Lighting suggestions

[Catadj78]

my shop is 40x40x10 with steel trusses. About 16' to the peak

Exterior is done for the most part. I'm focused on completing the interior framing for the office, bathroom etc now and this needs to be done before getting away from my temp power setup I have but I needed lights to finish so I put up 3 t12 fixtures with 6500k bulbs for now.

I have only purchased 6 t12 fixtures at this point. Just got a deal today from a local hardware store that went of business on bulbs. Got 90 t12 bulbs for 40.00.

They are about 1/3 cool white, 1/3 warm white and 1/3 daylight bulbs.

Question is going LED really worth the added costs over the t12s at this point? Could I possibly recoup the extra costs of led in the time that the t12s will last in energy savings? Cheapest led fixture I can find is 35 bs t12 being 11 plus the cost of the bulb.

Right now I have 6 t12 fixtures and 110 bulbs for a costs of about 150 and will need another 14 t12 fixtures at another 200 for a total of 350.

2nd part is color? I have the 6500k bulbs up now and although their is only 3 fixtures the light is way more than I anticipated. What color is everyone else running in the shop?


Thanks

 

[cybrdyke]

Is LED worth it? It depends on two things....how many hours per year you intend to have your lights ON, and how much you pay for power.
Your T12's will burn about 192 watts per fixture if they are 4 lamp fixtures.
A similar LED fixture will burn around 50 watts. That's about 75% energy savings. And the LED fixtures will last significantly longer than the T12, which are rated around 20,000 hours until half of them are dead.
Make sense?
As for the color, that's strictly up to you. Try all three and use whichever you like best.

Good luck
CD

 

[Shiftless]

Better hold on to those T12 tubes because as you may already know, they have been discontinued. As far as I know, nobody is manufacturing them anymore. Existing supplies are still OK to sell.

 

[matt_i]

I don't think I'd invest any more money in T12 fixtures. Its a short term deal, imo, despite you having a lot of bulbs, they also consume more bulbs than any other style, which is a pain to climb up and change them plus the annoying buzz, the flickering in cold, etc.

I'm not mentally sold on the durability of the warehouse LED fixtures yet, but I'm going to get a few and make a trial run. I've had excellent luck with T8s and T5s.

 

[Shiftless]

I don't think I'd invest any more money in T12 fixtures. Its a short term deal, imo, despite you having a lot of bulbs, they also consume more bulbs than any other style, which is a pain to climb up and change them plus the annoying buzz, the flickering in cold, etc.

I'm not mentally sold on the durability of the warehouse LED fixtures yet, but I'm going to get a few and make a trial run. I've had excellent luck with T8s and T5s.

I'm running 5 of them (FEIT from Costco) and have had no problems for the past 8 months. But that isn't "long term" durability.