Which LED bulbs for enclosed fittings?

Sea_Shell

How do we know that an LED bulb is suitable for an enclosed, recessed light fitting?

What should I be looking for on the box? 

We need Edison screw (standard), but the choice is baffling, and even when you search for suitable bulbs, there seems to be nothing in the descriptions that then confirms it.

Can anyone recommend a particular brand/type?

Thanks

Bendy_House

I suspect we'd need to know the exact type of fitting first.

In general, tho' - LEDs emit FAR less heat than filament lamps, so if a light fitting can handle 'filament', it can handle 'LED'.

Quite often, tho', LED lamps are slightly larger than their filament counterparts, so if space inside the fitting is tight, then you'd need to confirm they'll fit. This often applies to small 'capsule'-type lamps, such as G4 and 10's, that sort of thing. You can almost always get a similarly-sized equivalent, tho'.

So, which actual light fitting are you referring to?

Sea_Shell

They can take a "standard" size bulb, and it has Edison screw fitting.

They are recessed into the kitchen ceiling and covered with a plastic clip in cover.

All very last century (1990), but we haven't been able to face ripping them out (4) and having the ceiling re-skimmed.

We did try some energy saving bulbs a while ago, and they blew quickly, as we didn't realise they had to be special, and that was pre LED days.   We'd tried the ones like mini fluorescent tubes.

It seemed the bulbs didn't like getting warm themselves, rather than any effect on the casing.   They has coped with 60w each up until now.

Bendy_House

These are normal GLS-sized lamps, then?

If you want them dimmable, then I can thoroughly recommend Philips' 'WarmTone'/'DimTone' bulbs. Look carefully and you can usually pick them up for around £4 each on t'Bay. They are, in my opinion, 'perfect'. They dim smoothly down to a warm orange glow, and up to a clean and bright 'halogen' white (ie, not at all stark). Use a known-make, trailing-edge dimmer switch.

But, almost certainly, any half-decent GLD-sized LED bulb will fit and work. If that ceiling fitting has a front cover, it'll almost certainly have decent venting above it. If it can handle 60W of filament heat, it'll handle 7W of LED.

Sea_Shell

Thanks.  Yes, standard GLS.

The previous problem wasn't the fitting coping with the heat, it seemed the bulbs didn't like being enclosed.

Are new LED filament bulbs happy to be enclosed?  Or do they need to be "special" ones, that's what I'm trying to nail down.

Bendy_House

All lamps need ventilation; even LEDs get warm.

However, filament lamps get 'hot', very hot - skin-strippingly hot. They are designed for this, tho', so I guess can cope with being enclosed.

LEDs get 'warm', sometimes surprisingly so in a localised area, usually where the electronics are located. But not 'hot' (unless very powerful types). So, I'd be surprised if they'd suffer inside an enclosure designed for a filament lamp.

But, you do ask a very fair Q, because the other difference between the two types is that LED lamps will be affected by 'too much' heat since they contain electronic components. So I'm not suggesting out of hand that they will be ok enclosed.

Having said that, I have a couple inside fully enclosed bulkhead light fittings - so 'snug', and not ventilated (waterproof) - and they have had no issues at all.

My Philips WarmTone GLS LED lamps get only gently warm to the touch, so I would suggest that a good quality LED lamp like this would be perfectly happy inside your ceiling fitting.

I would consider this a pretty much zero-risk experiment - fit one and see! They certainly won't overheat in the sense that they'll cause damage to anything else; the worst that'll happen is that their own lives will be reduced. And I cannot see that happening with a 'Philips' at all.

Could you remove the cover and lamp from one of these fittings, and take a flash-photo aiming up inside one?

Sea_Shell

Yes, we'd read that you need "special" bulbs for enclosed light fittings, but can't seem to find anything that confirms their suitability.

Our fittings have no ventilation.  They are about 8" across and recess about 3" into the ceiling.   All you can see (when you take the cover off) is the plastic surround and the bulb fitting!


DH is loathe to "experiment" with a £4-5 bulb, after last time.

He wants bulbs that state they ARE suitable!   Which brings me back to my original question?

Grizzlebeard

LED bulbs are much more efficient than a compact fluorescent and will run cooler. The temperature constraints on  LED and CF are both about the same, (limited by the electronic components - mainly a big capacitor) but a modern 5 or 6w LED will survive fine where a 9W CFL would die within a year. CFL's never lasted as long as the marketing hype suggested anyway.

Any currently available LED bulb without a specific warning on the box should be designed to work in an enclosure with limited ventilation.

In the early days of LED bulbs this wasn't so. LED chips would be mounted on a cheap resin PCB substrate rather than a heat-sinking Aluminium one. Things are better now.

Any reputable UK on-line/High Street store or supermarket will sell reliable bulbs, even if we don't recognize the brand name. Stuff from E-bay or Amazon might be fine, or might be poorly designed fake or imported c**p. That's a gamble.

Keep the receipt. A Tescos or Asda will replace it free, even in a years time.

If lower illumination levels are acceptable go for the 3-6W range rather than 10-12W. They have the better chance of a 5 to 10 year life span.

Sea_Shell

Thanks @Grizzlebeard that all makes sense.   The CFs we tried years ago didn't work for long at all, couple of months.   We should have taken them back,  but kept them for emergency spares.

So basically,  any bulbs NOT suitable should specifically say so!

Grizzlebeard

Sea_Shell said:

.........

So basically,  any bulbs NOT suitable should specifically say so!

That's the theory, but there are dodgy suppliers who want a quick buck and don't care about return custom. Buy from a reputable UK source and you shouldn't be taking any particular risk. LED technology is mature now and superior to CFL in every way. After the initial feel-good I became disillusioned with CFL. Slow to start, got dimmer with age, barely lasted longer than old tungsten. Many of the first generation (and cheap) LEDs also died annoyingly young. My current ones are mainly Status brand (I'd never heard of them either) from the Coop and are all doing fine (3-4 yrs old now).

Good luck.

Sea_Shell

Funny you mention Status.  We just bought 4 Status (7w filament LED) ones in Aldi for other room pendants (standard bayonet)