Kitchen Lighting:

mlarkin, Feb 21, 9:24am
August 2015 we fitted new recessed LED lights during kitchen reno. Yesterday one started flickering. Thought it was just change the bulb. Enquiries reveal the whole light fitting has to be replaced by an electrician.

If you are considering this option in your house reno, it would suggest you discuss with electrician to perhaps avoid what has happened to us. Not a big deal as such, but annoying. Capricorngirl
johotech, Feb 21, 9:30am
How would you suggest the electrician is going to avoid this situation? Is he a psychic?

There are hundreds of different LED lights. Some are one integrated unit, some are separate light and driver unit.
About half of them are plug in, the other half are wired in.

Anything can fail. Possibly you have a cheaper brand unit?
Were they supplied by the electrician?

Also, they might still be under warranty.
johotech, Feb 21, 9:33am
And, the old style halogen lights were much less reliable. You might have had to replace a few bulbs in the last 2 years.

Plus, you've probably saved around $150 in power costs in the last 2 years as well.
smalltrader2, Feb 21, 3:00pm
The lifetime of LED lamp are over hyped IMHO. Early claim of LED life time is 30,000 to 100,000 hours. In reality they will last much longer than halogen and may be longer than CFL but will it reach 30,000 hours, I am not sure.

Hence it is better to go with user replaceable LED bulbs (GLS, MR16 or GU10) where you can easily replace the bulb yourself instead of needing an electrician to replace the entire unit which is pretty costly exercise.

Also, the type of LED lamp unit may no longer be available for sale and you are up for the costs of replacing all units if you want them matching. Another good reason to go generic LED bulbs.
mlarkin, Feb 21, 3:00pm
I don't think the experienced electrician (also a friend) who supplied and installed these lights would have put cheap ones in. Very much a quality first person. It would seem they are wired in. We have had similar ones installed in a later reno (mud room and small ensuite) and the electrician who installed these ones (different firm), did say the kitchen ones were no longer available.

Wot I was trying to suggest in posting at all, was to discuss with your electrician and pros and cons of different kinds of recessed led lighting as against easily replaceable led bar lights. At the time, I was not aware there were plug in options for recessed lighting. Incidentally I doubt whether still under warranty - installed Aug 2015.

Thanks for your comments however - you learn something everyday. Capricorngirl
ryanm2, Feb 21, 4:41pm
Some of the branded LED downlights (Switch Lighting for instance) can come with a warranty up to 7 years.
lissie, Feb 21, 5:11pm
Keep the warranty too - we are on our second lot of LEDs (replaceable) for surface mounted lighting we installed about 2.5 years ago- its a lounge so not used excessively - but yeah out of the 8 lights I think each one has been replaced once, and some suspect twice (I didn't keep a record). So far the non-replaceable units in the bathroom have been OK
johotech, Feb 21, 5:17pm
I certainly wouldn't be recommending GLS, MR16 or GU10 type LED lights over standard, flush LED downlights. Having a "user replaceable" lamp doesn't outweigh the limitations and disadvantages of those type of lamp and the fittings they go into.

In reality, you're talking about $50 for a good quality complete LED flush mount fitting. Either with a separate driver, or integrated driver and optionally having them plug-in, in the ceiling.

All of them would have somewhere like 30-40,000hr life and 1-7 year warranty - and then there's the CGA as well.

I've installed about 500 of one brand in the last 4-5 years. I've had 2 that were faulty out of the box. As far as I know, there haven't been any other failures.

If you have ones with separate drivers, replacing a faulty driver is simple and cheap. It's "probably" more likely that the driver will fail, rather than the LED itself. But of course a faulty driver "could" destroy the LED with it.

In any case, if you use a standard design, there should be something very similar available just about forever. If you're concerned, buy a couple of spares at the same time.
ceebee2, Feb 21, 5:18pm
Mine have 7 year warranty.
strathview, Feb 21, 7:08pm
We were warned by the salesman at Lighting Plus about integrated unit LED lights when we did our lighting plan for our new build. Great advise and we have not had any issues. However friends who have got these LED units throughout have had nothing but problems and are now ripping them all out and starting again.
mlarkin, Dec 21, 3:16am
Johotech I found your info interesting and have made a note to ask some questions of the electrician when he comes. We have led lights in kitchen, ensuite, mud room and tv room although the ones in tv room are on bar groups. Although recessed lighting there was suggested, we shied away from it as the room is used for reading as well. We have had no probs. at all with the lighting in the tv room, which was reno'd about 4-5 years ago.
Capricorngirl