Florescent Lighting Bans?

[MossRoad]

I did have two LED outdoor fixtures that went bad after a year at one of my employer's buildings. I opened one up and found it stuffed full of packing paper, so it overheated and cooked. The other was stuffed with bird nest and got cooked as well.

 

[ultrarunner]

Some of the apartments went to LED fixtures and now when it does not work it’s on the property owner…

 

[Chewwy]

I replaced the T8 eight foot fluorescents in my shop and garage in Aug of 2021 with LEDs nor using ballasts. Eight foot fluorescent tube were hard to find and replacement ballast were non existent. Thus far, they are still functioning well and are super bright (really nice for the shop).

I have also replaced all the smaller fluorescents tubes in the house except the two footers underneath the kitchen cabinets. They are original to the house (built in 1886). They are not used very much but still are still functioning.

 

[ultrarunner]

Options are good… mandates not so good.

I wish California didn’t feel it has to always be the early adopter test case for nation and world.

I remember when fluorescents were mandated… now it’s the mercury causing issues but we recycle all our fluorescent bulbs… nothing ever to the landfill.

It’s against the law to dispose of fluorescents in landfill trash so how is this a problem in 2025?

 

[ultrarunner]

Picture of the LED tube supply chain requires for the entire 80,000 employee enterprise… I am but a dot on the location map.

My 1995 T8 ballasts are Instant Start but not all Instant Start Ballast are the same

 

[ultrarunner]

Just checked and the current price is up 30% from last month…

Rated Life50,000 hr
Rough ServiceNo
Shatter-ResistantNo
StandardscULus Classified; DLC
Start TypeInstant
UL 1993 Environmental RatingDamp Location
UL TypeType A
Voltage120 to 277V AC
Wattage14 W
UNSPSC39112102
Country of OriginChina (subject to change)


Product Description

LED UL Type A linear lamps are plug-and-play to install into an existing fluorescent light fixture and operate from its ballast, so there's no need to rewire, add drivers, or modify electrical components. They allow a simple transition when upgrading from fluorescent lamps to more energy efficient, longer lasting LEDs. For proper operation, installers must verify that these light bulbs are compatible with fixture ballasts

 

[drssg]

I can understand the frustration of having this change forced upon you, but IME the LEDs are superior to the fluorescents in all respects. They use less electricity, they are more reliable, they provide better lighting, and they eliminate the need to maintain ballasts.

I haven't tried the LEDs that allow you to keep the ballasts in place, but that seems to defeat the purpose. The ballast makes the fixture less efficient, and it adds another point of failure.

There is the one-time investment in some labor to remove and bypass the ballast and buy the LED tubes. From that point forward, it's all positive IME.

 

[WinterDeere]

I can understand the frustration of having this change forced upon you, but IME the LEDs are superior to the fluorescents in all respects.

Of course you're correct. But outlawing the sale of only new fluorescent fixtures, rather than the bulbs, would be a much less disruptive means of eventually achieving the same result, without forcing immediate costs onto every property owner.

If the sale of new fixtures were banned, the demand for bulbs would diminish over time, to where finally the bulb pricing increases to the point where the last few stragglers convert. But in the majority of cases, the aging-out of old fixtures and ballasts would have most already converted, long before the bulbs ultimately went NLA.

 

[grsthegreat]

I have a 4 bulb fixture in our house. Only two of the bulbs have burned out in 30 years. They are 130V bulbs and very heavy glass. I'll be sad when the last one goes. (or maybe dead )

Those 130v bulbs were usually sourced from Canada. My local supply house used to sell them. I have incandescent 60,75 and 100s that have been burning for many, many years. Heck, my R30 can lights were installed over 15 years ago in basement and i can only remember replacing 1 lamp. There are 20 can lights down there.

 

[Oaktree]

These rarely-achieved lifetime estimates are usually based on the LED itself, which will legitimately last damn near forever. The trouble is that any electrolytic or tantalum capacitors used in the driver circuit may have lifespans of just 10,000 - 20,000 hours. So what you end up with is a good LED array in a bad bulb assembly, which is just as useless as a dead LED array.

But the LEDs themselves seem to fail too, as I mentioned upthread with the "Christmas light" strings I have in my living room. All they are is a bunch of LEDs in series with a load resistor, but I get a couple years out of a string before I start losing bulbs. Took one partially bad string and pulled all the good lamps for spares. I seem to see a lot of LED arrays in other products where there are a lot of bad lamps.
Not sure how the COB lights work.