Watt??

How do you determine the brightness of the light you will need to illuminate your home?  Is it wattage?  Actually, no.

Wattage/Watts is the amount of energy used by a lamp/light bulb.  The higher the wattage the more energy and heat is generated, which increases the cost of lighting your home.

Lumens are the amount of light/brightness a bulb emits.  The higher the lumens the brighter the light.

Incandescent bulbs (traditional standard bulbs) are less efficient than LEDs and others and use more energy to emit the equivalent lumens of an LED.  For example a 6W to 8W LED provides approximately the same amount of lumens as a 40W incandescent bulb.  With the phasing out of incandescent bulbs, it is important to understand what lumens are, in order to illuminate your space, and not rely on wattage.

So the next time you purchase an incandescent bulb start getting familiar with lumens. The information should be on the packaging and is a good reference for purchasing LED or other types of bulbs.