10 Best Fluorescent Lighting Alternatives You Must Try – LED Buyer’s Ideas

Fluorescent tube and bulbs are very common, no matter in office, warehouse, kitchen, hallway and garage workshop. A US study shows about 60% of areas are still using compact fluorescent bulbs or light tube on the high bay or low bay ceiling. Nowadays, there is an alternative lighting for fluorescent replacement – that is LED. LED solves and ameliorates many problems such as pollution, proper lumen level (not too bright), reducing electricity cost and maintenance rate. Let’s explore the best 10 ideas and options of lighting other than fluorescent tube and light bulbs.

5 Reasons We Should Replace and Use LED as the Alternative Light of Fluorescents

1. Fluorescent Lights are Too Bright (Blue Light) or Too Dim While LED is Dimmable

There are many people complaining the improper brightness of overhead lighting in office and home which makes them feel dazzling. Sometimes fluorescent light may cause eye’s discomfort because of predominant blue light. Imagine the works are located in an uncomfortable environment in the office, warehouse or factory, their productivity will be decreased due to strong and intense blue lights emitted by the tubes or the bulbs. It is more prone to accident as well. Nonetheless, we can consider to use the best lighting alternative of fluorescent – LED. The spectrum of LED is evenly distributed within the visible light region of 400 to 700 nm, and thus we do not have the “blue spike” effect. Plus, almost 95% of LED lighting products are dimmable, while fluorescent does not. If the workers eventually find that the lights are too bright in the office, we can dim them with ease. The higher flexibility makes LED be the best lighting option other than fluorescent bulbs & tubes.

Some also reflected that the fluorescent lights are too dim. It is especially true when they are just turned on. It is because the startup process relies heavily on the ballast, which is not 100% successful for each trigger. And hence, we may encounter flickering of this kind of light. On the contrary, LED does not have this problem because ballast is not required – use the current directly to light up the bulbs.

2. Toxic Chemical Used Inside Fluorescent Tubes, LED Does Not

Tragic accident may happen if the fluorescent tubes are unfortunately broken. The leakage of toxic ingredient is harmful not only to human but the environment. Mercury is the compulsory components inside the compact fluorescent bulbs and tubes because this chemical is vaporized and excited. Moreover, the glass tube is very brittle and it cannot even tolerate the slight impact. By making use of the LED lights as the fluorescent alternative, it is impossible to have this problem because it does not contain such the volatile constituents, and the LED lens is made of polycarbonate which is less likely to break.

3. LED Has Better Energy Efficiency

If you look at the discussion thread about LED vs fluorescent lamp, many netizens are going to recommend the former one because of its lesser electricity consumption, which is one of the incentives to convert fluorescent to LED especially for office and factory where lighting is of highest importance. Fluorescent tube is less energy efficiency because it consumes 25 to 40% energy to the startup process and heat dissipation, instead of lumen output; hence, its luminous efficacy is about 75 to 90 lm/W. However, LED converts 95% energy to the light output directly, and thus less energy is wasted. You will see a huge decrease (about 50%) of electricity bill after replacing the fluorescent tubes for indoor areas.

4. For Lesser Heat Emission After Replacing Fluorescent to LED

No matter for metal halide, HPS, LED or fluorescent, they generate heat after turning on. If much heat is emitted from the light, we will need to spend extra electricity on air conditioning. Moreover, from the industrial perspective, many manufacturing processes are temperature sensitive, which causes huge economic loss if the temperature raises unexpectedly because of the high temperature lighting. Comparing with CFLs, LED is more stable lighting fixtures for factory and warehouse because it does not affect the environment a lot even turning on for a long period of time.

5. Maintenance Rate is Reduced When Using LED Alternatives

If you are using fluorescent tubes for kitchen or garage, you will need to retrofit them almost every year because of their short service life. Removing the old bulbs and screwing back the new one is always an easy task at home, but how about the commercial or industrial areas? Apart from the cost of the new lights, labor is very expensive if you are having the large-scaled fluorescent light replacement. The cost can be comparable or even higher than the lamp cost. The frequent maintenance is ALWAYS one of the disadvantages of fluorescent light.

Do you know that there is a better option than fluorescent tube? LED lights are approximately 8 to 10 times long-lasting because of its solid-state electronics. And thus, you have no need to repair the lamps for almost 20 years!

Here are the best 5 lighting design you can try at home, office and industrial areas.

5 Best Ideas on Having Alternatives of Fluorescent Lighting

1. More Uniform Lighting Option for Office

When it comes to office lighting, many of us will overlook the lighting uniformity. It describes whether the illumination has the uneven patterns such as bright or dim spots. If the brightness is inconsistent throughout the workplace, the workers will need to frequently adjust their eye muscles and thus they will easily feel fatigue.

Low lighting uniformity is the inevitable and inherent properties of fluorescent lights. LED alternative is the perfect solution because we can have photometric lighting design for the office in advance to see if the lux level (brightness) drops suddenly in a certain area. We have a team of professional engineers that are proficient in the design of LED lighting arrangement for any kinds of indoor or outdoor areas. You can always approach them and get the free lighting opinion by filling in our contact form.

2. Using Pendant LED Lights for Garage

Industrial pendant light is always one of the best lighting ideas for garage because they are elegant and easier to repair. One of the reasons to find the fluorescent alternative is the limitation of color temperature. For most of the CFL available on the market, it comes with the weary cool white lights, which is less relaxing for home garage. However, if you plan to do the replacement of the fluorescent tubes, you can select a wide range of color from 2800 to 7500K (different degrees of yellowish-orange & white) that is best fit for your interior design. If you have not decided yet, you can try the LED light tube with adjustable color temperature function.

3. Using Curve LED Lighting for Workshop

Another garage workshop lighting idea you can try is the arched workbench lighting. Clearly it is not achievable by fluorescent lights because they are not flexible. LED is one of the options to have this “light arch”. Why should we have this bizarre setting? Sometimes there are shallow on the table because the light is blocked by hand or other tools. It is very inconvenient for the vehicle repair work as we need to change our position from time to time to avoid the dim region.

By having this 180-degree curved lights, we can get rid of any shadow because the lights illumination in almost any direction. We are LED lighting company customizing any shape, size and power of lamps. If you want to have the tailor-made product, you are welcome to approach us.

4. Warehouse Lighting Fluorescent Alternative – Motion Sensor

Another exclusive feature that fluorescent tube cannot achieve is the dimmable and motion sensor function. By having the above design, we can save tones of energy. When there are no people nearby, the lights are turned off. Once the motion sensor detects the significant movement, it triggers the LED light to reach maximum brightness immediately. When they are leaving the area, the light will fade out. LED is fit for all these functions because frequent switching will not decrease the life span of the LED. On the contrary, if you switch the fluorescent bulbs 1000 thousand times per day, they will go off within a couple of weeks.

5. Replace the Fluorescent to Heat-resistant LED Lamps for Kitchen

There are many stoves and ovens inside commercial, industrial or home kitchen. Fluorescent lights are not suitable because they contain mercury, the leakage contaminates the food and water. Besides, they seldom resist high temperature especially for industrial food processing factory. Nonetheless, LED is more durable because it works under 80℃ to 100℃ ambient temperature. And thus, LED is another practical option for kitchen fluorescent lighting.

Conclusion

It is worthwhile to use LED light to replace fluorescent because LED is more energy saving, durable, flexible and produces less pollution upon disposal. Besides, many stunning lighting ideas are only achievable if we use this fluorescent light alternative. If you would like to get much info and free lighting design, please feel free to contact us at email beatus@ledsmaster.com. We are looking forward to your message.