Saturday, May 3, 2014

LEDs Attract Fewer Mosquitoes?

We live next to a beaver pond, and there are a LOT of bugs. I started looking into ways keep them away from our house. There were a lot of people willing to sell me solutions, but one option that cropped up was to replace outdoor lights with LED bulbs. The theory is that mosquitos mostly sense in the ultraviolet and blue light range, as well as sense heat and carbon dioxide. Incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) throw out more ultraviolet and blue light (and heat) than LEDs do.
CFL Spectral Analysis
LED Spectral Analysis
Now, this doesn't mean that LEDs repel mosquitoes. They just attract them less than other bulbs do. Some sites are claiming that LEDs don't fix mosquito problems because they lit up a single LED bulb out in the forest and bugs flew to it. But Brianna and I don't live in the middle of a forest. We live in the middle of a neighborhood, and every other house uses incandescents and fluorescents in their exterior lights, (supposedly) making them much more attractive targets for the little bloodsuckers.

We have only had one night with LEDs in the exterior lights (last night), but the initial results were very promising: normally we have a swarm of mosquitoes around the lights and last night I found TWO.

Booyah.

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