Why are LED lights so expensive?

[Tranquillity]

I'm a condo board member and we are trying to retrofit our building with LED's. We have received offers from 4 companies, with prices from $20.000-$40.000. Some mention 300 light bulbs, other 600. Are we getting ripped off? According to my math, a light bulb costs maximum $10 dollars and an electrician can install them for $75 an hour in 20 hours. That would cost $4500 for 300 light bulbs.

Has your building done it? Why do the specialized companies charge up to $150 a lightbulb? Any ideas would be helpful.

 

[uto123]

I'm not on a condo board nor do I have any prior experience being on one, but that price per bulb sounds ridiculous.
People call them 'retrofitting' but it's not, I believe most of the time, it's simply changing out an old incandescent or CFL bulb for an LED one.

 

[DSC]

In many cases you can't simply screw in an LED bulb to replace a florescent one and you actually need either a totally new fixture or an electrician to disconnect the ballast and install a new 'receptacle'. There are also many kinds of LEDs and you need to be careful to decide on which kind you will use - best to go for a standard kind that is easily obtained. Our building has recently replaced all the 'easy' (i.e. the 'simply screw them in') ones and we had this done by our regular maintenance guys. We are now looking (again) at replacing the many florescent ones in fire stairwells and garage and are looking carefully at the potential savings. Our existing lights in these areas are the less energy wasting florescent ones and we would need new fixtures (and also will need to repaint the ceilings where the old fixtures are now). We are still not clear if a switch to LED will save enough on operating costs to cover the replacement cost over a reasonable time. (As this is NOT a 'major repair or replacement' it cannot all come from the Reserve Fund - at least not until the new Section 93 of the Condo Act comes into effect. https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/98c19#BK204 This is supposed to extend use of RF to energy saving changes.) A couple of years ago we installed LED in our corridors and here they were a necessary thing as the former lighting levels did not meet the current Code - the lighting level in the fire stairs and garage is fine.

 

[Tranquillity]

Thank you DSC!

To me it seems absurd to justify an expense of $100 per light bulb just while trying to compare offers that are created to be hard to compare. Some of the offers closer to $20.000 included just changing the bulbs, while more expensive ones had ballast changes included.

Do you know of any pitfalls in case we go with the 'screw them in where we can' option? I'd prefer to do that, then measure the electricity use over time and have the companies make new offers for the lights that are harder to change such as the garage flourescent tubes.

 

[DSC]

Thank you DSC!

To me it seems absurd to justify an expense of $100 per light bulb just while trying to compare offers that are created to be hard to compare. Some of the offers closer to $20.000 included just changing the bulbs, while more expensive ones had ballast changes included.

Do you know of any pitfalls in case we go with the 'screw them in where we can' option? I'd prefer to do that, then measure the electricity use over time and have the companies make new offers for the lights that are harder to change such as the garage flourescent tubes.

We have looked quite carefully at Hydro usage and it is amazingly hard to see why it goes up and down from month to month (our Units have their own meters so Hydro usage is only for the common elements) and the weather has a huge influence on the usage. LED bulbs clearly use the least hydro so are going to cost less to run but they are more expensive to buy. (The cost is going down all the time.)

However, there is a cost in changing burned-out bulbs and LED need to be changed far less often so there is a saving there. Our existing florescent fixtures are now 30+ years old we are seeing more and more problems with them and the ballasts so our 'maintenance costs' are rising and the total replacement of the fixtures looks more and more advisable. If we are replacing fixtures then LED is a no-brainer. On a more general point; if you are getting quotes on anything it is very important to be sure everyone is quoting on the same thing!

 

[Admiral Beez]

Don't forget too that the manufacturers know they're selling each LED bulb just once, as they'll rarely fail. Therefore you need to cover your entire profit and cost upfront, in the first, and only, transaction.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The price of LED bulbs have been dropping each year. Used to be almost $100 when they were first manufactured and sold. Today, they can cost less than $10. Without a rebate. Tough HST may push the price above.

 

[CodeMonkey]

The costs of the LED lights can very depending on if you want a warmer colour (yellow) or cooler colour (white), plus the luminous output. 100W incandescent equivalent would cost more than a 60W or 50W incandescent equivalent.

 

[gilboman]

I was on my building's Condo Board and we are doing a full retrofit (garage, hallways, stairwells) from a company that will come and do a lighting audit and spread the cost of the project based on electricity savings per month. it was calculated we would recoup the savings in electricity costs to pay off the project in 30mths so they basically install everything and spread the payment out 30 months. comes with a 5 year warranty

We could've paid it in one lumpsum and gotten a 5% discount

We had concerns regarding the projected savings, so they came and did monitoring of existing lighting fixtures, then installed their products and monitored again to get "actual" numbers....turned out our existing fixtures were consuming anywhere from 9%-30% greater than their stated power consumption especially the T8 fixtures in garage!

but it was a lot more to it than simply coming and screwing in new tubes/bulbs.. they had to remove ballasts. But ours was a substantial project, not sure for a small project they would offer same type of arrangement (payment based on energy savings only)

pm me if you're interested and i can send the company contact

 

[yoshirocks702]

Some personal experience in my old condo, they replaced the elevator pot lights to led, one by one they ended up dead after about half a year, when I saw them they looked like the generic made in china stuff from ebay, they ended up changing them all again.

The lesson here is consider what bulb manufacturer the contractor is using, also keep in mind some bulb manufacturers have commercial grade led retrofit bulbs vs the residential stuff you can buy at home depot, there is usually a difference in specifications and warranties etc. something to consider especially since common element lights are on 24/7 vs. your household lights.

Sometimes spending more upfront on better quality stuff will end up saving more money in the long run (ex. re-work).

Also for T8 florescent they do make led retrofit tubes that do not require removing/replacing your ballast or changing out the fixture. Hope this helps.