Rehab self serve wash - Lights?

[okcarwash]

I am looking to rehab a 8 bay self serve wash north of Tulsa. The lights are basically all gone. They are metal halide lights for the lot and the bays. I think they are all 400w bulbs.

I was thinking of lighting the entrance real good with the halide lights and install a motion sensor at the entrance. When someone drives in turn on the rest of the lot lights for 30 to 45 minutes.

In each bay I would install 2 can lights that run 15w fluorescent lights. These lights would remain on at dark. I have a commercial building and have installed these lights and they do keep the space light enough to walk to your car. 1 light every 8 feet 16 feet in the air. The cost is about $4 a month for electricty

Once in the stall the customer could do one or two things: 1. Turn on a light timer for 30 minutes or I could install a motion dector for the bay and turn on the lights for that bay.

Comments please.

 

[MEP001]

You could easily connect the lights in each bay to a control to turn them on when the bay is started so they'll only be on when someone is paying. I would think you'd want more light in the empty bays than what a couple of 15w CFL's can do for security concerns. If you have bright pole lights for your lot and shining into the bays you probably won't need the can lights.

I've been planning to do something similar and thought of using either a motion sensor light switch or a burglar alarm sensor with a programmable relay and a signal from the bay timer so the lights will come on only when the bay is in use, and will stay on as long as there's movement in the bay.

You'll need to use fluorescents with programmed-start ballasts for lights run off motion sensors. Metal halides take around five minutes to reach full brightness and use around five times the operating energy while they're warming up. They also take usually 10 minutes to come back on after being turned off.

 

[Earl Weiss]

There are some SS's in the Chicago area that have great perimeter lighting illuminating the lot shining into the bays. If I did a new wash or rehab this is the format I would copy with perhaps 25-50% of the bay lots on all the time with the rest coming on when the meter was running. This would tend to eliminate people pulling in at night to do other stuff on their cars at night.

 

[Indiana Wash]

I replaced all of my 400w bulbs which were in 250w wallpacks. I replaced them all with T5HO bulbs. A T5 high output is a 54w bulb about the diameter of a pencil in varying lengths. I got the fixtures with 2 4' bulbs. Each one is brighter than my 250w wallpack with 400w bulbs. I don't know how those got 400w bulbs, I bought the was 4 years ago.

Anyway, each SS bay had 4 wallpack lights so I replaced them with 4 T5HO's. The two closest to the road, I put on always on. That burns 108w per fixture. The back two I put on motion sensors that come on for 15 minutes at a time when they detect motion in the bay. I think each fixture was around $90 with stainless clips and mounting brackets and a mirror reflective back and the acrylic instead of polyurethane. They were $140 with the motion sensors installed.

I could not have made a better purchase. I am saving $250 a month on electricity and it cost me $4300 to do it.