Can double insulated lighting be LED?

Can double insulated lighting be LED?

Double insulated lights are designed primarily for safety when an installation, such as your home, has no earth connection. This might be because, as explained previously, the house was wired before the 1960s. If you need double insulated lights then the chances are you will only have a live & neutral connection (your electrician would be able to identify this). With recent technology changes in the lighting industry & the introduction of good quality LED lightbulbs we are seeing more & more questions asking if you can use LEDs in class 2 double insulated lighting.

The connectors for the wiring inside a double insulated light are very important & should be kept away from damaging heat

The answer to this is quite simple. Of course! Technically there are no bulbs you cannot particularly use in a double insulated light (as long as there isn’t any specific warnings or advice on the packaging.) Normally a light fitting would advise a maximum wattage of bulb that should be installed. This is because of the heat generated by the bulb damaging the light fitting and being dangerous. As LEDs give off very little heat they are in fact perfect for class 2 double insulated lighting. There isn’t any additional heat from the LEDs to slowly damage the wiring and connections of the light and as double insulated lighting has a special connector where the connecting wires terminate in to the fitting, the less heat to degrade it the better.

LED bulbs are perfect for double insulated lights as they give off very little heat that could damage the unit

If you take a look at double insulated ceiling lights like the ones on our flush lighting section on our website you can see that they are designed with minimal eternal space in the light. Heat build up would be quite extreme due to the lack of space and obviously the cooler the bulb the better. This is the same for products such as double insulated spotlights. If you look at the ones on our page you can see that they are double insulated spotlights designed to be fitted in to the ceiling with their backs in the void between floors. Throw insulation in there as well and there is hardly any room at all to let air flow around the light. A hot bulb, such as a 50W halogen would bake the light and its wiring quite quickly. A cool LED would keep the class 2 spotlight running perfectly for a very long time.

Heat build up can severely damage a double insulated spotlight due to restricted space in the housing. LEDs are cool and create much less heat, prolonging the life of the unit.

We would recommend wherever possible when using a double insulated light that you try to use LED bulbs. After all you’re using double insulated lighting for safety reasons already so why not make them as self as possible?