The Lamp Room

To be fair, the more who do, the better! We have to at least try!

The other point to make is that the lack of changeable lamp is encouraging more DIYers to start fiddling with the wiring so you get more dangerous bodges as they cluelessly bumble about.

That too! ANYTHING to help!

For almost 90 years, fluorescent lighting has been dominant in the UK and in fact, around the world. The reason it has been in use so long comes down to several factors. It’s reliable – for example, I look after fittings in village halls, scout huts and so on, which have been in use for over 50 years. It’s easy to repair – every part of a fluorescent fitting can easily and cheaply be replaced. It’s designed to have lamps cheaply replaced at end of life and these lamps are almost 100% recyclable. A WEEE lamp disposal scheme already exists for the safe recycling of fluorescent lamps. It’s an energy-saving light source – some T5 HE (high-efficiency) lamps, are AS energy efficient as LED light sources.

In fact, even T8 (triphosphor) dont fall behind the efficiency of common commercially available LED lamps or integrated luminaires, which seem to have higher rated energy labels. 36W T8 on HF is around 93 Lm/W with the ballast losses (104 Lm/W tube alone), this is beyond what some of the sealed LED units achieve

Do some research at the things found "at first glance" on the shelf at your wholesaler, you may be quite surprised how the LED stuff is nowhere near as efficient as it is claimed to be (And thats if the stated Lm are to be trusted at all)

Are we to expect that churches, village halls, scout and guide groups and the smaller independent businesses are suddenly going to be able to find the funds to rip out perfectly working lighting and replace it (at great expense) with LED fittings – the majority of which are sealed and have NO replaceable parts inside, especially as we’re coming out the back of the Covid pandemic and at a time when many of the above are severely cash strapped? Many of these places will only recently have upgraded older, less efficient T12 fluorescent fittings to the newer, high-efficiency T5 versions. Many virtually new lights will needlessly end up being scrapped – is this really a sound environmental decision? As many of these fittings are as energy-efficient as LED and have the advantage of being easily repaired, would it not be better to phase out the manufacture of just the fittings and allow spares (particularly lamps) to continue in production, allowing these fittings to continue in service until such time as they are replaced during refits, or the fitting naturally reaches the end of it’s useful life? To bin perfectly working lighting, creates a huge pile of waste – how much of this will simply end up in landfill?

The underlying assumption is, that the funds are obtained from the energy savings the LEDs provide. The assumption is wrong because :

1. The LEDs are only marginally more efficient at best than most FL lighting (even than T8 in good condition, on HF, etc). The savings are too little to sum up to any significant money in a foreseeable timeframe, if at all (see point above). Within this timeframe the cost of repairs of the LED lighting wipe out any possible advantages whatsoever

2. Energy savings achieved by LED lighting, more often than not, originate in the most part not from net efficiency improvement, but from reduction of light levels (resulting in dimmer rooms, gloomier rooms as the light sources are more directional, narrower light distribution leaving poorly lit areas not directly under the lamp, sometimes less elaborate optical system leading to more glare, and so on)

Phase out of the manufacture of FL luminaires is not something i'd want to suggest. There is simply no need to mention this. New FL lumninaires account for vanishingly small part of all new lighting sales/installs on any scale. They are installed in the few spots where they are deemed as best suitable for factors that exist in the specific location. Forcing them out of such niche applications will will likely result in the highest e waste and CO2 of all cases

The COVID is only an excuse why to postpone the ban for a few years. The real answer is only that the FL lighting works well enough to not justify rushing to replace it, until it reaches its natural EOL (generate more e waste with no significant reduction of CO2, or even negative considering production expenses, shipping, work to install etc)

As a contractor, I deal with lighting on a daily basis. I have some very severe concerns with a lot of the LED lighting currently on sale, the largest of which is lifespan and reliability. Most new LED fittings are sealed and contain NO serviceable parts. This means that when a fitting fails, the whole thing is thrown away, rather than being able to simply change a lamp. When you add to this, the fact that these fittings are largely made from plastic (we’re increasingly being told how bad plastic is) is this really a sound environmental decision? A lot of the parts in these fittings are either hard, or impossible to recycle. Manufactures will claim that LED fittings last many times longer than fluorescent, my experience working with these, tells me this simply isn’t the case. The look of amazement on customer’s faces when you tell them that their 3 year old LED fitting is dead and that all you can do is to replace it entirely, says it all. We’re moving from an environment where a customer can simply install a new lamp, to one where they need to call a contractor in to replace the fitting for them. Any savings in electricity are more than eclipsed by both the cost of the new fitting and the charge to install it.

In the fittings with replaceable lamps, often the lamps themselves too are made mostly of Plastic. LED lighting also contains more electronics, which are much less recyclable than FL lamps and even than just plastic alone

Some lamps are replaceable but not standard, how common are the cases when a matching lamp or driver cannot be sourced and the luminaire has to be replaced anyway ?

3 years is meaningless unless put to scale. Is it the lifetime of a cheap / mid range / very expensive LED light ? Note that most FL tubes mostly last 5+ years the tube itself, after which it is replaced and the luminaire can go for many times the life of a tube

Doesn't help when everything that isn't LED is removed. I have a load of Coughtrie CPS10 B22 bulkheads that were ALL ripped out for LED even though LED lamps could have been fitted. The fittings were in a boiler room and hardly used so it is a waste.

Not to mention all the Thorlux T5 14w fittings. Even LED was ripped out because they were slave LED emergency lights mixed with fluorescent slave lights lol.

In a way it does, as it lets you point out that most of the lighting installed around is LED without any bans

There’s a thread on LG on when HID and Fluorescent will be extinct in the wild, the general feeling was 2030.
I reckon I was closer when I said 2025!

I don't think it'll be totally extinct by then. Whilst it certainly won't be common to see it in even 10 yrs time, there will be literally thousands of fittings hanging on in sheds, lofts, workshops, scout huts, village halls and the like. I wouldn't be surprised if in even 5o yrs time, the odd one is still in service here and there, tho they will be a rare sight to behold. I have customers who wish to carry on using it and for whom I have just placed another massive stock order for tubes. I'll still be supplying them for a long time yet - even if I have to invoice them as simply 'parts' to get around any new legislation.

And then the likes of us on here will no doubt carry on extensively using them as well - I have no intention to switch to LED lighting in any place I can use fluorescent.

I don't think it'll be totally extinct by then. Whilst it certainly won't be common to see it in even 10 yrs time, there will be literally thousands of fittings hanging on in sheds, lofts, workshops, scout huts, village halls and the like. I wouldn't be surprised if in even 5o yrs time, the odd one is still in service here and there, tho they will be a rare sight to behold. I have customers who wish to carry on using it and for whom I have just placed another massive stock order for tubes. I'll still be supplying them for a long time yet - even if I have to invoice them as simply 'parts' to get around any new legislation.

And then the likes of us on here will no doubt carry on extensively using them as well - I have no intention to switch to LED lighting in any place I can use fluorescent.

Reading this gives me great heads up for carrying on the work to build the ballast factory

There is a sweet shop in the Metrocentre shopping centre here. They still have T12 fittings last time I checked. T12 tubes haven't been made for years so they must be lasting well or they have a good stock.

As fluorescent lights were so popular we will probably still see them about just no as much as you say. The ones left will likely be poorly maintained or not at all.