Looking into converting the whole house over to LED light bulbs. Any input?

[Sheepdog Gear]

Ok. Thinking of placing a LARGE order on 1000bulbs.com. If anybody has a coupon code they don't plan on using, I'd be more that happy to take it off your hands.

 

[tmschuller]

I am going to threadjack here, so pardon me, please ..... I need to replace 4' flourecsent tubes,

is there anything I need to know, or to look for, are they "energy saving" or what ?????

I need an education, here .....

Just the tubes T-12? the fat ones? If so you have change the ballast in the fixture if you want different bulbs . You can go to LED that can fit in the fixture, not sure of the cost of the LED "bulbs". You also have to buy a DC converter to power them.
The fluorescent replacements T-8 or T-5 bulbs will fit in the fixture but you have to do a simple rewire, its on the ballast. Where are the fixtures? You can buy some really nice led fixtures but are pricey. What is the area you are trying to light?? Go to lowes/home depot and look at options. They change quickly and new products are available . Hope it helps. Tim

 

[SSGSAD]

Yes, thank you, Tim ..... that helps a lot ..... just wanted to change bulbs, in the basement .....

 

[sbnewsom]

Be sure to check with your power provider. I bought 30 led bulbs and Hendricks county power reimbursed me 90% of the cost because of the energy savings.

I used to be in the lighting business. If you have detailed questions pm me.

 

[Brandon]

Boy I screwed up my last post!
Our can lights buzz when dimmed. They do not buzz when at full power.

 

[Sheepdog Gear]

Be sure to check with your power provider. I bought 30 led bulbs and Hendricks county power reimbursed me 90% of the cost because of the energy savings.

I used to be in the lighting business. If you have detailed questions pm me.

Wow! That would be nice! I just blew over $1K at 1000bulbs.com.

Edit: Wonderful. Just checked with Nipsco....

"*Please note, NIPSCO’s Energy Efficiency Rebate Program has come to an end for 2015. Please check back in January for updates on 2016 program offerings."

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Boy I screwed up my last post!
Our can lights buzz when dimmed. They do not buzz when at full power.

That makes some more sense. The way the dimmers work, they give you a really torn up, harmonic-rich wave, and I could see something in the bulbs or wiring singing to you. There are dimmers specially made for them, but I haven't looked into what they do exactly.

 

[sbnewsom]

Wow! That would be nice! I just blew over $1K at 1000bulbs.com.

Edit: Wonderful. Just checked with Nipsco....

"*Please note, NIPSCO’s Energy Efficiency Rebate Program has come to an end for 2015. Please check back in January for updates on 2016 program offerings."

Keep checking their site and save your receipts. I'm sure they will come up with a rebate for fy2016

 

[Scuba591]

I am converting to LED; however it is the Phillips Hue System. This way I can control the temp and lighting even change the color pattern when having events. And... I can control the lights over WiFi when I am away. I have the lights set up to change to a cool blue whenever the International Space Station flies overhead !

 

[tmschuller]

Boy I screwed up my last post!
Our can lights buzz when dimmed. They do not buzz when at full power.

At least they dont hum... Not sure about buzz but when they hum I know why.....................
They dont know the words.. hope it helps.

 

[Leo]

Kind of a side line, but why would a power company who sells electricity for a living, subsidize the equipment for a customer to buy less electricity from him? That business model does not make sense.

 

[Sheepdog Gear]

Kind of a side line, but why would a power company who sells electricity for a living, subsidize the equipment for a customer to buy less electricity from him? That business model does not make sense.

I have no proof of this, nor did I look into it at all, but they may get kickbacks from the government. The current government model doesn't make sense, so this is the only logical answer.

 

[WebSnyper]

Be sure to check with your power provider. I bought 30 led bulbs and Hendricks county power reimbursed me 90% of the cost because of the energy savings.

I used to be in the lighting business. If you have detailed questions pm me.

I filed a few at the end of the year with Hendricks County Power myself. Just curious, how long did it take to get your $. I filed mine completely online. I noticed the submission process and where it goes looked a bit different than when I submitted for my water heater.

Kind of a side line, but why would a power company who sells electricity for a living, subsidize the equipment for a customer to buy less electricity from him? That business model does not make sense.

I have no proof of this, nor did I look into it at all, but they may get kickbacks from the government. The current government model doesn't make sense, so this is the only logical answer.

I'm guessing the same thing. Probably some kind of subsidy type of thing.

 

[sbnewsom]

Took about 2 weeks to get the check.

 

[BugI02]

Kind of a side line, but why would a power company who sells electricity for a living, subsidize the equipment for a customer to buy less electricity from him? That business model does not make sense.

If it allowed them to shallow out their demand curve and forgo building additional capacity, or buy less from out of state sources, then it could make economic sense. If it increased their available reserves to allow for increased or more competitive offerrings to industrial users also.

