Our laundry room light has always been "iffy" when we turn it on. You'd sometimes have to turn the light switch off and on a couple times maybe, and if you were lucky it would turn on. In recent times, it's gotten a little worse, finally prompting me to replace what was needed.
It's a typical 4-foot fluorescent tube fixture. The tubes are good (nearly new) so that left only one thing it could be: the ballast. The fixture is a nice-looking one (not industrial-looking) with wood ends and a diffuser to spread the light out. I knew it wasn't the tubes, so that left just the ballast as a possible culprit, but I wasn't going to replace the ballast because they cost almost as much as an entire light fixture.
I went down to Lowe's, planning on upgrading the light tubes to new LED replacement tubes--the kind that eliminated the ballast, called "direct-wire" tubes. They only carried G.E. brand tubes, but I figured it was a good, well-known brand, so no problem. I brought the box home and rewired the fixture per their instructions, eliminating the troublesome ballast. I put the new LED tubes into place and flipped the switch.
Nothing.
I checked and double-checked my connections, changing a couple things here and there to better ensure a reliable connection. Still nothing. I took the tubes out and put them back in the box. I was pissed, but held my tongue as I handed them back to a nice lady at Lowe's for a refund. I then bought another pack of two and headed home. I put them in and flipped the switch.
This time, one tube lit up, and not very bright either.
Back to Lowe's I went for a refund, this time telling the nice lady working the returns desk, "I'm done trying. These are garbage."
Like many locations in the US, there's a Home Depot almost across the street from Lowe's, so I headed over there, hoping to find a different brand or maybe even replace the fixture with a round style that used LED screw-in bulbs.
Here's the gist of my rant:
Both stores (I checked Lowe's carefully before I left) have almost zero surface-mounted fixture that take bulbs. Each store had tons of different fixtures to select from, but other than a couple of ugly 2-bulb fixtures in the shape of a tit they were all "no-bulb" LED varieties. That means that when your light blows (yes, even LED's die) you have to replace the whole fixture! WTF is the world coming to? Out of all of those surface-mount fixtures (and there were dozens of styles) there were no fixtures in either store that were under $50. Most were significantly higher.
Isn't that nice? Par for the course in today's "throw-away" society.
Epilogue: The tubes I bought at Home Depot are Toggled brand, and not only were they wired more simply than the G.E. tubes, they also came with all the wiring and supplies to do the conversion. They are also much brighter than the original non-LED tubes.
