Suppose your ceiling lights use standard taper or flame type bulbs and you have incandescent bulbs in most ceiling fixtures and lamps. Should you change everything over to LED? For example, you can put a 40W candelabra LED soft white dimmable light bulb in each ceiling fan light socket. You can replace all those 60-watt standard bulbs with LED, but is it wise to retrofit everything? Here is important information to consider about LED retrofitting.
What is Retrofitting?
Retrofit means to replace standard light bulbs with special LED bulbs. LED uses less power, and each bulb must have a transformer and driver built into it. This is the reason retrofit bulbs are bigger than most standard bulbs.
Problems with Retrofits
Changing over most light systems is simple, but you need to take several issues into consideration. Suppose you want to replace your dimmable candelabra bulbs. You’ll need something like an efficient 40W candelabra LED soft white dimmable light bulb. In other words, standard LED retrofit bulbs are not
dimmable.
Ratings
LED light puts out less heat than incandescent bulbs. However, you may notice that some bulbs are rated for use in enclosed light fixtures, and some are not. To make sure you get the best performance and efficiency from your bulbs make sure to choose the right bulbs for enclosed fixtures. They are more expensive than standard retrofit bulbs, but the manufacturers recommend their usage.
Good Things about Retrofitting
A 40W candelabra LED soft white dimmable light bulb only burns about 5 watts of power. A typical 60 W equivalent LED retrofit bulb uses less than 10 watts, so your energy savings is considerable. Plus, you get as many as 50,000 hours of efficient light with each bulb. Since it is so easy to retrofit most light fixtures, there’s no reason to wait.
