Which gives off more heat- CFL or LED bulbs?

[Pb]

I've gotten a few budget 60 watt equivelent LED bulbs (Cree and Phillips) for $11-13.

Do bulbs like this give off more, less or the same amount of heat into the air as equivently CFL bulbs?

[Marnoot]

I've gotten a few budget 60 watt equivelent LED bulbs (Cree and Phillips) for $11-13.

Do bulbs like this give off more, less or the same amount of heat into the air as equivently CFL bulbs?

Don't know for sure based on measurement or anything, but you could go off of their relative efficiency to determine it. For instance if a 300 lumen LED bulb consumed 9W of electricity and a 300 lumen CFL consumed 11W, the CFL would generate more heat and vice versa. The LED lights I installed use a couple watts less power than the identical-lumen-output CFL bulbs they replaced, so in my one case, the LEDs give off less heat. This may vary by brands, I wager.

[Regolith]

I'm guessing LED bulbs. They generally require a heat sink to prevent overheating to the point where the LEDs are damaged. Although it could be the LEDs are damaged before the bulbs give off a significant amount of heat.

[Marnoot]

LEDs need the heatsink because the heat is all generated in a pinpoint source in the actual (tiny) LED itself, this concentrated thermal energy needs to be conducted out and spread out. If the LED bulb created the heat all throughout the bulb area as CFLs do, it would not require a heat sink. Actual total thermal energy leaving the whole bulb unit should be at the very least on par with a CFL.

[Brad Johnson]

Properly designed, the LED will emit less heat than a CFL. 

You can look at it in a couple ways, but the most applicable is luminous efficiency (lumens per watt, or lm/W).  This is a directly inverse indicator of heat generation per light unit output.  Higher lumens (more light) per watt means less energy lost as heat for each watt consumed in operation.

A typical household incandescent will be doing good to top 13 lm/W

A really good CFL might hit 70 lm/W (but it's been a long time since I've seen a really good CFL.  Most are imported mass-produced junk.).

A current generation LED lamp will easily be in the 85-90 lm/W range, and they are improving almost by the second.  Expect quality LED lamps to top 100 lm/W and be in the sub-$10 range within the next 9-12 months.

Or you can look at it this way...

A typical 60w incandescent is rated at 820-850 lumens, depending on coating type, filament materials, and construction.  It requires, as the rating implies, 60w to operate, about 95% of which is lost as heat.  The lumen-equivalent CFL is about 15w. The previous generation Phillips LED is 12.5.  The new-gen Cree is 9.5.  The illumination stays the same, but the energy input has decreased.  Now it's a simple math problem.  Less energy required means less waste (heat) for a given amount of performance (light).

Brad

[zahc]

Watts is watts.

Watts is all that matters if you are considering how much heat is going to go into your house.

[Nick1911]

Watts is watts.

Watts is all that matters if you are considering how much heat is going to go into your house.

^^^This.

Every single watt consumed by any light bulb [and actually, almost every other appliance] in your house goes into heat in the house eventually.  In the case of a light bulb, aside from the waste heat - the visible and non-visible electromagnetic emissions generated end up heating whatever object eventually absorbs the emission.  Energy is conserved, and it all eventually turns back into heat.

[GigaBuist]

Watts is watts.

Watts is all that matters if you are considering how much heat is going to go into your house.

Bingo.  Cracks me up when I see those 1-800 number tv commercial space heaters that say they're 99.5% efficient at making heat or some such number.  You'd have to go out of your way to make an electronic appliance that doesn't create 100% heat when everything is all said and done.

[Azrael256]

Every single watt consumed by any light bulb [and actually, almost every other appliance] in your house goes into heat in the house eventually.  In the case of a light bulb, aside from the waste heat - the visible and non-visible electromagnetic emissions generated end up heating whatever object eventually absorbs the emission.  Energy is conserved, and it all eventually turns back into heat.

Absolute statement is absolute.

Putting a lamp next to a window just to prove you wrong.

 

[Nick1911]

Absolute statement is absolute.

Putting a lamp next to a window just to prove you wrong.

 

Yea, technically true.  That and radio signals I think are about the only exceptions.  I considered including those losses in my original statement, but they amounts to such an infinitesimally small amount of a homes energy usage it's practically irrelevant.

[Azrael256]

Yea, technically true.  That and radio signals I think are about the only exceptions.  I considered including those losses in my original statement, but they amounts to such an infinitesimally small amount of a homes energy usage it's practically irrelevant.

Yeah, and I was trying to make a "Suck it, Nick" bat signal using an arc lamp and a sheet of cardboard, but the neighbor got mad when I accidentally shined it in his window.

Oh, and sound.  If I hear your TV, energy escaped!