All About Interest

One man's journey to financial independence.

Review of the Intermatic ST01: The Best Low Watt LED Timer on the Market

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Intermatic ST01 7 Day Programmable In Wall Digital Timer Switch for Lights and Appliances, Astronomic, Self Adjusting, Heavy Duty

 

You may have seen my previous post: DIY: How to Install a 3-way programmable light timer.   One commenter was asking about a low wattage solution and I’ve been meaning to post an update on my new timers I’m using with LED light bulbs.  The install is essentially the same as the above link.

I purchased 4 of these Intermatic timers in December of 2015.  They have all been working flawlessly with LED bulbs and the install was super easy.

Key Features:

 

  • Set it once – follows daily changes for sunrise/sunset times
  • Single-pole or 3-way applications up to 100 feet
  • Controls all lighting and heavy-duty loads like fans and appliances
  • Up to 40 on/off settings per week
  • Incandescent/fluorescent/LED/CFL-compatible

I had a problem with the Honeywell timer working flawlessly with LED’s.  It needed a specific minimum load.  This timer works perfectly with one low-watt LED bulb. Mine are currently used for outside lights with candelabra type LED bulbs.

I’m currently using these FEIT bulbs exclusively with these timers with no issues:

Feit LED 4.9 Watt LED Candelabra Light Bulbs 3-Pack (911482)

DIY – Replacing Fan Lights with LED’s

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I posted about one of my 2014 goals to reduce my energy usage.  What better way to reduce energy production than to become more energy efficient and save money at the same time.

I wanted to give an example of a fan I just replaced lights on this weekend and break out the cost savings.

If you read my article, “Why I’m Replacing All of My Light Bulbs with LED Bulbs“, you may have noticed all of the ridiculous sizes of these bulbs.  Granted, most of my sockets are the standard (E26) and the candelabra (E12).  However, I have one fan that has E17 sockets!  This is an intermediate size and I couldn’t even find any LED bulbs to match this size.

So what I did find was an adapter.  Yes, I found an adapter on Amazon that screws onto a candelabra bulb and turns it into a medium socket bulb.

What this means is that I can use my candelabra size LED’s in the medium socket.  I was skeptical at first and just ordered 1.  I installed it and it worked like a charm.  This was last week.

I ordered 3 more adapters and put them on this week.  They work perfectly.  Here’s the part from Amazon if you’re interested (they are $3.92 shipped).

The LED’s that I’ve ordered and used a few times are from FEIT electric.  They fit a candelabra screw base (standard in fans, lanterns, etc.)  It’s basically the skinny sockets you see in your house. These are the ones I used with the adapters.  They use 4.8 Watts per bulb and put out 300 lumens of light.  My wife also liked the shape and color of light better from these bulbs than our old bulbs.

If you do decide to buy these bulbs or the adapter please click on the picture to go to Amazon so I can get a very small credit. 

Feit 4.8 Watt = 40 Watts LED Candelabra Light Bulbs 3-Pack 3000K

The link above is the cheapest candelabra LED’s I’ve found so far.  They are currently $17.83 + $4.99 shipping.  I had to order a few packs to replace different bulbs around the house.

Keep in mind, these are the only intermediate sockets I’ve found so far in my house.  So this install was a little more expensive than normal.  However, it’s still worth it.  I’ll show you why.

The total per bulb replacement was $7.61 (bulb) + $3.92 (adapter) = $11.53
There were 4 bulbs so the total cost to replace the bulbs in this fan were $46.12.

The bulbs that I replaced were also from FEIT but were 40W incandescent bulbs.  So when in use, my 4 LED bulbs use 19.2 Watts of electricity.  This compares to 160 Watts of electricity!

This fan is in my living room so they are probably on for only 1 hour a day.  Obviously, the more you use the lights that you are replacing, the faster you get your money back and start saving.

At 1 hour per day (365 hours/year), the old lights would use 58,400 Wh or 58.4 KWh.   At $0.13/kwh, this is $7.60.

The new LED lights use 7KWh or $0.90 worth of electricity.  This is a savings of $6.70/year.  At this rate, the breakeven on my fan would be 6.9 years.  For an investment, this really isn’t that bad.  This is also an extreme example where I needed an adapter and also only use the lights for 1 hour a day.

Let’s pretend I didn’t need that adapter (most people won’t) and that you use those lights for 3 hours/day.

The four replacement bulbs would cost $30.44 without the adapters. Your yearly energy cost would be $22.80 with the old bulbs (40 watt) and $2.70 for the new LED bulbs (4.8W).

The savings is $20.10 and your breakeven point would be about 1.5 years.  Now how many investments can you get your money back in 1.5 years and then save money for another 21.3 years?! That’s right , the LED bulbs also last way longer so you’ll be getting rewarded for many more years.