Lighting question

[CLEARVIEW CARWASH]

Guys,
I am new to this business, and new to the forum.
I recently purchased a 5 bay SS with an IBA in Georgia.
My question is regarding efficient, bright lighting for my bays, as well as my vacuum islands. I currently have 175w Halide fixtures. They are really not bright enough. My building is red brick and it does not light up sufficiently at night. I saw a post regarding flourescent lights sold at Lowes and Home Depot.(in the 50.00 price range, including bulb) The post did not have any specific info about what fixtures they are. I went to home depot and saw what I believe to be the right one. It has no covering on the opening(they are round in shape). I don't know if these are the ones mentioned, but I don't know if they would do well if they get wet.
Can anyone offer some ideas on what fixtures to buy? I really want to brighten this place up. It doesn't have to be these specific ones, but something really bright that is efficient and cost effective.
Thanks in advance!!!

 

[Skipper Jack]

Try lights of America

http://www.lightsofamerica.com/

and then one of their resellers

http://www.esplighting.com/fluorex-outdoor-fixtures.html

 

[Randy]

If your lights are dim and the bulbs haven?t been changed in over 18 months it might time to change out the Metal Halide bulbs, we change all of your every 16-18 months. Also if you have plastic lens on the fixtures that have yellowed upgrade them to glass, they look a lot better and put out more light.

I think the Regents lighting fixture is a little better constructed than the Lights of America fixture. They use the same 65 watt bulb. www.regentlighting.com/common/brand...&category=Dusk to Dawn: Fluorescent&id=11909 You can get them at Lowes.

If you want to use the case of your existing 175 watt Metal Halide wall pack you?re going to have to remove the ballast from the 175 watt fixture, buy an area light and take the guts out of it and install it into the Metal Halide fixture. The only part of the existing 175 watt fixture you use is the Mogul base socket.

 

[Sequoia]

Lighting

I am extremely pleased with the brightness, white light, and efficiency of the electronic ballast fluorescent lights I installed in my wash bays. I'm also in a freezing climate and they work great year-around.

Check out model #105-A at http://www.ergonomiclighting.com I use two of these per wash bay-- offset from each other and staggered toward the corners.

 

[Whale of a Wash]

I can't see anything to be gained by going to FL lighting from the MH. I looked up the specs
175 MH 17500 lumens
250 MH 25000 Lumens
86 w FL 6800 Lumens
I use 2 250 MH per bay and have Have 5 175 MH in T-free
You will need alot of fl lighting to keep up with the MH. Do not be cheap on
lighting, your wash should look bright and safe at night,
I have one wash with a pole light and 2000w of mh lighting.
Graingers and others will give a discount on cases of bulbs.
My wife works for a paper co, that also sells bulbs, I get the 250MH's for
about $10. Just make sure the wallpacks are glass the UV yellows plastic
John

 

[Jim Caudill]

Back in 1999, when my wash was 5 years old, I replaced all my old plastic wall packs by Lithonia Lighting with nice, new, wall packs with glass lenses. The plastic had gotten yellow, brittle, and were cracking. After living with the glass wall packs for 8 years or so, I think I prefer plastic. The glass units have a lot more metal to corrode, peel, and flake. The glass units are significantly heavier and are much more awkward to change the bulb when you're standing on a ladder. I've had the glass units "pull out" of the wall when I'm trying to get the gasket to "let go" of the back plate. Talking about having your hands full: standing on a ladder, with a heavy wall pack in your hands, still wired up in the back, and no tools to work with! My glass units have the ballast and lens in the front frame, so they are very heavy when you are trying to hinge the front up and open.

I think the answer is to get "special bulbs" that are designed to not yellow the plastic lens. HID lighting did have them last time I checked. When I replace my MH fixtures, it will be with plastic and the new bulbs. I think I will order a couple spare lenses at the same time.

I am interested in the Fluorescent option as well, but as I recall - the MH offer the greatest lumens per watt of power.

 

[MEP001]

We had a similar discussion on the old forum - the light output is suspiciously absent from the Ergonomic Lighting site. Fluorescents, as Whale of a Wash pointed out, have half the light output per watt as the better Metal Halide fixtures.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I remember the discussion because I was odd man out. I was in the process of replacing some fixtures and was very happy with the intensity and coverage by using 4 Four foot double HO Flourescent wet location fixtures from grainger per bay. Good parts. 2 Fixtures on each side wall horizontaly mounted about 8 feet up and each about 4 foot from center illuminates the sides, Top, front and rear of the vehicle well. ( I have block walls which do not reflect the light well. ) If I recall the HO bulbs are 65 watts each so it is a total of only 520 watts per bay. bad part is 8 bulbs per bay to maintain.

