Scene from the Great Room at the Birch Ridge Inn

Scene from the Great Room at the Birch Ridge Inn

At the inn, we have always tried to be energy efficient. Our guests respect that; it (generally) makes economic sense; and it is (in theory) good for the environment.

Long ago we dealt with major energy users like furnaces and refrigerators. The hallways in the inn have been CFL's since we converted the property from residential to commercial. 2 years ago we changed all of the lights used to decorate outside of the property to LED's to save electricity. Last year we upgraded all of the TV's from 19 inch analog sets, to 22 inch LED Flat screens, saving 100 watts operating for each TV in the process.

One of our vexing problems, however, has been lighting in the inn's Great Room. During normal operation, the Great Room used around 4KW per hour for lighting in the evening. When you multiply that by 6 to 8 hours a day, virtually every day, it is a significant energy user in the inn.

For the last several years we have been looking at alternatives. We experiment, albeit very briefly, with dimmable compact fluorescents. To be polite... they did not work at all. The dimming range at the low end was poor. And the light, even though we are very careful to specify 2700K temperature range, was not conducive to the soft light demanded of a working bar.

Earlier this year, working with an electrical supply house in Rutland VT, I was able to get some demo LED lamps that were capable of being dimmed. LED lighting is starting to take hold in commercial environments. Most of the work has been done in retail, where the color temperature leans to 3000-3500K (which means the light is whiter). But some 2700K LED lamps have finally begun to enter the market place. The LED lamps I got were designed to replace the 75 watt bulbs we have in the various "cans" built into the great room. There are 47 in total. Including dimmer losses, the 47 bulbs generate a peak load of around 4KW. At their nominal dimmer setting, they were using around 3KW

At a comparable light setting (I used a light meter), and including dimmer losses, the new LED bulbs use about 300W; fully 90% less than the old incandescent bulbs.

A couple of items to note... If you are planning a project like this in your own home, there are several things to take into consideration. First, I was very careful to measure the power from the dimmer switches, not just relying on the current specifications of the bulbs. I needed to replace the dimmers in the Great Room to newer "LED Compatible" modules to take advantage of the dimming capability of the LED Lamps.

The second item is, of course, the expense of the LED lamps themselves. Vermont has a program called "Efficiency Vermont" which helps reduce the cost to upgrade existing buildings with newer, energy efficient, equipment. The theory behind programs such as "Efficiency Vermont" is that it is cheaper for the electric utilities to help their customers become more efficient, then to have the power company build additional power generating stations. We worked with the electrical supply house to make sure that the project would qualify for the program to help defray some of the initial acquisition expenses.

All in all it has been an interesting project to work on over the last several month, taking me back to my electrical engineering roots. And the new LED lamps look ( and work) great too!

Let it snow!