Shop lighting with 300w CFL's

[jjarky]

Has anyone seen these 300w cfl's? Found them at Lowes. They work great and only use energy of 65w bulb. I used 13 of them in my new 20x30 shop. Cost me $190 and have a bulb life of 6000 hours. Just wondering what everyone else is using?

[XcYZ]

Looks pretty bright. I'm not really up to speed on CFL options, do you have a choice in range on kelvin?

[jjarky]

Originally Posted by XcYZ

Looks pretty bright. I'm not really up to speed on CFL options, do you have a choice in range on kelvin?

These are the only CFL's I could find at this wattage. There are no others (at least that I could find). I prefer a bulb around 3800 Kelvin. I think these are around 2700 to 3000. Slightly more yellow than I would like but still work great for the price.

[brrymnvette]

I've got 9 200W regular bulbs in my 15x20 garage. It lights it up like day time. I love it. I'll never use the "shop lights" again.

[GregWeld]

Paint those walls a light color -- and you'd be amazed at how much brighter those lights will be! Painting the floor would help too - but if you're like me - I don't want a "nice" floor... I'd just ruin it anyway so why bother.

I had my shed walls painted an off white - and I wish I'd have taken a meter for before and after readings... because I'd bet it was 25% brighter after the paint.

[jmarsa]

Nice Find.

The only thing I don't like about CFLs is that the lifespan is severely shortened when they are turned on/off often. Before I learned this, I killed many by using them in the kitchen and bath.

--JMarsa

[GregWeld]

IF -- big IF -- You're heating your shop anyway - just leave them on... I leave my 8' HO fluorescents on 24/7 as a heat source... figuring that I'm paying a heat source one way or the other - and electricity is electricity. A watt is a watt - and watts are heat.

[IndyNova]

I've got an 8' flourescent 2 bulb fixture, and 6 3' 2 bulb fixtures, lights up very well in my 1 1/2 car garage. i installed 6 8' 2 bulb fixtures in my buddies garage with painted walls, unbeleivalble difference, his is much brighter

[kaptainkw]

I'm enjoying the discussion here...

I'm a lighting expert for my day job! The comments about painting surfaces white or a lighter color (more reflective) are spot on. It also has effect of reducing shadows and providing better uniformity.

There are several terms you should become familar with:

• CCT = Correlated Color Temperature in Kelvin (please don't say degrees Kelvin as it is technically incorrect!) 2700-3000 are "warm" whites 4000 and above are "cool" whites. The way to think about it is if you want reds, oragnes and yellows to "pop" then select warm white, if you want blues and greens to pop then select cool white. They make lamps that are in between which are 3500K
• CRI = Color Rendering Index is a measure of how well color is rendered/represented. 100% accurate is a halogen incandescent. Shop lights are in the 70's, premuim linear fluorescent are in the mid-80's, CFls are ~80. Bottom lines... cheap shop lights suck!
• Efficacy (efficiency) in lumens (light output) per watt. An incandescent is ~15 lumens/watt, CFL's are 50-60, premium linear fluorecent approaches 100 lm/W.

So what do I recommend?
Don't buy $10 shop lites... they're crap... but they are cheap!!!
Buy surface mounted linear fluorescent strip lites that use T-8 lamps and electronic ballasts. They cost about ~$20 at Home Depot. Why? Very long life (30,000-46000 hours), no hum, flicker or striations (important when woking around moving parts!), much better color and CRI and probably the most important... they are the most efficient!!!

As for switching... its true that frequent switching shortens life but a lamp that stays off has a longer calendar life. Rule of thumb is turn the lamps off if you are gone from more than 20 minutes.

As for using your lamps as heaters... yes, but if you are heating your garage with electric resistance heat then you have more spare money than I do!!!

[GregWeld]

Great info!! Thanks!

BTW - my comments here regarding "heating" the shed with lights -- is only in context of - "using" electric heaters for heat... already (EXPENSIVE) so rather than try to heat a shop with a smallish (too small) electric heater - might as well leave the lights on for "help" (keeping the average temp higher) as the wattage to heat to a certain point is the same regardless of the source using it up. I may not be correct... but that was my thinking. It certainly has worked for me for the last 4 years... although my electric bill for "the shed" is around $300 a month (but my house is over $700 so seems cheap!). While I have natural gas to the shed - I just never followed through with a gas forced air heater because it simply hasn't been needed. The lights heat it just fine.