Some time back I posted an article on the fantastic power saving you achieve by switching your downlighters to 12v LEDs. Now I have one work of advice – DON’T

I recently added eight new downlighters to my wife’s sewing room. For this I had to buy 8 electronic transformers (they’re actually drop down 220v AC to 12v DC converters) whereas when I converted the house to LEDs I simply used the old transformers (which are no longer available).

I spent one and a half days fitting the new downlighters and when I finally switched on, most of them started flickering. Thinking I had made a bad connection somewhere, I spent ages trying to find the fault. Eventually, I resorted to Google and guess what? This is a very common problem and there were all sorts of suggestions as to how to overcome it, none of them particularly useful.

In the end, I chucked the whole lot out and installed 220V LEDs instead. You can buy the sockets at Builders Warehouse. No need for transformers/converters (saving you a lot of connection time and a lot of money too), you just connect the socket leads straight to the 220v supply using a chocolate block, and plug in the LED. Simple! And no flickering.

Not only that, the 220v LEDs are 3,5W compared to 4W for their 12v sisters – not a lot of difference, but every little helps (or so Eskom keep telling us).