Who is qualified to relamp an LED?

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nietzj

Senior Member
Location
St. Paul, Minnesota
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Electrician
Question has come up as to who is qualified to relamp an LED luminaire. Can any custodian do this or should this be done by a licensed electrician or maintenance electrician? Seems like a bit to much for a custodian to handle, plus the risk of electrocution. I can't find any language that identifies this as electrical work. Any thoughts?
 
Are you asking about doing a retrofit including wiring of the fixture? If it's just relamping I would think anyone could do it.
 
No, this is just relamping,
My thought is only a licensed person can work on luminaires, would the lamp be considered part of the luminaire?
 
Opinion,
If asking about changing a bulb of same type, Can the person identify if the system is 120/240V, 208V, 277/480V? Is the person capable and trained to identify safety issues in any of these levels? Can the person identify if there are other issues present and act appropriately within these system levels? If not then I say person is NOT "qualified".
If you are asking about changing type of lighting, ie florescent to LED, then I say a only trained electrician is "qualified".
 
Yeah, I would draw the line at having anything to do with making wire connections. If this is a full LED fixture with integrated LEDs, where what you would change out would be an entire PCB and driver, that would require knowledge and skills regarding proper wire termination. If it involves screwing in a lightbulb, then that can be handled by a Janitor (or 7 politicians, because 3 will vote to turn it the wrong way…).
 
Most of the LED fixtures can't be "re-lamped". They will typically come with a LED light bar/module. Replacing the light bar is not a job for an electrician. However most LED fixtures have a 5 year warranty and typically rated for 50,000 hours so it should involve replacing the fixture.
 
How about when fluorescent and HID lamps and ballasts were the dominant lighting types? Many general maintenance persons were often replacing "like with like" on those luminaires as needed. Many them also were replacing switches, receptacles, etc. with like components as well.

If actually changing the installation to different types of luminaires or other equipment, then maybe local AHJ's required permits and licensed persons performing the installation. This sort of varied from from one jurisdiction to another as far as exactly what qualified as maintenance and what qualified as a new install, but often a certain amount of maintenance was allowed without permits or even having licensing.
 
These luminaries have already been retrofiteed from flourescent to LED, so I'm not talking about any wiring, just replacing the lamps. I don't think there is language that prohibits anyone from changing a lamp. So in effect changing a lamp would not be considered electrical work. I'm not comfotable with this at all but what's to stop it?
BTW these fixtures have a 4ft LED lamp very similar to a flourescent lamp.
 
nietzj said:
These luminaries have already been retrofiteed from flourescent to LED, so I'm not talking about any wiring, just replacing the lamps. I don't think there is language that prohibits anyone from changing a lamp. So in effect changing a lamp would not be considered electrical work. I'm not comfotable with this at all but what's to stop it?
BTW these fixtures have a 4ft LED lamp very similar to a flourescent lamp.
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Such changes are not required to be licensed pretty much anywhere.

That said there is still potential ways to screw this up, but in general is pretty minimal risk to health/safety to the person doing it.

Say you had ballast bypass type replacements before and they try to replace with type that requires ballast - they potentially damage the replacement lamp because it gets line voltage applied to it, but that mostly just damages components within the lamp and doesn't present much risk to the installer.
 
nietzj said:
These luminaries have already been retrofiteed from flourescent to LED, so I'm not talking about any wiring, just replacing the lamps. I don't think there is language that prohibits anyone from changing a lamp. So in effect changing a lamp would not be considered electrical work. I'm not comfotable with this at all but what's to stop it?
BTW these fixtures have a 4ft LED lamp very similar to a flourescent lamp.
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I'm sorry, but I don't get our concern. Perhaps we should require a licensed electrician to plug in a vacuum cleaner too. Unless I am missing something, What do you see as the difference between changing an LED light bulb and an incandescent or a fluorescent tube?
 
According to many, if not most, safety standards a qualified person is someone who has been trained in the specific activity. The training should include how to identify and mitigate hazards as well as how to select proper tools and PPE.

The presence or absence of an installation license has nothing to do with the ability to be qualified.
 
Strathead said:
I'm sorry, but I don't get our concern. Perhaps we should require a licensed electrician to plug in a vacuum cleaner too. Unless I am missing something, What do you see as the difference between changing an LED light bulb and an incandescent or a fluorescent tube?
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jim dungar said:
According to many, if not most, safety standards a qualified person is someone who has been trained in the specific activity. The training should include how to identify and mitigate hazards as well as how to select proper tools and PPE.

The presence or absence of an installation license has nothing to do with the ability to be qualified.
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Have one municipality here that requires at least for commercial and or for pay that the task of even changing a lightbulb requires a licensed electrician. Most of the area has no licensing. Homeowners can change lightbulbs all they want.
 
There was a case where a licensed electrical contractor was using apprentices to change/upgrade existing fixtures. The apprentices were never trained in 'ballast' replacement and proper PPE was not employed. Sadly there was at least one fatality.
 
