This is an upgrade I’ve wanted to do since day one of owning our RV. Like many older Recreational Vehicles, our 2006 motorhome came with fluorescent and halogen lights. While usually more efficient than incandescent lights, the difference between fluorescent or halogen and LEDs is dramatic. I’m not going to go into all the math in this post; I’ll just summarize it to say, LEDs are way better for a few reasons. If you’ve already decided to do an LED light upgrade and want to know what we used and how we did the installation, skip down to the section “HOW WE DID OUR LED LIGHT UPGRADE.”

Here are our top three reasons we went with an LED light upgrade:

#1 LED LIGHTS USE LESS ELECTRICITY. I have other upgrades I’d like to add over the years. One of those is a solar power system. Something to help us stay off-grid for long periods of time. When talking about power, power consumption is a big consideration for batteries. Replacing our lights with LEDs will reduce the amount of power we used to light our RV. Some quick Googling shows that LEDs use about 75% less power than an incandescent light of the same brightness. Fluorescent lights use about 25% less power than incandescent lights. As you can see, LED lights blow the competition away when it comes to minimizing power usage. Getting the same results from less power is how you make your batteries last longer.

#2 LED LIGHTS PUT OFF LESS HEAT. I’ll admit, this is not as big of a consideration, depending of course on what you may be upgrading from. Incandescent lights produce heat. Halogen lights, while more efficient than incandescent lights put off a crazy amount of heat. And, heat is only a consideration if you are in a location that is hot. But please, hear me out on this. If you can upgrade to produce less heat, your air conditioner won’t have to work as hard to keep your space cool. Again, this is minimal consideration and scientific calculations would probably reveal minimal hot/cold issues. However, there is also the consideration of touch. If you’ve ever touched a halogen light, you would remember it like you would remember touching a hot stove. While our RV had fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the under cabinet lights in the kitchen and above the bed reading lights were all halogen. If you touched one of those lights or the light diffusing shade of the light, it would be like holding the Ring of Power as it fell into the fires (a.k.a lava) of Mordor. LEDs on the other hand (haha…see what I did there?) typically put off almost no heat. The LED lights we put in our RV ceiling to replace the fluorescent lights and the LED lights we put in our RV to replace the halogen lights are cool to the touch. No burns. No heat-producing equipment. Just cool light.

#3 LED LIGHTS LAST A LONG TIME. Again, I’m not going to do any high-level math here. I’ll just tell you what a Google search would tell you; Inline Electric reports LED lights to last 100,000 hours compared to 1,000-hour incandescent light. That is something like 20 years without having to change a light. While there may be an upfront cost that is higher, the long time lifespan of LED lights will far out last and thereby save more money over time.

HOW WE DID OUR LED LIGHT UPGRADE.

PICK COMPATIBLE LED LIGHT FIXTURES. We went with Leisure RV Coachworks 20” x 6.5” LED Slim Interior Touch Dim Light. Cool thing, you can order them on Amazon right here  https://amzn.to/3cOGSo6  The 20’ x 6.5’ LED light fixture was just about the same size as the fluorescent light fixtures we were removing. They were not exactly the same size, but close enough. The nice thing about these replacement LED lights is that they are easy to wire (only two wires to worry about), easy to install, and they had a 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% dim setting in addition to the on/off button.

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TOOLS FOR THE JOB. You won’t need a lot of tools for this job.

1. Power screwdriver or drill with screwdriver bit (we recommend the drill with bit)
2. Wire cutters
3. Wire strippers (or use your wire cutters to do the stripping)
4. Wire connectors if you don’t want to use the wire nuts included in the package

That is it.

PREOCEDURE FOR REMOVING, DISCONNECTING, RE-CONNECTING, and MOUNTING.

Step one: Turn off the power to the light fixture. You’re probably only dealing with 12 volts direct current (DC) so the risk level of getting shocked is very low. Typically, you can just turn off the light switch. If you want to go a step further, remove the fuse for the light fixture from the RV fuse panel.

Step two: Remove the lens and any light bulbs from the current fixture, being careful to not break the bulbs.

Step three: Remove any mounting screws holding the fixture to the ceiling. If the fixtures have been in place for a long time, you may have to pull them loose from the ceiling as they may be stuck in place.

Step four: If your fixture has a connection clip, disconnect it and lower it down to a table or other horizontal workspace.

Step five: On the light fixture (now on your table) cut the wire close to the fixture so that you preserve the connector and a good length of wire coming from the connector. My favorite tool for cutting and stripping wire is the Irwin Wire Strippers

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Step six: Now you are ready to wire your new light to the connector you cut off. Follow any wiring directions provided with the light you purchased. If you went with the Leisure RV Coachworks 20” x 6.5” LED Slim Interior Touch Dim Light you can buy on Amazon https://amzn.to/3cOGSo6  the wiring instructions are on the back of your new LED light on a sticker that looks like this

Step seven: Connect the new light to the existing wires in the ceiling (using the connector you preserved). Let the light hang down so you can test it BEFORE you screw it to the ceiling.

Step eight: If you took out a fuse, now is the time to put it back in. Turn your light switch on and see if the light illuminates. If not, don’t worry, you many need to turn the light on at the fixture itself. If you have the Leisure RV Coachworks LED light you will need to touch the on/off indicator button on the liht to get it to come on the first time.      

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Step nine: Mount the new light fixture to the ceiling. For ours, we used the screws that came out of the old light fixture instead of using the screws that came with the new LED light. The reason we did this was that the holes on the new light were not in the same place as the old holes. The old screws were self-tapping screws that would drill their own hole in the metal frame as opposed to the regular wood screws that came with the light. Those would have taken forever to attach to our metal frame. If you are mounting to wood, the supplied screws would probably work great.

Step ten: Replace the lens cover on your new LED light fixture and enjoy your more energy efficient, cooler, longer lasting LED light.

We know this job may not be for everyone, but if you are a beginner RV DIY person, this is a great starter project. For us, it added brightness (these lights were much brighter than the original lights) and a sense of accomplishment that only took about 11-12 minutes per light.  In David’s instillation instruction video, he took it slow and showed you every step of his process. Towards the end of the video, there is a timelapse where it shows him doing two more LED light upgrades at a normal pace.

You can do this! We believe in you. And, if you have any questions about this article, the video, or the process we used to make this LED light upgrade, feel free to reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Here are easy links to all the places to connect with us. We’d love to hear about your RV LED light upgrade and the process you used.

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