What you need to know about LED shop lighting and How to choose LED shop lights

2020-05-22

LED shop lighting is a big topic of discussion these days, but that wasn’t always the case. When I selected the lighting for the my shop, 4ft led shop lights were the obvious choice. I’m now in a new space in Colorado and I have the opportunity to install completely new fixtures and these days it seems like LED shop light is really the way to go.

We’re working exclusively with AntLux lighting who designed and supplied our lighting solution. AntLux’s 4ft LED wraparound lights provide high performance, long lifespan and energy savings for general purpose use.

For my installation, the situation was pretty much ideal. I have an attic above my garage that gives full access for wiring. There was an existing light circuit already in place so all we needed to do was tap into that circuit and expand the line to the various LED shop lighting fixtures. It was still a lot of labor and took two guys all day with an extra two guys helping for a few hours in the afternoon. But it was well worth it for the finished result.

What’s Changed?

Inside of the energy efficiency field, which is my day job, we knew LED was going to be a disruptive technology. Most of us have been surprised at how quickly that has happened. When the Illuminating Engineer’s Society of North America (IESNA) put forward the recommendations for new and aggressive efficacy targets for lighting that phased out the average T12, the 100 watt, and then the 60 watt incandescent, soon to be followed by the 40 watt incandescent, the LED market started to take off. Since then it has been making huge strides in both technologies associated with control of that light and efficacy, or how many lumens per watt are created.

You can now buy a wide variety of LED lamps and luminaires for LED shop lighting. There are many lamps for the home, like linear led shop light, ultra slim LED shop lights, and LED puff light. Fortunately for consumers, light manufacturers continue to use the form-factors that work with the fixtures we’ve all grown up with and have become accustomed to in our homes, work environments, and other public spaces. Lamps for reading, canned lights, etc., all have maintained the same screw in base and, with few exceptions, the same familiar shape. Lots of innovation and the icing on the cake is that prices have also dropped dramatically.

Another lamp that has been very successful in the marketplace is the linear LED. Not even five years ago, the payback for retrofitting a light fixture from fluorescent to LEDs was beyond 35 years. The paybacks with incentives for energy efficiency are now usually between two and five years for businesses with normal 8 to 5 operation hours. Also, the quality of the LED shop lights are very good.

Install LEDs where you’ll use them most

LED bulbs are still expensive and so, unless you have the budget to replace all the bulbs in your home at once, you’ll have to replace bulbs as they burn out. In the long run, your investment will pay you back in energy savings.

It matters where you use your LED bulbs if you hope your investment will repay you soon. Put an LED in your closet, for example, or another place where the bulb is seldom used, and it may be years and years before the bulb’s cost is repaid in energy savings. It’s best to use your LEDs where the payoff will be fastest, in the light fixtures that get most use in the high-traffic parts of your home.

Shop for lumens, not watts

Watts are a measure of how much energy the bulb draws, not its brightness. Nevertheless, we are accustomed to shopping for incandescent light bulbs by their watts, and we know how much light to expect from a 60-, 100- or 150-watt bulb.

LED bulbs also are rated by watts. But that’s no help because there’s no easy way to compare LED watts with incandescent watts. Here isn’t a uniform way to covert incandescent watts to LED watts.

Now, instead of watts, use lumens as the yardstick for brightness. Packaging on LED bulbs rates brightness in lumens (and in watts). To replace a 150-watt incandescent bulb, look for an LED rated at 2600 lumens (25 to 28 LED watts).

Get the light color you want

If you were turned off by the harsh white quality of light from older LEDs you’ll be glad to know there are more options now. LED bulbs offer a range of colors, from a warmer yellow-white, akin to the color of incandescent bulbs, to a whiter white or blueish white.

Check a bulb’s package for its light color, shown by its temperature on the Kelvin Scale (learn more from Khan Academy). Lower Kelvin numbers mean warmer-colored light. The higher the Kelvin number, the bluer the light. EarthEnergy, a retailer, offers this guide to shopping for LED bulbs:

Yellow light: 2700-3000K.

White: 3500-4100K.

Blue: 5000-6500K.

Choose the right light for dimmers

Another problem with LEDs used to be finding bulbs that were compatible with the dimmer switches in your home. Some buzz, flicker or just fail to respond to a dimmer switch.

Antlux 4ft led light fixtures provide you more brighter, cheaper and healthier lighting than incandescent and fluorescent tubes. A step up from led office lights ceiling is not only in light but in look. 4 foot led shop light is the perfect energy-saving replacement for both remodel and new construction applications in residential and commercial needs.

Count the savings

Still wondering if LED bulbs are worth the trouble? A look at the cost savings may persuade you. Here’s a chart at Energy.gov comparing the cost of operating a 60-watt incandescent bulb and an equivalent 12-watt LED.

The LED:

Costs $1 a year to run vs. $4.80 for the incandescent bulb.

Cuts your spending on electricity by 75 percent to 80 percent.

Burns for about 25,000 hours vs. 1,000 hours for the incandescent bulb.

An online search shows the cost of a 12-watt LEDs is roughly $10 to $30 each vs. about $1 for a plain 60-watt incandescent bulb. Start planning now for what you’ll do with all the money you’ll save from converting to LEDs.

AntLux’s 4ft LED wraparound lights and 8ft led shop lights provide high performance, long lifespan and energy savings for general purpose use. Our 8ft led light fixtures provide you more brighter, cheaper and healthier lighting than incandescent and fluorescent tubes. A step up from led office lights ceiling is not only in light but in look. 4ft led shop light is the perfect energy-saving replacement for both remodel and new construction applications in residential and commercial needs.