If you have any halogen, fluorescent or incandescent lights left, swap your bulbs for LED lights – because they’re the most efficient and will reward you with cheaper bills.

State pensioners urged to unscrew lightbulbs for free £268

by · Birmingham Live

State pensioners who lost the £300 Winter Fuel Payment have been urged to unscrew their lightbulbs and change them - for free cash. If you have any halogen, fluorescent or incandescent lights left, swap your bulbs for LED lights – because they’re the most efficient and will reward you with cheaper bills.

Incandescent bulbs were phased out from sale from 2016, so not many of us have those left, but you might still have some halogen or fluorescent bulbs around your home. The Energy Saving Trust says that swapping a halogen bulb to an LED will save £4 to £5 per year.

If you’ve got any fluorescent tubes the exact saving will depend on the type of tube, but it’s clear that swapping to LEDs will use significantly less energy. If you have low-energy bulbs that aren’t LEDs, they’re probably CFLs.

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The Eco Experts explains: "They aren’t as energy-efficient as LEDs, but they’re still a big improvement on halogen or incandescent bulbs, so it’s up to you whether you want to invest in swapping them to LEDs. Although they’re a bit pricier, LEDs have an average life of 20,000 hours, compared to up to 15,000 hours for a fluorescent tube, 2,000 for a halogen bulb and 1,000 for an incandescent bulb – so they’ll last longer as well as saving you energy."

Max Schwerdtfeger from The Eco Experts says “a single LED light bulb will save you £75 over the course of its lifetime.” The Energy Saving Trust said you can save between £1 and £4 a year per bulb in your house. The average home has 67 lights, meaning a saving of up to £268 a year for the average household.

Michael, a TikTok user at Mike's Life, went on: "To put this in perspective, one halogen bulb uses 50 watts of energy. That's the same amount of energy used to power 10 LED light bulbs. When I bought my house a few years ago they were all halogen lightbulbs.

"I have roughly 40 spotlights in my house, so you can imagine the mini heart attack I had when I realised how much energy I was wasting."