Re-lamping and ballast replacement are two different things. On the original question, I see no reason why anyone can't change a common tube. BUT, OTOH, given the wild west state that fluorescent -> LED tube conversion is (A, B, C, A/B), someone could certainly (easily) put in the wrong type LED tube -- even if the little stickers they give out are applied prominently.
 
kwired said:
How about when fluorescent and HID lamps and ballasts were the dominant lighting types? Many general maintenance persons were often replacing "like with like" on those luminaires as needed. Many them also were replacing switches, receptacles, etc. with like components as well. ...
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I'm sure it's common, but I'm equally sure it's not really adequate, especially in commercial/industrial environments. Does "replacing like with like" include recognizing that the lighting is supplied with 277 volts and requires a suitably-rated switch? Is somebody in for a big ugly surprise when they've developed a habit of replacing switches without locking out/tagging out the power source? (or worse, deliberately doing it hot because they've been shocked with 120 volts many times in the past and don't think it's a big deal)

Older buildings present other variables. I've seen an ungrounded three-way switch replaced with a grounded single-pole switch. "Like with like", right? Unhook three wires from three terminals and reconnect them to the "same" three terminals on the new switch. It's fortunate that plaster and dry wood lath are non-conductive.

The church of my childhood had a volunteer "general maintenance person" whose "free" services cost them a bundle. He didn't understand zoned hydronic heating, and when a solenoid valve failed, he "saved money" by replacing it with a pipe tee. Before his fix, only the office was heated 7 days/week. After his fix, the auditorium, meeting hall and classrooms were also. The gas bill tripled, but nobody was supervising him, he didn't even report what he as doing, and the business committee didn't have the expertise to connect the dots if he did. It was the 1970s and they just shrugged it off, assuming that the price of natural gas had gone up like the price of gasoline.
 
tthh said:
Re-lamping and ballast replacement are two different things. On the original question, I see no reason why anyone can't change a common tube. BUT, OTOH, given the wild west state that fluorescent -> LED tube conversion is (A, B, C, A/B), someone could certainly (easily) put in the wrong type LED tube -- even if the little stickers they give out are applied prominently.
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Those little stickers are totally meaningless to just about everyone except electrical professionals. If the lamp will physically fit the socket, it goes in.

Even HID luminaires were this way, lamp goes out, we put in any lamp that will fit. They maybe got a little lucky with putting 100 watt incandescent lamps in say a 150 watt HPS with medium base, but then couldn't figure out why it didn't get as bright as it did before.
 
drcampbell said:
I'm sure it's common, but I'm equally sure it's not really adequate, especially in commercial/industrial environments. Does "replacing like with like" include recognizing that the lighting is supplied with 277 volts and requires a suitably-rated switch? Is somebody in for a big ugly surprise when they've developed a habit of replacing switches without locking out/tagging out the power source? (or worse, deliberately doing it hot because they've been shocked with 120 volts many times in the past and don't think it's a big deal)

Older buildings present other variables. I've seen an ungrounded three-way switch replaced with a grounded single-pole switch. "Like with like", right? Unhook three wires from three terminals and reconnect them to the "same" three terminals on the new switch. It's fortunate that plaster and dry wood lath are non-conductive.

The church of my childhood had a volunteer "general maintenance person" whose "free" services cost them a bundle. He didn't understand zoned hydronic heating, and when a solenoid valve failed, he "saved money" by replacing it with a pipe tee. Before his fix, only the office was heated 7 days/week. After his fix, the auditorium, meeting hall and classrooms were also. The gas bill tripled, but nobody was supervising him, he didn't even report what he as doing, and the business committee didn't have the expertise to connect the dots if he did. It was the 1970s and they just shrugged it off, assuming that the price of natural gas had gone up like the price of gasoline.
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I put new brake pads on the wife's car recently. Nothing can go wrong there either if you don't know anything about what you are doing, right?

Quite frankly I trust what I did much more than what one might get from a few so called mechanics that are out there.

Few years ago I brought truck into shop, cranking kind of slow when starting, plus engine light was on. They replaced battery. Still cranked slow.

Engine light was because of broken connector or something on waste gate solenoid valve (diesel truck) They didn't have the part, when I brought it back they wasn't sure if they could replace it, was having hard time getting to it and thought they might have to remove entire turbo charger to get better access. But they removed the right front wheel and wheel liner to gain access. I asked why can't you take off the intake duct between turbo charger and air filter? Was real easy access from that direction (miss the slap head emoticon here)

The slow cranking - I fixed myself, starter motor was about shot. You'd think they would know how to diagnose that.
 
According to many, if not most, safety standards a qualified person is someone who has been trained in the specific activity. The training should include how to identify and mitigate hazards as well as how to select proper tools and PPE.

The presence or absence of an installation license has nothing to do with the ability to be qualified.
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This is a slippery slope, who exactly would determine when someone is qualified?
Why even bother getting an electrical license, just get qualified by your employer for the task of doing electrical work in a 2 hour safety class and you're all set.
 
nietzj said:
This is a slippery slope, who exactly would determine when someone is qualified?
Why even bother getting an electrical license, just get qualified by your employer for the task of doing electrical work in a 2 hour safety class and you're all set.
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There is nothing wrong with saying a license is required as part of being qualified. My point was that simply having an electrical license is not enough, appropriate training is just as important.
 
This pertains to this op.
If they are educated on all the he aspects of the product that they are working on there shouldn't be an issue with them replacing the LED lamps.
 
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