Dave Hultin recently wrote me through the contact form on the LED Revolution site saying he joined the revolution more than a year ago, when he outfitted his home with LED lights. I interviewed him last week to find out more. This is his story:

When Dave Hultin began designing his home in Fargo, North Dakota, he knew he wanted to incorporate energy efficient lighting. That’s when he started doing his homework. He knew CFLs were out of the question because he said his wife wasn’t keen on the potential health issues that could arise if any of the mercury-laden CFLs ever broke.

One night Dave was holding his son’s LED flashlight and he said he started to wonder if LEDs were being developed for residential lighting. He found a 40 Watt equivalent LED bulb online and ordered it.  He was disappointed when it arrived and it had a “laser beam feeling.”

“I wasn’t ready to give up,” he said. “I thought: ‘there’s got to be something better.’”

Dave said he started to read about the Cree LR6™ LED recessed light that, at the time, was only 12 Watts but delivered warm light. (A newer version is now only 10.5 Watts!). So he found a local supplier and bought four and had an electrician install them in his master bedroom, which was still under construction. He didn’t even have switches in place yet.

Dave was a skeptic and wanted to see if they would have the “Star Wars light saber effect” or if his family could actually live comfortably under the LED light. After the electrician installed his test lights, Dave visited the construction site to see how they looked.

“I remember that first night when I came there. I went there when it was dark. I was expecting the best, but hoping I wasn’t going to get a wimpy, little glow,” Dave said. “So I tentatively turned it on and I went ‘Yes!’ That’s when I was convinced it was a good thing.”

So Dave placed an order for more LR6 LED lights. In all, he placed 44 in his living room, kitchen, dining room, hallways, piano room and master bedroom. (Here are some pics Dave took and e-mailed me):

“The biggest thing that I would say about the light quality is that I don’t have to talk about the light quality,” Dave told me. “It’s there and it’s what I would expect. I don’t have the Star Wars light saber effect going up to the ceiling. People don’t notice that something is different, they just see that it’s there and it works.”

Dave said he spent $3,867 on the LED lights. And by his calculations, the lights will pay for themselves in energy savings after three years (he has already lived in his home for a year). But since the LR6 LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, he’ll be racking up the savings long afterward.

“When I go to a relative or a friend’s house and notice they have a burned out bulb, I look at my watch and think: ‘In another 12 to 15 years, I’ll be doing that too,’” Dave said.

You can read more about Dave’s experience finding and trying out Cree lights on his blog.