 

[KittySlayer]

Kind of a side line, but why would a power company who sells electricity for a living, subsidize the equipment for a customer to buy less electricity from him? That business model does not make sense.

Because they dick over business customers to provide rebates to domestic customers. We pay a few thousand dollars extra each year to provide funds for the rebates. A Win Win for everyone but those that have to pay.

 

[JettaKnight]

We had a hundred can type CFL lights in our office building. One of the owners is a tree hugger and just had to have LEDs throughout the building. This required an electrician and modification of all the fixtures. Electricity is cheap so the payback period on this little pipe dream is 20+ years. We'll still be a lose leader when I retire.

The tree hugger tried to convince their partners of the cost savings and no matter how you calculated it the change did not make economic sense.

That's a shame they didn't use direct replacements. They make drop in retrofit T8's for 4' FL troffers.

Also, the one key cost your forgetting is relamping. In a large business office, there's a cost for paying someone to go around and replace burnt out FL lamps.

Kind of a side line, but why would a power company who sells electricity for a living, subsidize the equipment for a customer to buy less electricity from him? That business model does not make sense.

The public utility business model rarely does. When your power grid is darn near maximum, you want to do whatever you can to support current customers and add new ones without investing in the infrastructure. The only way to make that work is to get customers to use less on a per customer basis.

Adding new power plants is really, really expensive.



As to humming - the technical term is "lamp sing". The tungsten coil inside the lamp (bulbs are for planting) actually vibrates at an audible frequency. This is do to the voltage being switched on by the dimmer such that the change in voltage is very rapid - dv/dt and all that.

The solution is to smooth out that rise by using chokes - coils of coil that impede rapid change. Cheap dimmers use small chokes. Theatrical dimmers use massive chokes.

As to CFL/LED dimmer compatibility, there is a difference. The older method of dimming was to switch the voltage on after a delay in the AC waveform then the electronic switch turned off at the zero cross and a delay happens until it's switched on. The longer the delay, the dimmer the light. This is know as "forward phase dimming".

The alternative is "reverse phase dimming" (intuitively the names are backwards if you look at the waveforms). In this mode the voltage conducts at the start of the wave and is switched off mid cycle. In order to do this, newer electronic devices are required, hence it's newer technology.

It's worth noting that reverse phase dimmers are compatible with tungsten lamps.

JK (who designs dimmers for a living)

 

[looney2ns]

I've been completely happy with the Cree's and the Sylvania LED bulbs I've purchased. I went from 10 50 watt halogens in the kitchen to 10 5.5 watt LED's, and have better light, and a heck of a lot less heat dumped into the kitchen.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Ever anecdotal story is just that, an anecdotal story.

I have been in this house for 7 years. First thing I did was CFLs, still a few of those left after 7 years now but most have died. As they died I replaced them with LEDs. The math is pretty simple, the economics will vary depending on how much the lights are on. Now that you can get mid-grade 60W equiv. LED bulbs for ~$1.50 it's a no-brainer decision for almost all lights except those that see very rare use (attic light, corner closet in the basement, etc)

That being said, I have NEVER had a single LED bulb (oldest ones are about 4 years old, most of my bulbs are O'feit brand) fail after put in service, and I've only ever had 1 bulb DOA. I've never had any weird flickering issues either. The only issue I have is that I have ceiling fans with remote operated lights/fans, with incandesents in place I never noticed anything but with LED's (dimmable) they glow faintly with the light has power from the switch but is turned off with the remote; I assume its voltage leakage through transistors. It doesn't bother me.

One thing I've noticed since converting over to LED in our house; in one bedroom they wired the outlet and the ceiling light from the same breaker. No the outlet isn't switched, they are fed from the same circuit. What I've noticed is that in that one room if the light is on and you turn on the vacuum plugged into that room the LED goes out momentarily, not dim, out. Only room in the house that does it but it's also the only room in the house wired that way.

The other half of this observation is that we have exterior lights on the house and barn that come on at dusk at a low level and go to a higher output via a motion detector. With the old incandescents there was a distinct change in light output between the low and high settings, with the LED's it's a very minor difference. Without doing a lot of research on it I've decided that their voltage sensitivity isn't comparable to the incandescent bulbs and they are able to maintain almost full light output at the lower setting. I'm actually thinking about changing the one on the barn back to incandescent so it doesn't light up the whole backyard.

Dimmable bulb in that room will more than likely solve your problem. I'm betting you get a temporary voltage dip because of the startup current on the vaccuum, dimmable bulbs are made to run on lower voltage which means they will function fine through the "dip".

 

[Cameramonkey]

You are using an incompatible dimmer, CountryBoy. I had the same issue with my garage. I installed an occupancy sensor to turn the lights on/off automatically. But when the motion would turn off, the LEDs (and I think the CFLs ) would continue a weird, dim glow.

I had to add an extra load to fix it. (I changed one bulb to a 40w incandescent and they stopped)