Whether you are thinking about lamps for the new home or you simply need to replace the faulty ones, surely you are wondering what light source to buy. Halogen, fluorescent or the increasingly popular LEDs, each is characterized by specific characteristics that, knowing them, will allow you to better orient your purchases, based on your actual needs.

In addition, you know what you buy and why in the long term you will be able to implement a conscious investment that will translate into luminous efficiency, money savings and the consequent reduction of the environmental impact.

If possible, you should also observe the behavior of the lamp before buying it, checking that it does not emit strange hum and that it does not produce excessive heat, which could cause overheating and accidental fires. Finally, live parts must be adequately protected, especially if there are children in the house as shown in Lighting Assessment in Oklahoma.

To better focus on the comparison of the different lamps and grasp the very significant differences, it seems appropriate to explain the different features to understand how they are made.

Halogen lamps are a special type of incandescent lamps which, in addition to the tungsten filament crossed by the electric current (which heats up to around 3000K) also have an inert gas inside the bulb (iodine or bromine added with usually with argon).

The halogen gas, by binding to the evaporated tungsten, allows a good luminous efficacy and consequently a higher color temperature, resulting in the emanation of a whiter and brighter light. The inert gas inside the halogen lamp, in addition, prevents the bulb from blackening due to tungsten deposits, reduces the risk of implosion and prolongs filament life, bringing its average life to just over 2,000 hours.

Further improvements such as electronically controlled power supply and higher quality filaments have increased the yield of the latest generation halogen lamps by 40% more than in the first versions. The bulb is made with a quartz glass, more delicate but preferable than normal glass because it allows the use of gas at higher pressure while reducing evaporation.

In fluorescent lamps the light emission is due to a fluorescent material placed inside a glass tube, commonly known in linear and circular form, which comes into contact with noble gases and with small quantities of mercury. The two electrodes placed in the extremities urge the gases to the passage of the current allowing the emission of radiations in the ultraviolet (Lighting Assessment in Oklahoma).

In turn, the fluorescent material hit by these radiations emits visible light, while the remaining energy released by the ultraviolet wave will be dissipated in heat.