By Green Dog Pet Supply
When we first opened, one of the things we thought was a no-brainer was looking into LED or other efficient lighting options for the sales floor. As the first environmentally friendly pet supply store in the nation, we wanted to make sure that we did everything we could to design for sustainability. The spotlights seemed to be a challenge though. LED technology has come a long way, but at the time, most LEDs were kind of blue in color, and not very bright at all. We needed bright spotlights to showcase products, and nothing existed at the time outside of the typical commercial spots. We kept doing research through the years, but even a few years ago the LED bulbs were enormous – like a dinner plate! Finally (9 years later), we found bulbs that really fit the bill! These new bulbs have a nice bright, warm white light, and are going to save us so very much money! Up front stung a little, as we had 87 bulbs to replace, but this will save us more than $1000 per year in energy costs. We got a healthy rebate from Energy Trust of Oregon for the purchase, and the rest will be paid for in energy savings in 2 years. The bulbs will last another 10 years after that at the rate we use them (each bulb has 40,000 hours of life). If you used these bulbs at home for 3 hours per day, they’d last 36.5 years and cost just $1.81 per year (based on 11 cents/kWh)! The best news? This project offsets about 4 tons of Co2 generated by fossil fuels , equal to taking one car off the road or more than 1/2 and acre of reforested trees! LEDs also give off far less heat (those regular spots were super duper hot!), which will likely help us with summer temperatures in the store, are dimmable, and have no mercury. If you’re interested in LED lights for your house or business, check out http://www.gc-lighting.com