Hi All,
When he shows up, I have a carpenter building me a new studio space
in my basement. Will you please chime in with you best advice on
lighting. I’m planning recessed lights and was thinking, after
reading the thread on metal halide lighting, that in might be a good
idea to put over my new workspace.
Thanks,
Betty Belmonte
Halides are great for display. But for close up work for long hours
I think you may find them a bit overbearing.
As a check, I brought a piece I’m working on over to my halides.
While yes, they are plenty bright they also produce a bit of glare.
Reflective surfaces sent flashes of white up to the eye, momentarily
blinding me to detail. My depth perception seemed off too.
Fluorescent
lamps give a diffuse light which doesn’t glare but some people find
them annoying. Maybe before you invest in multiple halides you get
just one and try it out against tubes.
Betty, I too have a studio in the basement. Are you going to
Sheetrock the walls and ceilings? I have been in basement studios
where I just painted the concrete walls and did nothing to the
ceiling. The best route is to finish the walls and ceilings. It
allows for whatever light you choose to bounce off the walls and
make the room seem brighter. The use of recessed lights is great if
you know where your benches and other items are going to go. I wasn’t
sure where things were going to go so I went with florescent lights.
My studio is 33 ft by 15 ft and I had the electrician put in four
eight foot long fixtures and spacing them equally the long way. More
importantly I installed 5000 degree Kelvin bulbs in the fixtures.
This gives me a very white light that is even anywhere in the room.
I also have task lights on the benches that need them. I also had the
electrician put in a huge number of wall outlets so I can move
things around and have plenty of power. If you have specialty items
like a kiln you may want to try and figure out where that is going to
go and make sure you have enough power to operate it safely.
Michael
MichaelKnottDesigns.com
I just replaced every bulb in my studio with daylight CFLs (thank you
Wal-Mart for making them affordable and doing something -anything- to
counter your predatory rep).
I now have the best light I’ve ever had, with, I hope, a considerable
reduction in my electric bill over time. My workshop does look like
the last scene from Close Encounters but that’s not necessarily bad.
Actually we’ve replaced every light in our home with CFLs, which now
come in soft white or daylight, don’t buzz or flicker, don’t heat up
the rooms, and look like ordinary bulbs. I prefer their light to
incandescent.
And I’m saving money and reducing global warming. Once the cost for
the bulbs became affordable it seemed like a no brainer.
Hello Mark,
Actually we've replaced every light in our home with CFLs, which now come in soft white or daylight, don't buzz or flicker, don't heat up the rooms, and look like ordinary bulbs. I prefer their light to incandescent. And I'm saving money and reducing global warming. Once the cost for the bulbs became affordable it seemed like a no brainer.
You can also get multiple coil CFL’s as spot lights and flood lamps.
My favourite is shaped coils. I have one with the coil shaped into
the word ‘open’, they have animals and such. Back in the last century
our local utility company, BCHydro, gave away CFL coupons using all
the encouraging words you have embraced. The advantage that nobody
mentions that I have noticed in the last 10 years of being
incandescent free, which for me far outweighs all of the others; I
have replaced 3 CFLs in the last 10 years. How much time have you
wasted in the last ten years changing lightbulbs? With all of the
development with LED lighting I fear we are the last generation to
enjoy lightbulb jokes; “How many derision deservers does it take to
change a lightbulb?” “What’s a light bulb? and why would it need
changing?” Tony.
Anthony Lloyd-Rees.
www.OpalsInTheBag.com
I’ve replaced all the incandescent bulbs in our house with CFLs too,
and on the whole I’m delighted. I like the light and I’m happy to be
saving energy. I’ve had them long enough to see how they age,
though, and it’s different from incandescent bulbs, which simply go
out one day. Fluorescent bulbs become dimmer with age, and the color
of the light yellows. Not that I mind-- it’s a nice light too-- but
if you use them in places where color perception is important, it’s
something to be aware of.
