When it comes to making and using candles, most people would say they do it for the feeling and mood of it. As a candle maker, creating your own personalized candles can be one of the most relaxing things ever. As for using them, there is nothing cosier than lighting a few candles for a perfect dinner or a movie night on your couch. But have you ever considered the economical side of using candles? I bet you haven’t. Not yet at least! In this post we will explore how expensive or cheap it is to use candles. Let’s see whether candles are cheaper than lights!

In numbers

Let’s start with the numbers and facts just to see the differences. In general, one average size candle can provide around 13 lumen. To put this in context, a 60-watt light bulb will provide around 700 lumen. This means that one light bulb is around 50 times brighter than a candle. With this logic, you would need around 40-50 candles to reach the same effect as by turning on one light.

However, there is still some sense in switching from lights to candles. The reason is simply that most of us would not see the difference so harshly. Coming from experience, 4-6 tealight candles can lighten an average-sized living room decently. Of course, you won’t be able to read with this much light, but it is perfect for an average afternoon spent in front of your computer. So, when we look at it from this point of view, candles can make up for commonly used lamps at home.

Reality

But even with the example above, it seems logical to jump to the conclusion that candles are not really cheaper than lights. Even if you choose the cheapest, non-scented ones from the store, you would still need a lot of candles in each room. Let’s admit, it’s not the most realistic solution. And even if we consider the rising electricity prices, buying and lighting more candles is simply not the solution. This is due to the fact that most of our power consumption doesn’t come from the lights, but rather the larger household appliances.

Then why choose candles?

The answer is fairly obvious for all of us. In general, we don’t use candles to save electricity but for the atmosphere and mood. Obviously, you won’t light a candle when you want to read your book instead of turning on the closest light. But you will light a candle for a cosy movie night or dinner at home. Those are the times when you will indeed choose your favourite scented candle instead of turning on lights in the living room.

All in all, you can see now that candles are not really cheaper if you plan on getting the same effect as regular lights and lamps. However, by lighting small tealight candles, you can avoid turning on most lights in your home when it is not necessary. And even if it’s not the best method to cut back your electricity bill, it will make a really nice atmosphere.