Actually the cold start flourescents do not cost all that much, especially
in the long run. They were part of the house lighting package we purchased
from Lowes, at 10% discount, and I think I paid less than $50 each. Also
used the big wattage tubes. $50 probably sounds expensive but the payoff
comes from bulb life. I used the non-cold start units at a previous home
and I couldn't keep bulbs in them for more than a year before they started
going black on the ends. Besides, you always had the dark flickering and
buzz on start. The cold starters have been in place for almost 5 years and
we haven't replaced a bulb yet. These put out a low hum on start that
decreases with warmup.
Another factor was touched on by a later post. Wall color makes a world of
difference. If you have a stud wall garage or shop you need a LOT more
lighting. My area is sheetrocked and painted white. I do use a magnetic
accessory spot on my band saw and my drill press is lighted. I also have a
small desk type flourescent hanging on the pegboard above my bench but it
seldom gets turned on. Overall if I were to do anything different I would
move the two units parallel with the wall (about 6' from wall) a little more
to center.
Ron
"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
k.net...
"RonB" wrote in message
news:YIbUc.22717$Yl.6884@okepread07...
By contrast our three car garage/shop has three 8-foot, two tube
fluorescent
units serving about 635 square feet. They are arranged in a "T" with
two
parallel to the wall opposite the three doors and one perpendicular to
the
others in the center of the garage. These three fixtures provide a lot
of
light. Shortly after we finished the house a friend drove down a road
..2
mile from our house when the garage doors were up. He said our garage
looked like the Cape Kennedy shuttle assembly building - a slight
exaggeration but we do have good light.
Ron
Holy cow Ron - my garage is only a little bigger than yours and I have 9
100W incandescent bulbs, a couple of 4ft shop lights here and there, a
portable 500W halogen or two and it seems I'm always carrying a trouble
light around with me. My garage is a three car garage and is very much a
multi-use garage. It functions part time as a garage (really most of the
time), part time as a paint bay (automotive painting - uses two of the
bays
to do this), a lot of time as a repair garage (only consumes one bay), and
one bay is dedicated to my shop area where all of my wood tools call home
(note - this can be translated as collection point for everything that
comes
into the garage...) - and I'm really hurting for light. In fact it's
getting so bad that I'm about to do some sort of wholesale lighting
changes.
I'd like to go with florescent, but I'm in the cold northeast and unless I
spend a wad of money on cold start, fluorescents just don't cut it up here
for too much of the year. I do have a furnace in the garage, but there's
just too many times that I need light and really don't need to be firing
up
the furnace just to warm up fluorescents. Probably will go with more
incandescent. It sucks to be getting old - the eyesight is the second
thing
to go.
--
-Mike-