Shedding new light: Significant savings could be as easy as changing a light bulb!

LED lamps seem to be revolutionising the lighting market in terms of energy efficiency and several manufacturers are now selling linear LED lamps which can be used as direct replacements for existing fluorescent T8 and T12 lamp without the need to carry out any electrical modifications to the light fittings. This makes changing of the lamps straightforward; reducing both the time and cost of relamping a building with LED lamps.

Comparing a 4ft LED tube from one manufacturer with a typical 4ft T8 fluorescent lamp shows that the LED consumes 14.5 W compared with 48W of the T8 lamp; giving a saving of 70%. 

A school with 400 fluorescent T8 lamps (most light fittings have four tubes) with typical opening hours could save around £2,700 per annum by switching to LED lamps. The savings are even larger for the longer 5ft tubes and for the older T12 tubes.

Identifying fluorescent lamps types

To make it easy to identify your lamp types, the number which follows the T signifies the diameter of the tube, so a T12 lamp is 12/12 of an inch which equates to 1” diameter (25.4mm).  A T8 lamp is 8/12 of an inch in diameter which equates to ¾ of an inch (19mm). T12 lamps are the oldest and least efficient of all of the fluorescent tubes, followed by the T8 and then the latest T5. If you have any of these then you have a significant cost saving just waiting to be made.