LED overhead light

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
I recently stood in Lowes reading LED labels. Seems the 22 hour claim for most of them is based on 3 hours per day. I just lost my 3rd LED in 8 years. The one over the kitchen sink which most days is on 10-12 hours unless I'm gone for the day. Bulb lasted 8 years so it looks like the 22 year claim has something to it.
 

Jeff H

NW Ohio
Holy cow, @Ben , that's some serious LIGHT!

The "strips I'm using don't put that kind of light out - rated at 5k Lumens. I have 14 recessed lighting fixtures between two rooms in the house and have replaced all the incandescent PAR30s with LEDs, similar to those you are using and had to unscrew HALF of them so we didn't need sunglasses in the house.

I never thought to use those in a plain porcelain fixture, but I like t he idea. I may have to augment my "strips" with a few of those.
 
Last edited:

Ben

Moderator
Staff member
Porcelain fixtures , cheap and reliable.
The bulbs ( while illuminating ) are cool to the touch along with the fixtures.

Ben
 
Last edited:

Red Bear

Member
I recently stood in Lowes reading LED labels. Seems the 22 hour claim for most of them is based on 3 hours per day. I just lost my 3rd LED in 8 years. The one over the kitchen sink which most days is on 10-12 hours unless I'm gone for the day. Bulb lasted 8 years so it looks like the 22 year claim has something to it.
i have certain fixtures that burn out bulbs everytime i turn around. one in particular is a two light fixture in my kitchen hat burns out a led bulb about every month. it is only one side of the fixture. the other side has the original bulb from when fixture was installed. not sure why one side keeps burning out the bulb. double checked wiring and everything is ok. have a lamp that does almost as bad. looked up trouble shooting a led light and said to check wiring and avoid cheap led bulbs( did not know there was such a thing).
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
Well my shops big side has 15 - 8’ twin tube fluorescent fixtures with old fashioned ballasts. My ceiling is 17’ up. I installed the fixtures on scaffolding with a 8’ ladder on top. I was younger then. Worked great as long as the temperatures were 50* or higher. I normally keep that side of the shop at a little over 40* in the colder seasons which is 2/3’s of the year or more, so dim light unless I fire up the wood stove. Now it’s bright at 40* and colder.
When LED’s came out the replacement for these fixtures was very expensive. I would replace a fixture’s worth when funds allowed. But, when I saw how bright by comparison to the fluorescent tubes, especially in temperatures down to 20* or colder, I started finding funds at a more rapid pace.
At least 30% to 40% brighter with 1/3 less electricity. Up here we are paying $0.27 per KW so the LED’s paid off fast. And the prices for replacement bulbs came down. But I did not have to replace the entire fixture.
078A4015-7F0B-4FC1-9AB3-A492B531C9AA.jpeg

The smaller side had 4’ twin tube fluorescent’s which I replaced with LED bulbs. Same thing, more light, less electricity. Once again did not have to replace fixtures. Also the 4’ replacement bulb x 2 = 28 watts total and the 4’ replacement fixtures were about 38 watts.
12ECD0B3-9890-48FA-A506-A83D2D426599.jpeg

I’m happy with the replacements of bulbs and not having to mess with fixtures.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Been in this house ten years. Floursents were specified on the build, because LED's were very expensive back then. Changed most of them out for LED's, over the last few years. The four (100 watt equivalent) LED's in the fixture over the kitchen island are not getting good life. Originally, used Cree..............didn't last two years. Fixture is only used for food prep. Tried Amazon Basic bulbs, cheaper and not lasting any longer. Replaced a bulb, earlier this month for flickering. They don't burn out just go into a strobe mode. :headbang:
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Porcelain fixtures , cheap and reliable.
The bulbs ( while illuminating ) are cool to the touch along with the fixtures.

Ben
LED bulbs will get warm to the touch. Not hot, just warm. One of the three bulbs I lost was in a three bulb fixture in the bathroom, it got extremely hot, way too hot to remove until it cooled off. The other two in the same fixture are original the remodel several years ago. Replacement bulb is also fine.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Don't have to replace the whole fixture...............just replace the ballast with correct one for LED's. I hired an electrician to do that. I had about 12 four foot fixtures, done.
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
The LED bulbs I used for replacements, used the original wiring and ballasts. Made it easy. I like easy when I need to be on a ladder.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
The LED bulbs I used for replacements, used the original wiring and ballasts. Made it easy. I like easy when I need to be on a ladder.
I have a few of those in less used places. Safe room and my walk in vault. They are not instant on. I hit the light switch, outside the vault, by the time I enter the combination it's illuminated.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I'm pleased to report that all of my 4 foot fluorescent lighting units are now in the dumpster. I've totally switched over to LED. Life expectancy of the LED bulbs is 22 years. Try that with fluorescent lighting. 65 watts of pure bright white light using only 9 watts of energy per bulb.
Wonderful !!!!!!!!