 

[CLEARVIEW CARWASH]

So what I'm hearing seem to be to stick with the MH lighting. I don't know the last time the bulbs were changed, and the lenses don't seem yellowed.
I do have a question. In looking into the MH bulbs, I have 175 watt bulbs now. Can I install a higher wattage bulb or do I need to stay with the same? Also, should I buy the white or clear bulbs for the most output?

 

[Shorco1]

I installed the Home Depot lights on my vac islands. The results are fantastic. They are area lights with 65W Fuourescent Bulbs. The out put is equal to a 500W incandescent bulb These particular lights are manufactured by Lights of Amercian. Home Depot, WallMart, Lowes sell them. They have a photo cell and have sub zero cold start capabilites. 1000bulbs.com also sell Fluroescent Bulbs with ballast that that you can use to convert your wall pack. Bright, energy and money saving.

 

[Sequoia]

Earl,

Like you, I feel like the odd man out on this subject. All I can say is that I've visited every self serve I ever drive by, and my compact fluorescents are brighter and whiter than any metal halide install.

But, the fluourescents seem to have a bad rap from the past.

 

[Eric H]

In the past 3 months I've had a new Hess gas station, Lowes, Kohls, and super Walmart open in my area. These companies have whole departments devoted to lighting and energy consumption/conservation. None of these projects include CF lighting into their lighting design, only MH. However, it does take most of these companies about 2 years to implement design changes of this type. So when I see the "big guys" using CF lighting I will know it is time for me to make a change.

All that being said I am going to install at least one CF wall pack to light my air vendor to see how it works out. Is that too contradictory to my statement above?

 

[Waxman]

Eric

Let me know how it works out and where you purchase the fixture from. I need a few more lights on site and in my bays as well. Thanks.

 

[Sequoia]

Lighting

One more thing for all the MH fanatics and compact fluorescent non-believers.

I realized that, long ago, I downgraded to using only 1/2 of the output of my compact fluorescents in my bays. They are just so danged bright that I didn't need to burn both bulbs in the fixture. I totally forgot all about this until I visited my wash tonight to check on bulbs/nighttime issues.

Each of the compact fluorescents that I use has two separate circuits and two separate bulbs. I've got great bay lighting using only 1/2 the capacity of the fixture. (I'm glad I wired the two circuits separately.)

I'd like to see a comparison of my CF lights, side-by-side, with a typical MH installation. Then lets cut my capacity in half, which is the way I have chosen to implement them, and then do the same with the MH.

But, I realize that some folks will never truly look at this. After all, their grandfather's car wash didn't perform well with the old-style fluorescent tubes, right? He he.

 

[MEP001]

You should look at a wash with two 340W metal halides per bay for comparison yourself. What you may consider "too danged bright" will likely pale by comparison. Granted, the need for near daylight conditions all night long may be unnecessary, but the amount of nighttime traffic it attracts makes up for it in my opinion.

There are two nearby washes that are lit with standard 8' fluorescents, and they seem to be dumping grounds for used carpet, brush or bags of trash. I get none of that.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Seen some photos and it looked great. Of course it also had very clean and reflective glassboard walls. I submit the 4 flourescent fixtures I have, each having 2 four foot HO bulbs at 60 watts each or a total of 480 watts does a comparable job. although without the glassboard walls it is a difficult comparison.

 

[Sequoia]

Mep,

You've made my point for me. The 8' fluorescents are the ones used by our grandfathers and are not the modern compact fluorescents installed at my wash. In fact, the 8' old style fixtures you refer to were at my wash when I purchased it, and they were one of the first things I tore out since the lighting was so dismal and crappy from them.

Let's see-- I am now burning a grand total of 192 watts per bay when you count both of my in-bay fixtures only running at 1/2 capacity. You wish to compare that to 640 watts of MH lighting? I'll grant that your MH install, using triple the wattage of me, is probably brighter. Congratulations on that- but I'll bet my meter is spinning more slowly!

 

[Doug P.]

I ordered 5 of these 65W lights from the website listed by Skipperjack today. I am not tearing out all of my Metal Halides but these might blend in well for certain applications.

Doug P.

 

[dk239]

I replaced all of my MH lights with HO 8' flour. Have much more light and the HO'S don't flicker in cold weather.

 

[MEP001]

I replaced all of my MH lights with HO 8' flour. Have much more light and the HO'S don't flicker in cold weather.

If they're working properly, metal halide lighting produces twice as much light per watt as fluorescents.