The Energy Efficiency and Environmental Benefits of UK-Made LED Neon signs
A traditional glass neon sign uses around 100 watts per metre. Ours uses only 7.2w. If you run either of them twelve hours a day for a year and you're comparing 438 kWh against somewhere between 28 and 46. People sometimes assume the LED saving is modest, like switching to a more efficient lightbulb. It just isn't, It's closer to the difference between leaving a radiator on all day and leaving a lamp on.
We've built over 5,000 signs by hand in Wokingham, a lot of them for businesses that keep a sign burning from open to close. The running cost question comes up constantly. This is the honest version of the answer.
Low Voltage = Less Heat
Glass neon works by using high voltage through gas-filled tubes until they glow. The issue is this high voltage generates heat which is wasted energy. Our signs run on 12V LED strips. The same voltage as a car battery. LEDs are efficient in a way that glass neon simply isn't as it's very efficient at making light rather than heat, which is the whole point. That cooler running also matters for longevity. Heat is brutal on light sources over time. A well-made LED neon sign, built properly with decent components, can run for upwards of 50,000 hours. At twelve hours a day that's over eleven years. Glass neon doesn't get close to that.
Made in the UK which Actually Means Something Here.
Most of the cheaper LED neon on the market comes from China and travels thousands of miles, usually by sea, before it arrives at a door. That has a carbon cost. It tends to get left out when people talk about how much greener LED neon is than glass — which it is, substantially, but the shipping matters too.
We build in our workshop on Fishponds Road in Wokingham. We're a registered Made in Britain member, and that's not a badge you can self-certify. The manufacturing has to actually happen here, and ours does.
We've always been straight about the components, the LEDs come from overseas, as do some accessories. Electronics supply chains are global and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But the sign itself, the build, the backboard, the wiring, the testing before it leaves us, all of that is done here by the same small team. When a gym in Manchester has a problem, they're talking to the people who made the sign. Nobody gets put on hold and transferred.
So How Much Does it Cost to Run One?
If you think about a cafe sign sitting above the counter which is turned on at 8am and then turned off at 10pm, six days a week. At 100 watts per metre a glass neon adds up to a bill you notice by the end of the year. At 7.2 watts per metre the LED version is the sort of thing that disappears into the background of everything else the premises is running.
Across two or three years, for any business sign on that kind of schedule, the gap becomes substantial. LED Neon signs cost less to buy upfront, they're cheaper to keep on and last longer before it needs replacing/repairing.
Wedding signs are completely different. One venue, one night, done. Nobody's doing a cost-per-hour breakdown at a reception. But for a sign going up permanently, the numbers make the case without much help.
Sign Disposal and Recyling
Glass neon disposal is one of those things that doesn't occur to anyone until they're holding the pieces of a broken sign wondering what to do with it. Gas-filled glass tubes aren't recyclable through normal channels. Most councils won't take them. You end up with broken glass, inert gas, and components that need specialist disposal. Not a crisis, just an annoying problem with no clean solution.
LED neon is flexible silicone tubing over an LED strip on an acrylic backboard, it's lighter, more durable, and significantly less complicated to deal with at end of life.
Every sign we make carries a three-year warranty. We made it, so we fix it. Same team, same workshop. No one's waiting weeks for an assessment from a repair centre that had nothing to do with building the thing in the first place.
Full disclosure: while we're always working to source more materials locally, some components including LEDs and accessories are imported. \