Qypn7na.jpg


yiivfW0.jpg


Won't get much simpler than this :

U1x3xEx.jpg
Many years back, mid 90's I'd guess, the local Lions club came around selling "Lifetime" bulbs. I think these were early CFL's. I think we bought 2 at something like $25.00 each. They were supposed to last 25 years at least. They both lasted about 2 years. Hope yours do better Ben!
 

CWLONGSHOT

Well-Known Member
I had to search but I found Home Depot and only some stores carrying a "mushroom" light. Screws into a standard single bulb receptacle. Two wattages and of coarse LED and VERY BRITE!! I bought a couple then a couple more untill I have all basement lights converted. I like them allot and didnt even think of them until I saw Bens post on the last page. They resemble the ones he posted but are more stool or mushroom shaped. (Larger dia and thinner and VERY LIGHT WEIGHT!)

CW

E606B489-7835-495D-9F66-90847DE314EC.jpeg
 
Last edited:

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
Those flood light ben has, I have two in the basement. They are going on 4 years right now. One is always on, at least 5 days straight at a time. I got three boxes of three of them from Costco when they were clearance them out. I also got 5 boxes of the 60W regular led bulbs. I think there are 5 in each box. Not sure as none have gone out in the 4 years since I bought them.

I had a bunch of the original florissant bulbs from when we moved in here 20 years ago. I put them in a year after we moved in. They were some of the very first ones made. They were expensive. One thing I always hated about them is they took about half an hour to fully light up. The new LED ones are bright instantly. I think there are 2 left in the basement. I had one that had a meltdown. Luckily nothing was below it when it did.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
Circa 2003 I bought a couple of the CFLs at a time then changed every light in the house on the evening of the meter read . Saved $12-13 / month for the first 3 months over the previous 3 months . That was awesome and the savings paid for the bulbs .........the rats raised the rates just enough to erase the savings . I know they were there but I hate it when you find a good hack to save $12-13/mo then the bill goes up 15 . We had a "hum" in the house and the hall light and the front porch light just wouldn't stay running . The base did away with about 20 strings of "camp lights" and all of the bulbs that had been strung on the 40' Christmas tree so I scored about 40 Edison bulbs in red , blue , and green .....being in Nevada I almost immediately ditched the red lights , don't need that traffic thanks . I did keep a few for bedside as we were VFD and they were easier on the eyes at 0300 .
Blue for the hall light , it was almost a perfect match for the TV glow . The blue light for a cop wasn't a thing then .

As the last of the discount and promo CFLs die I'm replacing them with the LEDs but I'm not completely sold on them yet . The flood lights don't seem to dampen much of the area they should be flooding and the loading has become very pleasant with the 100 watt comparable CFL placed just so , over the bench in the 10' ceiling . So far the house doesn't have a "hum" , a decided load bearing list but no hum .

There's the one bulb in the bathroom that seems to be inclined to failure but I'll be changing the fixture in the near future so if it's a fixture fault it should go away .

I've been toying with a gas light and the passive consideration of a black water methane collector .....very , very passively .
 

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
My mother still has 2 gas lights out in front of the house. Everything is there. The gas lines are unhooked in her basement. I was thinking about getting them going again as I can't remember if I ever seen them lit before.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Seems like all the camps I used to go to had gas (propane) lighting and refrigerators. They're bright, very hot and noisy. Propane and natural gas use different sized orifices of course, but if she still has NG piped to the house and you can blow the lines out of dust and junk they'll probably work. Those things are pretty bullet proof.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Realistically, I've seen no cost savings of the LED over floursents. Our electric bills have always been over two C-notes. Last one was almost $300 :eek:
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
Well I’ve certainly seen savings which of course get eaten up by the increasing electric bills. We got grid power in the mid 90’s. We are using a little less then 40% of the electricity now by comparison. The electric bill has not changed much because we have gone from $0.07 per Kilowatt to $0.27 pre kilowatt.
Our Cooperative uses oil to generate electricity, we have a “clean” coal plant that was built but never allowed to go on line because of the greenies. Our power plant here contributes to the poor air quality because of winter time inversion holding all the bad air down on top of the town. The clean coal plant is out about 100 miles away on the inter tie where only a moose or two would be effected.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Realistically, I've seen no cost savings of the LED over floursents. Our electric bills have always been over two C-notes. Last one was almost $300 :eek:
Ours regularly run over $400 in the winter. I haven't seen one under $200 at anytime in close to 20 years.