I've been looking at pendant light fixtures. Manufacturers usually state a maximum wattage bulb and, with many fixtures, that is 60W. But, that leaves a logical question unanswered in my mind. Does that stated maximum wattage refer to conventional bulbs or newer type bulbs such as LED? I am inclined to think the 60W limitation is referring to conventional bulbs. And, the reason is probably related to heat. In other words, conventional incandescent bulbs get quite hot. LED's, on the other hand, consume much less energy and produce much less heat. So, LED bulbs of higher than 60W equivalent light output should be quite safe to use in such light fixtures since they would still produce much less heat the conventional 60W bulbs.

I'm interested in comments on this.

 

It means the real wattage of the bulb not the fake wattage they use to sell you the bulbs. If you look at the package you will see that most "60 watt" LED bulbs are actually 7-9 watts.

 

Right. So, when a light fixture's specifications/requirements say "maximum 60 Watts", it's referring to the conventional incandescent bulbs. So, if I buy LED bulbs, I could use "100 Watt" or even "150 Watt" bulbs because the actual wattage being used by them is less that 60 Watts.

 

That is correct. Just be aware that some LED bulbs are not rated for use in enclosed fixtures and even the minor heat that the LED lamp creates can cause the lamp to fail early if installed in an enclosed fixture.

 

With the fixture rated at 60 watts properly installed, you will not damage the fixture by putting a bulb with a 60 actual watt rating in the fixture.

But LED bulbs do give off some heat. The 60 actual watt LED bulb might or might not sustain the heat it produces when screwed into that fixture. The critical parts inside the bulb are subjected to more heat when the bulb is mounted base up compared with base down.

I would guess you are safe if the actual watts consumed by the LED bulb is no more than half the equivalent watts rating of the incandescent bulb that goes with the fixture, and the bulb compartment of the fixture is not fully enclosed.

 

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I bought a pendant light fixture. So, the bulb compartment is not fully enclosed. In my case, the bulb will be installed base up. I intend to use only LED bulbs in it. Still, I'll pay close attention to it for awhile to make sure it does not get too hot.

 

The problem is that we classified incandescent bulbs by wattage rather than light output. CFLs and LEDs are more efficient so they put out the same light with less power. Hence, they will usually say something like, "100 watt equivalent" to say they put out as much light as a 100 watt incandescent. They do that, though, at more like 15 watts of power consumption.

 

Fixtures watts rating is heat/BTU limit it can safely handle i.e. heat generated by incandescent bulbs. LED typically use 95% less power for same lumen light output.

On LED packages the Watts is equivalent to incandescent bulb, not what is used by LED.

As a practical matter, it maybe be impossible to fill any fixture with enough LEDs to exceed watt limit.

For Watt to BTU/h conversions, 1 W is equal to 3.41 BTU/h. Therefore to convert BTU/h into Watts you need to divide by 3.41; to convert Watts into BTU/h you need to multiply by 3.41.