Are All Fluorescent Lights 'Marked' with Specifications?

[Vet65te]

Building a new house and garage and thought I had the garage lighting layout figured out but the first time we lit off the lights, I was a bit disappointed.
The garage is 32'x36' with 11'6" ceiling and fully finished in sheetrock and painted. Natural light consists of two 4x4 windows on one wall, two 6x5 windows on an adjacent wall, two 9x8 garage doors with windows in the upper panels and lastly, two 2x4 skylights. There are '24' 2-bulb T8 fixtures in this garage and the lights were to be 5000K and 850 series Daylight bulbs. Haven't gotten out the ladder yet to verify that the tubes are as requested.
The pics I've seen on line seem to show no written specs on the end of the tubes near the two-prong end caps. Maybe that's just the pic on the computer but figure they 'must' still carry that info printed on the tube like they used to.
Mike T.

 

[Speedy Petey]

Yes, all lamps are printed with their info.

24 lights in a two car garage?? 24??? And you are not satisfied with the light??? I hope you are referring to the color.

 

[SMKS]

Yes, all lamps are printed with their info.

24 lights in a two car garage?? 24??? And you are not satisfied with the light??? I hope you are referring to the color.

The OP's 32'x36' shop is significantly larger than a normal two-car garage.

I'm not saying your point is right or wrong, but this isn't your average 20' x 20' two-car garage.

I'm sure at some point in history there have been bulbs that didn't have info printed on them, but all the ones I've seen and handled have had the size and other info on them.

 

[Vet65te]

Thank you both for the feedback, I'll be trying to score up a tall ladder to double check the tubes they installed. Here's a couple pics of the new 'working garage'. The 24 lights are actually two separately switched banks of 14 and 10 fixtures. By the way, I forgot to mention these are T8 bulbs.


Mike T.

 

[SMKS]

How much distance is there between the rows of lights?

I can't really tell from the pic, but my casual guess is that your rows are farther apart than my rows. But, my lights are older T12. I assume your lights are T8, which should put out more light.

There's still more to know before we can say there isn't enough light. Plus, how much light is "enough" may depend on the person.

 

[UpstateNY]

I just finished my 30 x 40, 16 4 bulb T-8 fixtures with 5000 k bulbs. So, I have 64 bulbs, you have 48. I'm happy with my lighting, you're not, you need more

 

[Vet65te]

What is your ceiling height? If the bulbs they used do turn out to be the 5000K types, I'll probably wind up swapping the '6' 2-bulb fixtures along the back wall, where I expect to have my work benches, to 4-bulb fixtures.
Mike T.

 

[katy]

Take all the acrylics off, you'll get more light and won't have the dust catchers to clean twice a year.

 

[Vet65te]

Well, even without a tall ladder around, I was able to get a closeup pic of the mfr's info on the end of the tube in that one fixture that didn't have an acrylic cover and it turns out, the tubes are indeed F32T8/850 Series 5000K lights after all. While my neighbor and I were looking up at the lights, we did notice that the single fixture without the acrylic cover looked quite a bit brighter than the rest, even though there was only one tube in place so next up will be to remove the covers and see what the brightness looks like.
Mike T.

 

[Dustball]

How long have the bulbs been turned on? Brand new bulbs have a break-in period.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Fixtures with lenses or acrylic covers look pretty, but they eat up a lot of light. In a shop environment I would never want a light with any kind of lens or cover. Just something to reduce the light output, get dirty, and collect bugs. I prefer open strip lights in a shop. If they need protection, get the wire protective guards (which will not fit yours, but there are guards designed for strip lights)

I do have covers on my T5HO strips over my workbench, and actually do like them, but the fixtures are extremely bright and only about 7 ft off the floor, so the covers help to mute some of the glare. I would not do this on ceiling mounted lights.

Charles

 

[black00lightning]

I will be building a 30'x31' woodworking shop and I calculated I would need 36- 2 bulb x 4' strip fixtures. Fpr a 930 sqft area:
930 sqft x 200 lumens / 2800 lumens per bulb(32w T8 bulb) = 66 bulbs or 33 fixtures
I rounded up to 36 to allow even spacing.
Here's the source for the calculations.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/content.php?146-Lighting-the-Small-Workshop-by-Jack-Lindsey

 

[Vet65te]

For some reason, that SawMillCreek link wouldn't open up for me. No matter, my next move will be to remove 'all' the acrylic covers. After seeing that one uncovered fixture (with only one bulb, hence the removed cover), it definitely comes across as much brighter than the others so we'll see if that makes enough of a difference, brightness-wise. If it still seems like I need more light, once I figure out where I'm going to put my workbenches (never had this much room to deal before) I might add a few 4-bulb fixtures over that workbench area.
Mike T.

 

[black00lightning]

Fixed the link to the Sawmill Creek article.

 

[katy]

Just read that Sawmill Creek article and am shocked. Our 32' X 60' X 13' high shop has 8 4' 4 light T8 fixtures (w/electronic ballasts) and that gives plenty of light. His calculations for a 30' X 50' shop show 27 4 light fixtures. A rough calculation says we have only about 25% of the light that he calculates we need. I guess all these years I haven't been seeing what I've been seeing.
FWIW, all the fixtures have pull chains on them so we only put on what we need for the area we're working in. The pull chains are extended over to and down the walls so they're not hanging all over the middle.

 

[Vet65te]

Just found out that my plan to increase the brightness in the working garage by removing the acrylic covers will have to wait until after the official inspection is done. Not a problem, after they 'bless' the arrangement, the covers will come off. I have also decided to swap out the 'center 4' fixtures over the future work bench from 2-bulb units to 4-bulb fixtures. That will mean my 32'x36' shop with 11'6" ceiling will have 56 T8 bulbs with the majority switched to cover the front third of the shop area.
Mike T.

 

[Dustball]

Once again, I'll ask- how long have the bulbs been on? Try leaving them on for 24 hours and see if the brightness improves.

 

[Vet65te]

The garage lights have been on for a total of about 5 or 6 hours. Never have heard your theory before. In the 36 years I lived in my previous house, the fluorescent lights in the garage, whether they were 4-foot T12's or 8-foot T-12's, never exhibited any additional 'brightness' after what you describe as a 24 hour run-in time. The only comment I've heard related to fluorescent tube operating time is that there is some degradation after a period of time.
Mike T.

 

[Dustball]

Manufacturer's lumen rating for their bulbs is after 100 hours of operation.

Example- http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/pwc_li/us_en/connect/tools_literature/downloads/p-5569.pdf

Page 11, note 2-

Approximate initial lumens. The lamp lumen output is based upon lamp performance after 100 hours of operating life

 

[Vet65te]

I found a few more instances where the manufacturer did bring up the topic of burn-in but in all the cases, they never indicated outcome was to have a brighter light or more lumens. In most cases, they seemed to say it was a stabilizing method to minimize early burn-'out' or operability issues like flickering. My 'only' concern is more light...period. As stated earlier, once we're past our final inspection, I'll be removing the acrylic diffusers and most likely swapping some of the existing 2-bulb units with 4-bulb fixtures.
Mike T.