Why Your LED Tubes Could Be Free and They Will Still Cost You More Than Eco Lighting Solutions LED Tubes

Recently one of our Clients phoned us to discuss the conversion of their corporate office lighting to LED Tubes.  The office was located in the Beltline in Calgary, and is not a large
one but still had about 120 recessed Fluorescent troffers.  Their corporate Electrician had purchased some major brand name LED tubes.  Upon experimentation they found out that in order to run the name brand tubes they required a ballast, and the ballasts in the fixtures were not compatible with the tubes.  All of the ballasts in the building would need to be replaced to ensure compatibility.

The industry calls these products “ballast compatible”, or more commonly “plug and play”.  In theory, this sounds very easy, however in practice it is often far from easy.  These type of products require very specific types of ballasts, and anyone in the electrical profession knows that in any given building there might be several ballast types.  So even if they work in one fixture with one type of ballast they may not work in other fixtures of the same type in the same building.

The problem with Ballasts in general is that they are an electronic device, required to operate a fluorescent tube safely, and that they are not designed to work specifically with LED products.  A Ballast typically increases the voltage of the system to that required to operate a fluorescent tube.  When you add an LED tube in place of the standard fluorescent now the LED tube needs to drop that voltage back down to somewhere less than 50 volts.

All ballasts draw extra electricity, and all ballasts fail periodically and need replacement.  So as long as there are ballasts in your fixtures, maintenance cost and energy costs will be higher.

The second problem with the plug and play tube is that they generally use more watts of electricity to create the same amount of light.  The plug and play tube was rated at 17 watts.  The Eco Lighting tube uses only 13 watts.  Both produce approximately 1700 lumens of light per tube.  4 watts per tube extra does not sound like much but when you multiply it by the number of tubes in a typical building, the savings add up very quickly.

Eco Lighting Solutions believes in removing the ballasts entirely and getting rid of maintenance as well as saving energy.  Of course this requires a little more work up front, with labor and certification etc., but it really pays off over time.

In the case of our client, using the plug and play solution would have saved them approximately $2,500.00 per year, however they chose our solution because it will save them $4,900.00 per year.  By choosing the Eco Lighting solution, the client will be able to save almost $24,000.00 more in the next ten years.

In a nutshell, even if the LED solution proposed by our competitor was free, it would still cost the client far more than a well thought out custom designed solution by Eco Lighting solutions.

Questions or Comments? Please feel free to contact Eco LED Lighting Solutions. We are here to provide you with the best in LED Lighting Solutions for your residential and commercial properties.

Phone: (403) 208-0251 | Fax: (587) 351-9224

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