Are LED 4 ft. lights durable?

[wv109323]

I have 6 4ft. floresent shop lights in my garage. Every year I have to go through and replace several bulbs and/or ballast to keep them working. The garage is unheated and I know this is not ideal for floresent lights and these are the cheap Walmart 4 ft. floresent lights. My question is how do the LED's around $40 compare to the floresents? Do they require maintenance?

[Joe504]

https://www.lowes.com/pd/GE-15-Watt-48-in-Medium-Bi-pin-T8-6500-K-Daylight-Fluorescent-Light-Bulb-2-Pack/1000258419

Look around, you should be able to find them cheaper.

I have had led replacement tubes in my garage for 2 years, never had a problem.

I think physical bypassing the ballast is supposed to be cheaper and last longer.


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[Flailguy]

No real maintenance, by the time they quit it's time for a new fixture
They like the cold too

[shooterg]

Put one in a very damp basement (mud room really !) 4 years ago , still brighter than the 2 flourescents it replaced.

[FLINTNFIRE]

i Have a few that are 4 years old a few newer and some of the round led house fixtures that are 8 years old , still going strong , I was having the florescent tubes go bad yearly and ballasts not lasting , for shop it is switch on wall to plug ins on ceiling and replace them if needed , spare box of them in corner , better light , energy savings .

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

A couple years ago, Menards had them on sale (with rebate), end price was $9.99
In Minnesota, when it gets to 10º or colder, florescent tubes are worthless and some LEDs don't like it either.
but the $9.99 Menards 4' LED works in cold...still going strong.

[NyFirefighter357]

https://www.lowes.com/pd/GE-15-Watt-48-in-Medium-Bi-pin-T8-6500-K-Daylight-Fluorescent-Light-Bulb-2-Pack/1000258419

Look around, you should be able to find them cheaper.

I have had led replacement tubes in my garage for 2 years, never had a problem.

I think physical bypassing the ballast is supposed to be cheaper and last longer.


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Those bulbs need a ballast which is almost always the problem with florescent lights.

You want direct wire LED bulbs also called bypass bulbs or type B. Cut out the ballast and rewire for the new bulbs. The wiring depends on the bulbs you choose. 80% of tube lighting problems are the ballast anyway. I've converted almost a dozen now. They work great and 2x the light of the florescent tube. Many replace 2 bulbs with one, doing so cuts your power consumption from 80W to less than 20w per fixture. I like more light so I always install 2 LED bulbs.

This has all the information you need to decide. https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/t8-led-tube-lights/

[samari46]

Took down all the 8' florescents 4 bulbs each in my garage. Had been there for 20 plus years. Put in 5 Harbor freight 4 footers early this year. So for $120 plus tax I basically brightened up my two car garage considerably. 5000 lumens each. Figure to do two more and thats it. And if one fixture dies another $20 to replace it.
Have pull cords so don't need them all on at the same time. Used to buy a case of lamps each year just to replace the ones in the garage. And you can piggyback up to 5 or so fixtures. I have a big power strip on the ceiling and all of them are fed off that strip. So at this time I can turn or on all of them or leave them all off and just use the pull cords. My BIL and his son got all the working fixtures with lamps for helping me do the installation. Only thing you have to watch out for is the fixtures are lower than the old ones. just be careful you don't snag one. Frank

[jsizemore]

I replaced 2 4' double florescent fixtures in a fella's small workshop with a 4 led strip 4' fixture. Bought the fixture at Home Depot last year. CE Commercial brand, I think. I had to replace the power supply which I ordered online since nothing was available locally after a years use.

[cwtebay]

Replaced 20 fluorescent bulbs in my calving barn with LED 3 years ago. Temperature range is 110° to -45° they always illuminate. I can't say that about the previous bulbs, and have to say I typically reolaced 3/4 of them per year - haven't replaced any of these yet.

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[StuBach]

I work in retail and in 2014 we replaced all our lighting in most of my stores with LEDs. Back rooms got 4’ replacement bulbs wired into existing fixtures where we removed the ballasts and store fronts got recessed new fixtures. Across 30 stores I have only had 4 bulbs total need to be replaced and these bulbs are used 24hrs a day in most stores. Highly recommend the upgrade.

In 2015 I replaced all my 4’ bulbs with direct wire option from https://shopgreentek.com. (Specifically like their 6000k 20w option for their brightness and being close to daylight in color spectrum but they are rarely in stock.) and all have performed amazing with no failures. 4 of which are in my garage in mid-Michigan where temps ranged have ranged from -20 to 105 with no issues.

