Satco

Satco light bulbs are the ones you go looking for when the burned-out bulb isn’t an ordinary household A19: the two-pin halogen under the kitchen cabinet, the oven light, the red heat lamp over a brooder, or the big metal halide in the shop or on the yard pole. Satco’s lamp catalog runs past 2,300 bulbs across LED, halogen, incandescent and fluorescent, so one brand covers almost every odd socket in a house, a shop or a barn, and the one to buy is the Satco that matches the old bulb.

Satco, which goes by SATCO|NUVO, is a privately held American lighting manufacturer headquartered in Brentwood, New York. Brothers-in-law Lou Kauffman and Herb Gildin founded it, and it has been in the lighting business for more than 50 years, supplying lamps and fixtures to homes, contractors and commercial and industrial buildings.

T4 halogen bi-pin bulbs

The little clear T4 halogen with two straight pins on a G8 base is the bulb in a lot of under-cabinet lights, range hood lights and small pendants, and Satco makes it at 120 volts from 20 watts up to 100. Match the base first: G8 pins are straight and close together, G9 pins are loops, and the two don’t swap. Then match the wattage to the rating printed inside the fixture. Handle the new bulb with the sleeve or a clean cloth, because skin oil on the quartz makes a hot spot that burns it out early.

Appliance bulbs for the oven, hood and refrigerator

Oven bulbs stay incandescent because an oven runs hot enough to cook the electronics in an LED, and plenty of range hoods and refrigerators still take the same small appliance shapes. Satco makes the clear 40-watt A15 medium-base bulb that fits most ovens and refrigerators, and the tubular T7 and T8 bulbs at 15, 25 and 40 watts for range hoods, sewing machines and older refrigerators, including a 15-watt T7 on a bayonet base. The tubular ones look alike and don’t interchange, so hold the old bulb next to the new one and match the shape, the length and the base.

Heat lamps and big shop bulbs

Satco’s 250-watt red R40 heat lamp is the infrared bulb that hangs over a chick brooder in April, keeps a Montana pump house above freezing or warms a newborn animal in a cold barn. It comes on at full heat the moment it’s plugged in and holds it through the night, and it belongs in a fixture with a porcelain socket rated for 250 watts.

The 300-watt frosted PS25 is the big pear-shaped incandescent for a porcelain keyless or a metal shade over a workbench, and the frost spreads the light and cuts the glare on the bench. Check the socket’s wattage rating before it goes in, because a keyless rated for a smaller bulb will cook its wiring under a 300-watt load.

LED replacements for metal halide yard and shop lights

The metal halide or sodium lamp in a yard light, a pole barn or a shop high bay takes minutes to come up to full brightness on a cold morning and burns a lot of power once it does. Satco’s Hi-Pro LED HID replacements screw into the same big fixtures and come on full the moment the switch is thrown. The multi-beam version takes the place of a 175-watt metal halide, and Satco also makes versions with a built-in motion sensor that bring the light up when someone walks into the yard and shut it off after they leave. These lamps are rated for damp locations and enclosed fixtures. The fixture’s ballast gets bypassed and the socket wired direct, so it’s a job for whoever does your wiring, and after that there is no ballast to fail again.

LED T8 tubes and fluorescent replacements

Satco’s 12-watt, 4-foot LED T8 tubes are dimmable and come in cool white and neutral white, for the shop, garage and basement fixtures that used to run 4-foot fluorescent tubes. A tube that runs on the existing ballast needs an ANSI-compatible ballast on Satco’s ballast compatibility list, and a tube wired direct bypasses the ballast entirely. In a building full of old fixtures, bypassing is the better long-term choice, because a plug-in tube goes dark the day the old ballast quits.

For fixtures that stay fluorescent, Satco makes the 14-watt, 2-foot T5 mini tube in warm white for under-cabinet and vanity lights, and GU24 spiral CFLs at 13, 15 and 26 watts for fixtures with the twist-lock GU24 socket. Match the length and the color on the old tube, because a warm-white tube next to a cool-white one looks wrong the minute the switch goes on.

For the rest of the house, Satco’s 11.5-watt A19 LED in warm white comes in a four-pack, the plain household bulb for lamps and ceiling fixtures, so the everyday bulbs can come from the same brand as the odd ones.

Why Satco

Plenty of bulb brands stop at the household A19 and a few floods. Satco keeps going into the oven bulb, the bi-pin halogen, the heat lamp, the T5 mini tube and the LED that replaces a yard light, so the odd bulbs in a house and a ranch shop can all come from one brand, matched by base, wattage and shape instead of guessed at.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Satco bulbs any good?

Yes. Satco has been in the lamp business for more than 50 years and its catalog runs past 2,300 bulbs, so it makes the odd ones, like the G8 halogen, the oven bulb and the red heat lamp, as carefully as the everyday ones. Its Hi-Pro LED HID replacements come on at full brightness with no ballast to fail and are rated for damp locations and enclosed fixtures, and Satco backs its lamps to meet their published specifications.

Are Satco LED bulbs dimmable?

Many are, including the 4-foot LED T8 tubes, and the carton says which. A non-dimmable LED on a dimmer flickers and buzzes, so read the carton for the word dimmable before the bulb goes on a dimmer circuit.

Can an LED bulb go in an oven?

No. Oven and range hood bulbs stay incandescent because the heat inside an oven is more than an LED’s electronics can take. Use the clear 40-watt A15 appliance bulb or the tubular appliance bulb that matches the old one.

What is SATCO NUVO?

It’s the same company. Satco Products sells lamps and fixtures under the SATCO|NUVO name, with Satco on the light bulbs and Nuvo on its decorative and commercial fixtures.