I've got a medium sized shed (12m x 5m) and the old flouro light fittings are starting to die, the tombstones at the end are just coming apart.
Where's it at for shed light fittings these days? More modern flouros? LED?
What's the best thing to install for long term good shed lighting?
LED's don't have the long life they promised us though. I've found them as reliable as incandescent lights.
That's not my experience. I've relaced all my lights with LEDs, and I've only had two of them fail. One that failed virtually immediately it was fitted, and a second that water ran down over when rain got into the roof in a hail storm, and leaked down through the light fitting.
That's deliberate, why would a manufacturer make a product that lasts 10 years when they can make one that lasts 2 and sells for the same price? That said, I've had a good run with them and really there isn't another option these days unless you want to stick with fluro.
I've had a far better experience than that.
I've have around 30 LED downlights (9 watts each) installed for over 3 years now.
2 failures - one of those was DOA, the other failed within days of being installed. The remaining have never failed and are still working away and as bright as the day they were installed.
I'm not talking expensive ones, these were eBay jobs (ALUX) at a cost of something like $8 each.
Now, I'm not suggesting you install downlights in a shed - you'd want fluro batten style IMO (but LED not fluro).
Not my experience. I have LED's at work that took over the arc-sodium floods and they have been there about 7~8 years now. In my home garage, I got LED fluro tube replacements for one batten and replaced the other with a full LED replacement batten to compare them. At almost the 10 year mark, they are still as bright as the day they were swapped over and neither of them have needed replacing. I even still have spare LED tubes for the retrofit batten that have never been opened.
medium sized shed (12m x 5m)
Was going to make a joke about how tiny your shed is and then remembered that since becoming a city slicker I don’t even have a storage cage let alone a shed :(
Led is the way to go, just make sure they don’t have any kind of visible pulse width modulation which can be annoying if working with spinning or fast moving items.
Also, painting the walls and ceiling the correct colour can really help with the amount of overall brightness.
2 turntables and a microphone, no good.
There's a destination a little up the road
From the habitations and the towns we know
A place we saw, the lights turn low
The jigsaw jazz and the get-fresh flow
If you are replacing the whole unit get LED. There’s no pot getting anything else. It might cost a bit more to buy, but should last a lot longer and likely use less power.
how tall is ceiling?
just chuck some 40w integrated led battens in there maybe.
in my FIL's shed we put a 150w UFO highbay x 1 in there, 5m ceiling. Great task light , can dim it down with 1-10v dimmer if required.
It's about 4m at the apex, sloping down to about 3 on the edges, the current lights are mounted about 3m high.
Theres a set of dual flouros for each bay now (4 bays) there's the cheap option just to replace them with new ones… or UFO's.
I'd rather spend more now to spend less in future.
UFO highbays have dropped down heaps over last 5 years.
Maybe just arrange to have some power points put in so you can replace easily in future
So they can easily be replaced like bathroom extractor fans?
@illogicalerror: most if not all have flex and plug, and just attached with an eye hook/chain. if your ceiling is only 4m that should be pretty manageable on a ladder assuming you are relatively fit / co-ordinated.
Cheap option is to replace your flouro tubes with LED, they don't save any energy however as the ballast is still powered, there are simple instructions on youtube on how to remove the ballast and rewire which is something that probably isn't allowed if you are not a licenced electrician.
Otherwise if you want to spend a bit more, get some decent LED bay lighting or battens
Yes, but the Hue version.
Get some night vision goggles.
So I made a trade…. for the main lights I got ip65 rated casings and then a UFO for above my main bench.
You gotta understand I'm up in the wet tropics and longevity has different requirements.
Thanks all for your great ideas. Legends.
LED because pretty soon, Fluoro bulbs are going to be almost impossible to find or are going to get more expensive.
If you have to replace the whole mount anyway, just go straight to LED.