Bay Lighting - Metal Halide vs Flourescent

Interested to know is anyone has converted from metal halide to flourescent lighting and their experience - electricity savings, life of the bulbs, ability to handle wide outside temperature changes, etc - thanks.

I switched. I think my elec. bill is lower but who really knows. Buy good lights; I bought cheapos first and already replaced 2/3 with better ones.

They last fine and I can get the bulbs for the quality ones anywhere.

Flourescent bulbs do not work well in cold weather. The new light source is led lights. You can see these at LSI. They are making them for canopy lighting. With a layout they can plan your lighting project. this was a free service.

I looked carefully into LSI LED lighting. The one thing that surprised me the most is the life expectancy. They list 60,000 hours, and as much as 30% light output lost before end-of-life. I figured out that switching from two Scottsdales per bay to four LEDs would save about $10 per bay per year on energy, including the cost of replacing the LEDs at the end of their 15-year average life expectancy, and also including replacing the bulbs/capacitors in the Scottsdales every 18 months.

Look at 1000bulbs.com - there is a 6-bulb fluorescent fixture rated for damp locations that produces the same light per watt as the Scottsdales, and the bulbs retain 97% of their light output throughout their life of 30,000 hours. They're rated to start at -20° F.

I just switched 2 weeks ago from MH to flourescent. So far the lighting is good, used fixtures that are rated for high pressure spray down plus I got an $80 credit from xcel energy for every MH fixture i took down. I will update as time tells me more.

Can you post information about the fixtures?

Switched all three car washes from MH to fluorescent and saved a bundle on my electric bill. FL has better light quality and the lumens output over time are superior. All of my FL fixture are T-8 4 ft bulb , 4 bulbs per fixture, 2 end to end to create a '8 ft 2 bulb' wall or ceiling fixture. Bulbs are about $2 each, and the fixtures are waterproof / enclosed at about $150 each with only one electric start ballast. I am using much less energy, yet the bays are twice as bright. A win win situation