Janet Kofoed
http://users.rcn.com/kkofoed
I have been working in my basement for 3 years since moving to my
current house and it doesn’t seem to matter how many daylight
florescent tubes I put in, it seems to be a black hole so I am have
sheetrock and a dropped ceiling installed and was planning to have
recessed lights put in, lots of them. I will have to find a walmart
because the CFLs I have in my living room give off so little light,
I wasn’t thinking of using them in the basement. Can you give me a
little more info on what kind of CFLs you use. I very much would like
to conserve energy while at the same time getting enough light to
make me want to actually go to the basement.
Thanks for reminding me about also going overboard an wall outlets.
Betty Belmonte
Betty,
This may or may not be of any use to you, but I’m assuming you are
building a jewelry bench setup in the basement.
I had a 1600 sq ft jewelry store with 750 sq ft shop with two LONG
benches, side by side. I had the higher ceilings and what we did was
suspend fluorescent shop lights from the ceiling with heavy wire
attached to the guts of the drop ceiling. These were two-light
fixtures. Remembering that intensity of light is squared when you
halve the distance from light to subject, I had them hanging 26
inches above the bench top, or about 8-10 inches higher than my
eyes. This allowed for a very bright work space without the light
going directly into your eyes. This worked very well for many years.
If you attach a couple of long magnetic strips to the front of the
light housing, you can “hang” small tools there, always within easy
reach, right by your forehead. My setup is all faceting and lapidary
related these days, but good light and plenty of it sure makes it a
pleasure.
Wayne Emery
The Gemcutter
I have a “hybrid” CFL policy. Lighting fixtures with more than one
light bulb have half incandescent and half CFL. The one (abiet
small) problem with CFLs is that second or so that it takes for them
to come on. This way there is immediate incandescent light
supplimented with the more energy-efficient CFLs.
I do have one 300 watt incandescent bulb - provides a great, bright
light. Has anyone seen a CFL with lighting capacity??
Judy in Kansas
Betty, I think that CFLs used to be low light only, but the 100 watt
equivalents (26 actual) made by GE (in China, of course) seem quite
as
bright as a 100 watt incandescent and don’t roast me. Also, because
they are cool it appears that I no longer have to worry about the
warning on my lamps not to exceed 60 watt. Maybe it’s me but it does
seem that the light from daylight bulbs means that everything is a
whole lot clearer on my bench. Because it is my workshop I don’t care
about the strange shape of the helical bulbs. In the rest of the
house I have the new pretend incandescent bulbs, really just coils
within a globe.
The soft white CFLs do seem to take up to a minute to achieve full
brightness. I do not notice this with the daylight CFLs as much. I’m
not really sure I care that it takes a few seconds. CFLs don’t really
have to be turned off with the dedication one might turn off
incandescents.
Wal-Mart appears to have the best deals on CFLs. Their CEO of
Sustainability (!) has targeted this as one of the major green
directions for the company. I found that they don’t always have the
best selection, but this seems to be because they keep selling out.
But Home Depot and Lowe’s also carry them, tho not as cheap.
Out of the 40 bulbs we’ve bought, two were defective (and
returnable). That’s not bad.
Australia, and, I think, California, are going to make incandescents
illegal for most consumer and business uses. Even a pale green US
Administration will probably follow suit. It’s just too easy a fix.
Mark
www.markdefrates.com
Has anyone seen a CFL with lighting capacity??
I have a couple of CFL photo-floods that are very bright. They cost
about $35 each, and are not as bright as the tungsten ones, but will
presumably last a lot longer. I bought them on line at one of the
photo equipment sites.
Noel
Judy
I do have one 300 watt incandescent bulb - provides a great, bright light. Has anyone seen a CFL with lighting capacity??
The biggest I have seen is 150, I have 4 around my bench.
Terry
California, are going to make incandescents illegal for most consumer and business uses.
Just a tidbit - right now in Calif., the primary lighting in new
construction has to be fluorescent…