LED Bulbs May Not Always Be Your Ideal Choice

 In the sixteen plus years I have been in real estate, technology has played a huge role in not only expanding the real estate business but it has also impacted our daily lives in many many ways.  Between advancing my real estate skills, computer knowledge and other facets of life I have always embraced technology and it has served me well.  At the same time however, technology can sometimes backfire and I recently learned this with a problem at my house.

  As may of you are aware I recently sold my own home and moved from Collingwood to Clarksburg which is adjacent to Thornbury.  My better half and I have been living in our own homes for many years and it was time to consolidate two residence into one.  She and I both work long hours, this combined with maintaining two homes plus a cottage(s) I have owned for many years on Manitoulin Island had become more than full time jobs and it was time to simplify our lives.

  I had made many improvements to my Collingwod house including steps that were aimed at reducing my energy consumption and expense.  In addition to newer appliances, a hi-efficiency gas furnace and central air conditioner I had also switched most of my interior lighting to LED's. One area in my home where the LED lights backfired so-to-speak with on my garage door opener. The standard incandescent light bulbs on my opener were always burning out mostly the result of the excess vibration they had to endure from the opener itself every time the door was opened or closed.  Even rough service bulbs seemed to fail fairly often so I switched the standard bulbs over to LED's.  I also did the same on mt spouse's garage door opener.

  Things worked fine with better lighting in the both garages other than we found the garage door remotes had lost some of their effective range and they would often fail to activate the door openers unless you were very close by.  Ultimately I discovered that the problem was not the opener or the remotes, it was the LED bulbs.  LED bulbs have a frequency of their own and this was creating a conflict with the frequencies of our garage door openers and their respective remotes.  Once I removed the LED bulbs and replaced them with normal incandescent bulbs the remotes went back to working as they always had.

  A move that was implemented to lengthen the life of the garage opener light bulbs ended up causing more frustration than just having to replace the standard type of bulbs on a somewhat regular basis.  If you are having trouble with the performance of your garage door opener and you too have installed LED bulbs on the unit, this is more than likely the problem.

  We have plenty of LED bulbs throughout the interior of our Clarksburg home. The garage door works perfectly with the tried and true incandescent filament type bulbs, I will just have to be content replacing the door opener bulbs more frequently when they fall victim to the wear and tear they are subject to via the opening and closing of the garage door.  Lesson learned.