Lighting a pole building?

[ManCave]

My building is 39 x 75. I have an 11 1/2 foot ceiling. White ceiling, white walls.

Done a lot of reading here. I'm considering the 8 foot T5 4-bulb fluorescents from Home Depot with the 5000k bulbs. I'm considering running two rows of lights.

Should I get enough lights to **** them end to end or should they be spaced so many feet apart? I really don't know anything about figuring out a lighting plan. But I'm guessing that if I put 1 row about 8 feet from the wall and another row about 8 feet from the opposing wall that it might be about right.

Thoughts?

 

[pattenp]

I believe 100 lumens per square foot is a good light level. Put up enough fixtures to get that level of light and space the fixtures to get good coverage. One T5 4ft lamp is about 2700-2800LU.

 

[ManCave]

That's a good point. Sort of makes figuring it out pretty easy! Learn something new every day! Thanks.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

T5 --or-- T5HO ???

Huge difference.

"4 ft" T5 is 28 watts, 2,900 lumens per lamp.

"4 ft" T5HO is 54 watts. 5,000 lumens per lamp (GE makes a WattMiser 47w version that is 4,800 watts per lamp.

The 4 bulb tandem strips generally discussed on this board are T5HO. Home Depot sells both, be sure of what you are getting.

Charles

 

[ManCave]

Hi Charles,

I'm going T5 not T5HO. I'm going with an 8 foot strip with the 4 foot bulbs.

My walls and ceiling are all white metal. It should light really well.

 

[pattenp]

Depending on the brand lamp the LU will be different so you need to check the lamps you will be buying to see what the LU is. The average LU per F28 T5 lamp can be as low as 2500.