Garage lights

Yes as 2935ford posted, the existing lights can be converted to LED with a simple rewire and the ballast can be left in place if you want. Check the 1000 Bulbs web site for great pricing on the LED replacement bulbs.
 
Ten years ago I renovated our old barn into a 5 bedroom lodging and event venue
(1915barn.net). I am nutso about keeping track of our energy use at the Barn via spreadsheets so the numbers used below are accurate.

Three years ago I replaced every incandescent bulb with an LED one. Today I calculated the average monthly use of energy for the last three years with incandescent bulbs and compared it to the average monthly use of LED bulbs over a similar time period. Our electrical usage comparing these two averages is down 54%. The averages are 1426 kWh per month before replacement to 660 kWh per month after.

The boiler and stove both use natural gas. The clothes dryer is electric. So almost all of the savings should be due to the switch from incandescent bulbs to LED ones. Now it was a considerable out lay of money to switch over to LED bulbs, even though the initial purchase was made when there was an amazing sale at Home Depot on LED bulbs. Also note that though they say the LED bulbs should last 8 to 10 years, in the last three years I have replaced about 6 to 8 bulbs out of perhaps 100.

My belief was and is that in the long run we would be saving money by using less energy. I had no idea that it would be so drastic.

Note: all are screw in bulbs.

P.S. anyone want to buy a sh*tload of incandescent bulbs....cheap!
 
I used LED bulbs from Home Depot and replaced two of the flourescents in each fixture with LEDs. They work perfectly. Did not have to rewire anything.
 
They are good, but a friend in his garage went overboard with the LED's overhead, and it hurts your eyes to be in there. I told him 'It's like staring at a welder' and he just laughed. He could have gotten by with half of what he has.

Is there some kind of formula an electrician would go by for what you actually need?
 
Just before the LED shop fixtures became available, I outfitted my garage with 6 4-ft new florescent fixtures, and likewise 8 fixtures in my wife's sewing gallery. I realize that these fixtures could be converted to LED, but with 14 fixtures, each with 4 tubes, I'll probably just wait till they start needing replacement. (Oh, and I have a box full of replacement tubes that I bought at the same time!)
 
Jeff/Illinois said:
They are good, but a friend in his garage went overboard with the LED's overhead, and it hurts your eyes to be in there. I told him 'It's like staring at a welder' and he just laughed. He could have gotten by with half of what he has.

Is there some kind of formula an electrician would go by for what you actually need?
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Sounds like it is time for a dimmer switch.

Charlie Stephens
 
MVal said:
A good friend installed LED lights in their kitchen which I believe were the tube type. During an outage (we have a lot of those in CA) when his generator was running his wife called him to the kitchen because smoke was coming from several of the lights. They called the local fire department and after resolving the issue they told him some of the LED's can be a problem when using a generator. Evidently on the cheaper stand by generators the sine wave isn't very good and it causes the lights to heat up and smoke then start smoldering, etc. I haven't had a problem personally but am using a Honda generator which has a near perfect sine wave. Only saying this as an issue to consider when using LEDs and a generator and am assuming the FD personnel know what they are talking about!
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I would say they don't! Motor homes are made to run on generators and the new ones have nothing but LEDs.
 
LEDs run on DC, so any that are energized from AC power need a power supply the converts the AC to DC at the proper voltage.
 
My experience is that the light output is great, the energy usage is great but the fixture throws off radio frequencies that interfere with the FM radio in our kitchen.
 
Synchro909 said:
As part of the move to low energy use (and hence carbon emissions), our Government has been changing over any old incandescent or fluorescent lights for the low energy consumption LED replacement free of charge to the home owner. I agree - for a fraction of the energy, lightis much better. There is the cold bluish light and the warmer more yellow light. We take our pick.
In the workshop, they have proved to be a wonder but I still prefer to work on the car just inside the open roller door where I can see our resident King Parrots, Rosellas, Magpies, Kookaburras etc. It makes working on the car a pleasure.
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Now that sounds just great.
 
2935ford said:
If you want to save a little money, you can convert your current flo fixtures to LED with a simple rewire of the tombstones and no more ballasts. LED's just need power from one end like a normal light bulb. So, all you have to purchase is the LED tube.
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so all we need to do is to connect two wires into one tombstone? do you know what the colors would be of those two wires?
 
I just switched over to these LED’s last week. I had the T12 Now they are much brighter . No wiring change plug and play.
 

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Ballast bypass bulbs are the better choice in my opinion. If you keep your old ballast it will eventually fail and you will need to replace it or get a ballast bypass bulb, In the meantime you are buying electricity to operate the old ballast.
 
We changed everything over to LED and put solar with a powerwall battery and haven’t
Bought any electricity in 6 mos. We’ll see what the winter time brings.
Before all of our outside lights alone were 1800 watts, with LED its under 100w.
The garage LED fixtures came from Home Depot and Harbor freight.
 
Licensed to kill said:
I had 8-4 tube T5 fluorescent fixture in my shop. They were state of the art in shop lighting at the time and were quite good. Several years ago I replaced them with 4-250 watt LED's. HUGE difference but in my case, no power savings. Power consumption is about the same. I had the LED guy come out with samples and I huge 1 of the 250's in the middle of the shop temporarily just to see and the one light lit up the shop better than the 8 T5's.
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t5's are what I have. What led bulbs did you get? I ask because I have not been able to find an led with more lumens than a t5.
 
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MVal said:
A good friend installed LED lights in their kitchen which I believe were the tube type. During an outage (we have a lot of those in CA) when his generator was running his wife called him to the kitchen because smoke was coming from several of the lights. They called the local fire department and after resolving the issue they told him some of the LED's can be a problem when using a generator. Evidently on the cheaper stand by generators the sine wave isn't very good and it causes the lights to heat up and smoke then start smoldering, etc. I haven't had a problem personally but am using a Honda generator which has a near perfect sine wave. Only saying this as an issue to consider when using LEDs and a generator and am assuming the FD personnel know what they are talking about!
Click to expand...
If a generator is cheap, in all likelihood it has a "modified sine wave" inverter, and a LOT of electronics have trouble with that. LED products are a significant example. There have been many RV fires caused by a small LED nightlight that was used while the RV was using a MSW inverter.


The higher quality generators have a "pure sine wave" inverter. The small Honda 2000 generator is pure sine wave and everything works with it. If you are buying a generator, be aware of its limitations.


Edit to add: All modern RVs equipped with LED lighting will have a pure sine wave inverter(for running off batteries in the RV) and generator.
 
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2935ford said:
If you want to save a little money, you can convert your current flo fixtures to LED with a simple rewire of the tombstones and no more ballasts. LED's just need power from one end like a normal light bulb. So, all you have to purchase is the LED tube.
Click to expand...

desotoguy said:
Yes as 2935ford posted, the existing lights can be converted to LED with a simple rewire and the ballast can be left in place if you want. Check the 1000 Bulbs web site for great pricing on the LED replacement bulbs.
Click to expand...


Be careful here!



LED bulbs are made to simply replace an existing fluorescent with no rewiring needed, and others are made which REQUIRE rewiring. The two kinds are NOT interchangeable AFAIK.
 
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