I am a careful consumer.
I work hard to make my money and there are few things that I dislike more than wasting money on consumer products that don't do what they say on the packet.
If the thing is broken or faulty I can take it back and get a refund.
If, however, it sort of works, but poorly and nowhere as well as I was led to believe by the marketing spiel I get furious.
So to prevent this happening, and to spare my family my moods, I try to thoroughly check out a product before I purchase.
For sometime now I have wanted to put a light in my shed.
It seemed a big job to run a line from the house to the shed and waterproof it.
So instead I hit upon the idea of using green energy; to install something that could run independent of the main power supply.
I hit upon just the product when I stumbled upon the Designers Edge L949 10 LED Rechargeable Solar Panel Shed Light on a really good website promoting environmentally friendly consumer products for the house and garden.
Next I checked the reviews on Amazon and a few other sites.
The only complaints that people made about the solar panel and LED light was that the cord that came with it was 16ft and not the advertised 20ft in length, and that the box contained an L-frame which seemed irrelevant to the mounting.
I thought that I could live with these minor glitches - after all, I only needed about 12ft of cord and I was sure I could attach the light to the ceiling of my shed somehow.
And what really decided it for me was the price - only $23.
96.
So I went ahead and ordered the Designer Edge 10 LED Rechargeable Solar Panel Shed Light.
It arrived a few days later and I immediately set to work installing it on my shed.
The box contained: the solar panel with a 16 foot cord attached; an exterior mounting bracket; the 10 LED light with attached mounting; screws; and the odd L-shaped rod I had read about.
I set to work the following Saturday morning and I had finished the installation by lunch time.
What a result.
It was easy to drill a few holes and attach the solar panel to the roof and drill a few more and put the light on the ceiling.
I turned it on and it worked fine.
It comes with 3 AA rechargeable batteries that had plenty of 'juice' in them on arrival, so I could test the light out immediately.
I could see the batteries were charging because a little red LED light came on.
Thus the solar panel was gathering energy from the sun and turning it into electricity to charge the batteries.
The light has two settings: you can either have 5 or 10 of the LED lights on.
I tried it the same night on both settings.
The 5 light setting seemed a bit dim, but was enough to stop me banging into things.
The full, 10 LED light setting was fairly bright.
Good enough for my needs.
Since that Saturday I have had no problems with either the LED lights or the solar panel.
The batteries stay well charged despite the hit and miss weather that we have in this part of the North.
The instructions inform me I can expect 100,000 hours of light from the LED lights.
I'm not counting the hours of illumination but I have had two months of light whenever I have needed it for my shed and I'm more than happy.
The absence of disappointment has also made my family very happy.