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Electricians Out There? Maximum Wattage with Newer Bulbs?

3 years ago

I once had an electrician tell me that I should always be careful not to exceed too much wattage on each circuit in a house by replacing light bulbs with brighter ones that are of higher wattage (e.g. don't replace 60W bulbs with 75W or 100W bulbs).


However, with the newer CFL and LED replacement bulbs, not only do the bulbs labeled of the same wattage have lower lumens (i.e. they do not give off as much light), they actually (in small print) claim to actually use a lot less power (e.g. 60W replacement LED bulbs I just bought claim to only use 9.5W).


I'm curious, then. If old traditional 60W bulbs that gave off 1000 lumens each blow, can I replace them with 75W 1100 lumen LEDs that claim to use only 13W or 100W LEDs that claim to use only 18W ... without fear of overloading the circuits ... as long as I don't overload the original maximum total wattage of the circuit with "traditional" bulbs?

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