In 2018 I picked up about 9 of the Costco 4’ enclosed shop fixtures for $12 each when on sale (dual bulb complete fixture that plugs into a standard power plug) and wired them to light switches by converting a normal bulb light fixture to a plug. Added two of these fixtures to garage and again, no issues with any of them. Unit is the same as the one in these two packs but when bought in warehouse they often run on sale for less than $20 each, https://www.costco.com/feit-electric-4'-linkable-led-shop-light%2c-2-pack.product.100462723.html

[monadnock#5]

I started out slow, but faster and faster everything incandescent or fluorescent is out the door and replaced with led.

[bakerjw]

I also had florescent fixtures. I pulled them out and put in these instead. How long they will last, I do not know but they do put out quite a bit of light.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0748YTDMK/

The LED replacement bulbs, IMO make little sense. You have a ballast stepping up 110VAC to voltages needed by the florescent bulbs and then stepped back down for the LEDs to operate.

[popper]

Several years ago I replaced 4 4' flour. kitchen lights with LED (home depot). 2 lasted a few months. Last month another quit. Took down 2 and replaced the failed one. LEDs are OK but electronic ballasts are cheap and fail. Nobody sells replacement ballasts.

[MrWolf]

I work in retail and in 2014 we replaced all our lighting in most of my stores with LEDs. Back rooms got 4’ replacement bulbs wired into existing fixtures where we removed the ballasts and store fronts got recessed new fixtures. Across 30 stores I have only had 4 bulbs total need to be replaced and these bulbs are used 24hrs a day in most stores. Highly recommend the upgrade.

In 2015 I replaced all my 4’ bulbs with direct wire option from https://shopgreentek.com. (Specifically like their 6000k 20w option for their brightness and being close to daylight in color spectrum but they are rarely in stock.) and all have performed amazing with no failures. 4 of which are in my garage in mid-Michigan where temps ranged have ranged from -20 to 105 with no issues.

In 2018 I picked up about 9 of the Costco 4’ enclosed shop fixtures for $12 each when on sale (dual bulb complete fixture that plugs into a standard power plug) and wired them to light switches by converting a normal bulb light fixture to a plug. Added two of these fixtures to garage and again, no issues with any of them. Unit is the same as the one in these two packs but when bought in warehouse they often run on sale for less than $20 each, https://www.costco.com/feit-electric-4'-linkable-led-shop-light%2c-2-pack.product.100462723.html

I put in 30 of the Costco lights in my 30x32 garage. Love em. I wanted lots of light :bigsmyl2:

[bedbugbilly]

We just have regular old light bulbs in our basement at hone and I like to be able to see well since I have a vision impairment. I did some looking around a year ago and at Lowes, I found a 4' LED fixture with the bulbs for, IIRC, somewhere around $24.00 or so. I bought one to try and it was amazing. We ended up staying in AZ for the summer but when we get back to MI this next spring. I plan on replacing the old bulbs with the 4 foot LED fixtures. Pretty simple installation as all I did on the one I bought to try was unscrew the bulb, screw in a plug adapter and hang the fixture - plug it in. The bulbs were on a switch.

I always had 4 foot and 8 foot fluorescent fixtures in my shops and like everyone, battled with ballasts going bad as well as bulb replacement. Always had to have a bulk box of 4 and 8 foot bulbs on hand. With the LED - no longer. I plan on hanging a LED 4 foot over my loading bench here in AZ as well as ack in MI as I think the LED fixtures are the best thing to come along since sliced bread.

[El Greco]

Harbor Freight $23.99 today

[Idz]

We replaced a bunch (50+) of 4' and 8' fluorescents at our range a year ago. There are 3 kinds of LED lamps that I know of 1) direct replacement, 2) double ended AC bypassing ballast, 3) single ended AC bypassing ballast. We used version 2 which requires removing the ballast and re-wiring the fixture. The ballasts were the biggest problem in non-conditioned building that were 130F in the summer and 10F in the winter. So far the LED lamps are working fine. Its nice to have working lights in the heat and the cold. I believe the version 2 lamps were about $4 each for the 4' ones and are more reliable and much cheaper than the version 1 lamps.

[Gus Youmans]

You don't need to buy replacement fixtures but you need to be aware of the LED bulb options. There are bulbs that require that the ballast remain in place and bulbs that require you to bypass the ballast and they are not interchangeable. The disadvantages of leaving the ballast in place are that you still have to deal with replacing the ballast if it goes bad and the ballast increases the amount of energy used to power the fixtures. It takes about five minutes to bypass/remove the existing ballast, so that is the option I chose. There are all kinds of videos on youtube showing how to do it. You must purchase bulbs that are specific to the option you choose to go with. I bought my bulbs at Lowes and the boxes specify whether bulbs are to be used with or without a ballast but you have to be smart enough to read the box. Thankfully, Lowes does returns because I found out the hard way.

The third option is to replace the sockets in one end of the fixture with single-ended sockets so that only one end of the fixture is powered. Again, not hard to do but includes the additional step of buying and installing the connectors and rewiring the fixture, but is still not hard to do. This is called a single-ended bulb and is not interchangeable with those discussed in the first paragraph.

