Spring has sprung. This means more days where it gets a little warm and you may need some air conditioning—but not so warm that you can count on turning off the heater for the year though. While your utility bills may be a bit lower in springtime than in other times of the year, it is still a concern. One of the best ways you can keep those utility bills even lower is by sealing your home against temperature loss. This does not cost much and is something you can do yourself—though a Glendale electrician may be able to provide advice if you find yourself with questions.

Sealing your home is one of the most effective means of keeping down energy consumption—this not only lowers your utility bills, it can reduce your reliance on fossil fuels too. Consider these tips as a great place to get started:

What is a spotlight? What is a floodlight? Knowing the difference between the two is important for properly lighting any application. Before you can understand the difference, you must know what a beam pattern is. Beam angle or pattern is a measurement of the angles that are formed between a cone of light’s brightest point (the center) and the points on both sides of the center where the light’s intensity is 50 percent as bright.

PAR30 bulb that is available with a spot or flood beam pattern.

Fixtures, such as retrofit LED can lights may also look similar to one another while functioning as either spotlights or floodlights. Some light bars are even capable of emitting flood, spot, or combination beams. There are, however, certain fixtures that we imagine when we think of floodlights and spotlights.

Now, why is the blue LED so important? Quite simply because there are no white LEDs. The white light that our eyes detect is created by using a blue LED and some yellow phosphor. The yellow phosphor coating may be placed directly on the blue LED or on the glass envelope that houses the blue LED. Either way when the blue light from the blue LED passes through the yellow phosphor the resulting light appears to be white.

In late 2014 at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, the three Japanese scientists who developed the blue LED while working at Nichia Chemicals will share the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the blue LED. In official terms the Nobel Committee awarded this year’s physics prize to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”

Furthermore, the Nobel Committee pointed out in its announcement that the results of all the scientists’ hard work will be on display everywhere as the three recipients make their way through Stockholm: “the light from their invention will be glowing in virtually all the windows of the city.” And they can be assured that, as this century progresses, the ascendancy of the LED will only become more dramatic.