A few years ago, I had four incandescent garage lights replaced with 7 fluorescent tube lights fixtures, for a total of 14 bulbs, each 4 ft long. I have 6 fixtures above the car bays, and one fixture by the man-door alcove. Each bulb is 32 Watts, for a total of 448 Watts.
Over the years, I've had to replace a great number of bulbs, and they aren't cheap. They run about $4 apiece, and I seem to be replacing 1-2 every month. I suspect it's reduced mercury content causing the failure to ignite after a short time in service. Also we turn them on and off quite a bit, which is hard on fluorescent bulbs.
This past week I decided that instead of continuing to replace these failing bulbs, I would install LED tube lights instead. There are two kinds of LEDs for replacing fluorescent bulbs. One kind requires a minor electrical modification of the fixture (bypassing the ballast), and the other is a direct replacement, where the ballast continues to be in the circuit.
Being kinda lazy, I chose the latter type. The ones I bought have a 4100 Kelvin color, so they are quite a bit more yellow than the 6500 Kelvin bulbs they replaced. I am getting used to them. They also only use 17 Watts each, so the total power draw is down to 238 Watts. Better...
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