• Welcome to the new and improved Building Code Forum. We appreciate you being here and hope that you are getting the information that you need concerning all codes of the building trades. This is a free forum to the public due to the generosity of the Sawhorses, Corporate Supporters and Supporters who have upgraded their accounts. If you would like to have improved access to the forum please upgrade to Sawhorse by first logging in then clicking here: Upgrades

Can anyone help suggest a......

R

righter101

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2009
Messages
604
Hey everyone. We are doing a small interior remodel of the local building department facility here. Mostly getting rid of the 20 year old stained pink carpet (seriously), and a new counter top, that sort of minor stuff. I have offered to put forth a lighting proposal because our lighting here is awful. The entire building has the flush mount fixtures that have either 2, 3 or 4 flourscent bulbs.

Wondering if anyone has suggestions for low cost alternatives to these. I am going to do an energy savings analysis and that will be a key selling point. I have, for my own home, purchased a few of the CREE LED bulbs so i was considering even just getting some inexpensive flush mount ceiling fixtures and using those bulbs.

Wondering if anyone has experience with a good substitute for the tube flourscents??? I don't like the buzz, i don't like the color spectrum, and they use more power than a number of LED alternatives.

Thanks.

John
 
LED fixtures are still fairly pricy, and they aren't enough more efficient than a good fluorescent light to offset the price difference. Our office recently had 2-tube fluorescent fixtures installed (similar to http://www.lithonia.com/commercial/rt8.html ), and the light level is close to what the old 4-tube fixtures put out. T-8 fluorescent tubes (I prefer 3500K) give much better color rendition than the old cool white T-12s and aren't quite as pricy as T-5s. The new electronic ballasts don't buzz like the old magnetic ballasts, and last a lot longer than the early electronic ones did.
 
Thanks Paul. I have an inquiry out to CREE for some T8 equivalents. they are getting 100+ lumens per watt, so the wattage would be cut in half for equal or brighter light.

I got some CREE bulbs from Home Depot for home, the 65 and 40 w equivalents. Those are amazing. Really dropping in price too. They are a 2700K temp so it's a nice light. I can't stand the 6000K. I call them "prison blue".

Thanks for the input. I will let you know how the discussions with CREE go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top