Gus Youmans

[Gone_rabid]

I have found that the $10 Black Friday 4’ LED lights from rural king are not any good. Had one DOA and another go out a month later. I do like the fact the have an outlet on one end for daisy Chan I g them. Made it real easy to install in the garage.

[Shawlerbrook]

LED’s are the way to go.

[gwpercle]

I had all the shop lights replaced with new 4' LED fixtures & bulbs 4 years ago .
Haven't replaced a bulb , no ballast , none flicker and none are humming ...thank you Lord ! the humming used to drive me batty . Still nice and bright too .
Worth it ....you betcha , I love em!
Gary

[GregLaROCHE]

Glad to hear a lot of people have had goo luck with LED tubes. I personally, am very frustrated with the normal Led light bulbs. Some last a long time, but half don’t last as long as old fashioned bulbs, but cost much more. Even an outside floodlight I installed, didn’t last nine months.

[dragon813gt]

Have fourteen lights and replaced all the fluorescent bulbs w/ LEDs. Was in Lowe’s and they had three contractor packs of bulbs marked down to practically nothing. I did not bypass the ballasts. This was a few years ago and all of them are going strong. In the winter I have more light at the start. Don’t know if I would have switched if they weren’t marked down. But not having to get a 12’ step ladder out to replace bulbs has been great.

[.429&H110]

UAF replaced every bulb for LED and found LEDs burn out faster in a hot enclosed fixture like a ceiling globe or can. For the ceiling cans, a retrofit can in a can to let some air in, and globe were changed to LED friendly fixtures. Fluorescent fixtures are usually ventilated to let the ballast heat out, but some aren't, like a u-tube troffer covered with insulation. LED streetlights apparently last forever at -50.
4' LEDs are great.

[10x]

LED lights are brighter , use much less electricity, and do not shatter when you drop them
Short answer, you will wonder why you waited to up grade.

[monadnock#5]

A leap, not just a step forward in the technology.

[lightman]

We did a major remodel to our kitchen a little more than a year ago and I replaced the T-8 bulbs in 3 fixtures with LEDs. They have been trouble free since then. But the T-8's were pretty trouble free too. These fixtures started life as T-12's and I upgraded to T-8's when they came out. These were also pretty trouble free but slow to warm up. Every upgrade has been an improvement. We'll see about LEDs in time. There is also a big difference in quality between the fixtures that you buy at the wholesale house vs what you buy at the big box stores. This makes a difference too.

We also remodeled the bathroom 2 years ago and I installed 2 new fixtures with screw in LED bulbs. I have replaced all of them once and a few twice. The same for some lamps around the house that I started using LED's in. I'm not sold on the screw-ins yet! These were different brands, not all the same.

The company that I retired from started using LEDs in their streetlights, nightwatchers and floodlights after I left. I'll try to think to ask Biggin (the guy that took my place) how they are holding up.

The same goes for the local school system that I did the electrical work for. They converted hundreds of T-8's to LED's after I retired. I'll also try to think to ask the boy that got that job about how they hold up.

Years ago, before LEDs were on the scene you could buy LED pilot lights for use on machinery and electrical panels. There were extremely expensive but held up well.

Well, enough rambling about LEDs, lets cast some bullets!

[Handloader109]

I caught the HF lights every time they had a sale last fall and earlier this year. Was replacing 8 ft fluorescents. Those tubes cost almost the same as each of the 4ft leds. I changed the direct wire to add outlets so I could just plug them in. (Shop lighting which has a Sheetrock ceiling that is stippled dang it!) So far, great. And I can use the cords to turn off any if I don't think I want them on.
Ive put in several in my basement from Lowes and HD and coming up on 4 years for the first 3. No issues, good light and no flickering when it is cool in the winter.

[Burnt Fingers]

I've got a bunch of the Costco fixtures in my shop. They are AWESOME.

[Mal Paso]

I've got a bunch of the Costco fixtures in my shop. They are AWESOME.

+1 and they go on sale every few months. Last time they were $18 and it was driving me crazy because I have as many as I can use. LOL

[memtb]

Like anything else....you generally get what you pay for. There are internet resources available to give an indication of a particular brand/ manufacturer. That said, one of my pole barns our basement and all of the fluorescent lights in our 5th wheel rv, have LED lighting. “Knock on Wood”....all have been very good. All of the incandescent bulbs as well as the fluorescent bulbs in the living areas of our home are now LED! I just replaced a two bulb 8’ fluorescent fixture in my reloading room with a 4’ double bulb LED.....instant on, quiet, and much brighter! You might say that we’re convinced that they are better! memtb

[pjames32]

I need a sparky! I bought the suggestion GE bulbs.....GE 32-Watt EQ 48-in Daylight Linear LED Tube Light Bulb (2-Pack) from Lowe's this morning on closeout. They are 2 pin lights like my fixtures. My fixtures have a ballast that is intact. I've tried them in 3 fixtures that were working with fluorescent tubes. One did not work at all. Two fixtures are barely lit. Help!!

