On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 09:32:23 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 2/17/2014 9:23 AM, basilisk wrote:

I've pretty much settled on 6
low bay 400 watt metal halide.

In our warehouse we had metal halide and the power company paid us to
take them out and replace them with 4 tube high efficiency fluorescent.
The ones we had were 1000 watt and we are getting better light with less
than 200 watts.

The old lights had bulbs that cost $100 too. Now, all four would cost
about $16.

I disregarded fluorescents on two counts, the number of fixtures required,
I've a bit of a lazy streak, rather hang 6 fixtures rather than 18 and for
some inexplicable reason fluorescents have a very short life span
here, doesn't seem to be a grounding issue as I have several more ground
rods driven in than required and they are in high iron content soil.
The voltage runs high here but not enough that it should be a problem,
sometimes hitting 130v. Who knows what goes on with the power
when no one is looking.

It is bad enough that the tought of keeping a bunch of fluorescents
operational is daunting. Of course there is no guarantee that
metal halide won't be plagued by the same problem, spend your money
and take your chances.

basilisk