Flourescent Lights in the Cold

MO

Hope this helps

Here's an interesting twist. A company called Lights of America makes a yard light that draws 65 watts and produces the light of a 175 mercury. It will light at zero. (Takes a few minutes to get to full brightness). I got it for $29 at a Menards in Illinois or Iowa. It is a rather cheapie plastic fixture, but I have 3 in my 30 X 40 pole barn and they work great. Before I was using 300 Watt incandescent. Now more light at lot less energy.

FWIW

JU

ryan

The article points out that there are three major categories of standard flourescent bulbs - standard, energy efficient and high output. The standard bulbs (which are generally only available in specialty bulbs) are rated to start down to 40 or 50 F (don't remember which and I don't have the article with me). The energy efficient bulbs (which are basically standard bulbs designed for lower output) are only good down to about 60 F. The high output bulbs are good down to about 0 F.

Another factor is the ballast. You need one that indicates it's a Type P (or maybe "Class" P?) for good low-temperature starting. Cheap fixtures generally have cheap ballasts that don't have this rating.

All in all, it's a good article.

Many industrial users have a re-lamping program where fluorescents are automatically replaced every X months, whether or not they still work. X is calculated from the cost of the new bulb vs the loss of output and the added energy consumption. I'm sure a quick Web search would tell you what's normal practice to get the best out of fluorescents.

HTH

llater,

llamas