Our kitchen has three different fluorescent lamps. The ceiling one holds four tubes and gives good light. But, over time, one of the two sets burned out. I went to our local Lowe's after my son-in-law, the carpenter, removed the bad tubes. At Lowe's, I got some guidance as to where they keep fluorescent bulbs. I looked at the specifications, such as they were, written near the end of one of the bad tubes and compared and compared. Quite a few types had signs that said "Sold in full cartons only". I didn't want to buy 10 and certainly not 20.
My carpenter-guide said that I should replace all four tubes since the ones still working showed signs at the tube ends of blackening and would soon burn out. The tubes I thought I wanted sold in sets of two. I bought two sets for $21.06.
The kitchen ceiling fixture is in the center of the room so we pushed the kitchen table aside and got two in-the-house stepladders. Lynn and I climbed way up high in the kitchen altitudes but we could not get the tubes to engage. Lynn got on the phone to our carpenter-guide. Just like he did with our accordion blind, he came over, stepped on the stepladders and Plunk! Plunk! (2) Both tubes immediately took their proper place. Now we have a well-lit kitchen. My librarian-PhD wrote the bulb specs on a paper we have mounted on the inside of a kitchen cupboard door so we are going to be faster and more efficient in 12 years when we need to get new bulbs.