[memtb]

I’m no electrician but, we removed the ballast on all of our conversions....the 120v home fixtures and the 12v lights in the camper! One of the primary purposes for the rv conversion was to minimize battery draw, the ballast of a fluorescent light is the primary energy consumer!

There should be lots of you tube videos pertaining to your specific job/needs! memtb

[pjames32]

I need a sparky! I bought the suggestion GE bulbs.....GE 32-Watt EQ 48-in Daylight Linear LED Tube Light Bulb (2-Pack) from Lowe's this morning on closeout. They are 2 pin lights like my fixtures. My fixtures have a ballast that is intact. I've tried them in 3 fixtures that were working with fluorescent tubes. One did not work at all. Two fixtures are barely lit. Help!!



Update- I found a guru who told me my ballasts are not compatible with the bulbs I bought. I have magnetic ballasts and need electronic ballasts. The bulbs I bought are not ballast removal bulbs. I bought the wrong bulbs. Not my first mistake! Now to decide if I pitch the bulbs or buy different ballasts.

[memtb]

Good Luck, sorry I couldn’t be of much help! memtb

[BD]

My shop had twelve double 48" fluorescent shop light type fixtures. About 6 years ago Home Depot had a promotion on 4' LED single tube "shop lights" for about $30/each. I replaced all twelve of the fluorescents with these single strip LEDs. I was amazed at the time. Twice as bright with no flicker, no hum, no buzz and they all come on instantly, even if its 20 below in the shop when I walk in. I used to have to build a fire before I could turn the lights on. To be honest, I haven't given them a thought since then until I read this thread. I highly recommend this type of lighting. I think the brand I bought was "Commercial Electric" or something like that. They are lightweight and a little cheesy feeling, but they daisy chain together and I can light the whole shop on one 15 amp circuit.

[GhostHawk]

After reading this thread I ordered 3 of the 5000 lumen single tube LED shop lights from Harbor Freight.

They arrived 2 days ago. I unboxed one, plugged it into the wall by the kitchen and turned it on. Was like God turned on a second sun. OMG.

1 hour later one is installed in my basement shop that has always been dim. No more.
This morning I drove to Harbor freight and bought 3 more at 19$ each with the coupon.
Killer deal. One of those replaced the flourescent 2 bulb light on my unheated front porch. At 20 below it can take 10 -20 minutes for it to come on. Led won't have those problems.

Now the wife wants me to swap the one in the kitchen. It was originally a 4 bulb unit with a nice oak surround and cover over the bulbs. That got gutted 10 years ago when the ballasts went. I wired in 3 dual bulb Y sockets and put 6 twist flourescents in them.

That is my job for the morning. Find the right breaker, cut the power, wire in an outlet and install the LED about dead center.

As to how long they will last, with no ballasts to burn out or bulbs to go bad they should last a long time.
We'll see.

[10x]

After reading this thread I ordered 3 of the 5000 lumen single tube LED shop lights from Harbor Freight.

They arrived 2 days ago. I unboxed one, plugged it into the wall by the kitchen and turned it on. Was like God turned on a second sun. OMG.

1 hour later one is installed in my basement shop that has always been dim. No more.
This morning I drove to Harbor freight and bought 3 more at 19$ each with the coupon.
Killer deal. One of those replaced the flourescent 2 bulb light on my unheated front porch. At 20 below it can take 10 -20 minutes for it to come on. Led won't have those problems.

Now the wife wants me to swap the one in the kitchen. It was originally a 4 bulb unit with a nice oak surround and cover over the bulbs. That got gutted 10 years ago when the ballasts went. I wired in 3 dual bulb Y sockets and put 6 twist flourescents in them.

That is my job for the morning. Find the right breaker, cut the power, wire in an outlet and install the LED about dead center.

As to how long they will last, with no ballasts to burn out or bulbs to go bad they should last a long time.
We'll see.

The best part is your electrical bill will drop.

[GhostHawk]

10x Exactly so sir. Also considering adding one to my Hydroponics setup. Set behind and probably lower than the rest. Something to get those baby's standing up and growing.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I have found that the $10 Black Friday 4’ LED lights from rural king are not any good. Had one DOA and another go out a month later. I do like the fact the have an outlet on one end for daisy Chan I g them. Made it real easy to install in the garage.

I put a RK version over my reloading bench a year or more ago and have been pleased, I just paid $16 each for two more for the basement. I'll report back on them if they fail. I do not use the pull cord on the one over my bench but will on these two.