Yesterday I fixed my lights.
I have 11 pieces of LED lights for the lighting of my whole house. I didn't do those false ceiling with down lights or warm lights. My LED lights are like those old circular florescent tubes. One big light in the middle of the room, and it's white light.
It was a conscious decision on our part to only put in one big light in the center of the room, we didn't like small warm lights, we liked our lights bright and a big white light in the center of the room worked best.
I also didn't like having many small lights in false ceiling.
When there are many individual lights, there are more fail points. Meaning, I now have 11 lights. In 2 years, only one has spoilt. If I have 33 lights, I expect 3 to spoil within the same time period. This is what has been happening at my parents place. They have 4 light points in each room. Every few weeks when I go over, I have to change a bulb.
I've been fixing lights since I was young. I think it was free labour. My parents would just ask me to climb up to change the florescent tubes when I was younger, or to change the starter, or a light bulb, etc. Even now, when I visit them on weekends, they would ask me to climb up to change whichever faulty bulb they have.
I didn't really enjoy it. It was a hassle. When I was young, it was fun, to learn about how to fix things, then after that, I realized that they would just keep asking me to do it after I learnt it. But too late, it's been going on for many years now so...
But I never realized that this skill is pretty useful when having our own place. Now, when the lights spoil, or I have any issues with plumbing, I know what to do.
Recently, one of my LED lights started flickering. When I switched it on, it would flicker like a disco light for a good 10-15 seconds before turning on. I was suspecting that there was a driver issue. Usually if LED lights screw up, it's usually a driver issue.
So we passed by a lights shop at Suntec City on Saturday and I just asked them casually, how much would a driver cost. I knew that they would probably not charge me cheaply cos it was at Suntec. True enough, they quoted me a$18. I told them I would check the wattage that I required before I bought. I intentionally asked them just so that I could benchmark.
On Sunday, I went to the place where I bought my lights and asked them how much for a driver. $5. Yea, that's more like it. He suggested that I bring down the driver for testing first before buying cos he could not confirm that it was a driver issue, he mentioned that some times, the LED light also could give the issue. I told him I did not stay near and he recommended I buy the whole set, the driver and an LED strip. It was $12.
I readily agreed. $12 wasn't too expensive. I could test which component was giving me the problem myself and if it was the driver, then I could just keep the LED as a spare part in case any of my other LEDs spoilt. I was ok with holding an additional spare part.
When I got back in the evening, I replaced the LED driver and my lights worked well again. YAY!
So what's the morale of today's story?
Well... I've been changing lights for a good portion of my life. Fixing the plumbing and all that... looks like they really come to good use especially when I have my own house to take care of. Calling a handyman down would be pretty expensive. Probably $100? He would likely charge me for his labour and sell me the LED light and driver at a mark up?
It was good and easy savings. I know of some folks who have no idea how to change their lights or plumbing, drill holes to install fittings, etc so... I suppose I could call this a skill in itself.
I suppose I have to thank my mum and dad for giving me these chores to do when I was young, so that now, when I have my own place, I have the knowledge to actually do them. It's pretty cool, cos I never thought about it when I was doing it when I was younger. I was usually just muttering under my breath when my parents asked me to do it.
So morale of the story? No skill is not worth learning. You never know when you might need it.
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