000 W | 300 W | 400 W | 120-150 W | 18,000-22,500 |
2000 W | 500 W | 750 W | 240-300 W | 36,000-45,000 |
How many lumens do you need for an outdoor path light?
Decorative path lights can be used to create a pleasing visual effect.
It’s usefulness comes from its ability to guide people along a walkway efficiently.
For path lights, the usual lumens range from 100 to 200, averaging 1-2 watts of LED light.
How many lumens do you need for Garden Lights?
You can choose different brightness levels for garden lights based on your needs.
It is becoming more popular to use solar gardening lights for garden lights and landscape lighting as they are aesthetically pleasing and can save a considerable amount of money with little maintenance.
Generally, small garden lights are about 100 to 300 lumens, while larger garden lights are about 600 to 1,800 lumens.
The light can be as low as 50 lumens as accent lighting for gardens or yards.
How many lumens do you need for Flood Lights?
Floating lights illuminate the immediate area such as around facilities or factories. Additionally, they can be used for doorways, walkways and billboards.
Due to the concentrated illumination they provide, solar flood lights usually need more lumens than garden lights.
Typically, it is between 700 and 1300 lumens. The lumen output of larger solar LED flood lights can reach up to 14,000 lumens.
How many lumens do you need for Solar Street Lights?
By choosing the right solar street light manufacturer, you can easily replace existing street lights with solar-powered lights that can last for 30 years and require little maintenance.
The lumens of solar street lights vary according to their applications. For residential lighting, the average is 5000 lumens.
This can range from 6,400 lumens to 18,000 lumens for roadways, highways, building perimeters, and universities.
How Would You Know You’re Being Energy Efficient with the Right LED Wattage and Lumens?
Would you like to know how much energy and money you are saving once you choose the right LED lumens for your outdoor lighting?
Lumens per Watt (lm/watt) is the metric that measures the efficiency of a light bulb. This information can be found on the packaging. It essentially tells you how much power is used up by the bulb (in watts) to provide the amount of light (in lumens).
In order to optimize a bulb’s energy consumption, a bulb with a higher light intensity would be preferred. A higher luminous efficiency is achieved. And Therefore, the better the lighting efficiency, the more you will save in terms of energy and money.
As of 2021, lighting manufacturers expect LEDs to have the capacity to produce 130 to 160 lumens/watt on average.
Since traditional LED lights have only a lighting efficiency of 50 to 90 lumens per watt in the past, this has improved substantially. When you are purchasing LED light bulbs, you should check the lumens per watt to make sure they are within this range.
With LED light bulbs, how much money can you save?
Here is a breakdown of your costs. Suppose you’re using a 250W incandescent light that puts out 4,500 lumens. Based on the above conversion chart, you can retrofit this with a 30 W LED bulb providing the same amount of light.
Incandescent Bulb | LED | |
Watts per bulb | 250 | 30 |
Lumens per watt | 18 Lumens/watt | 150 Lumens/watt |
Lifespan (hours) | 1,200 | 50,000 |
Typical Upfront Cost | $1 | $10 |
No. of Bulbs Needed for 50,000 Hours Of Use | 42 | 1 |
Total purchase price over 11 years | 42 | 10 |
Total cost of electricity used for 11 years (50,000 hours at $0.12 per kWh) | $1,500 | 180 |
Total Operation Cost for 11 years | $1,542 | $190 |
What do you think? When you choose LED lighting that produces more lumens at a lower wattage, you can potentially save thousands of dollars.
Solar LED lights are the best outdoor lights
The best solution for outdoor lighting is solar-powered lights, which are eco-friendly and energy-efficient. With solar lights and LED lights combined, you can save thousands of dollars on electricity bills.
This free-electricity lighting solution enables you to save money while reducing carbon emissions.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve shown you how you can use lumens to determine what brightness you need for your outdoor lighting system.
Furthermore, we discussed the cost savings you can achieve with LED lighting over traditional lighting. It is because LED bulbs use less power and produce more lumens than incandescent, CFL, metal halide or other regular light bulbs. This means that you can save thousands of dollars on your electricity bills by using less power.
You can even save even more if you choose to use solar LED lights, such as modern solar street lights, solar garden lights, and solar flood lights.
Around the world, many businesses and homes have converted to solar-powered LED lights. You can contact SLD Solar Lighting for more information if you’re interested in solar LED lighting.