Neo Fender

I'm thinking of replacing the three incandescent lights in my three car garage with three PAIRS of 40 watt fluorescent tubes. My question is, how do they perform when the weather turns cold?

Back in the mid 70s, my parents remodeled our house and replaced EVERY light in the house with fluorescents and had problems with EVERY one. The lights out in the garage got especially worse in the cold (and this was in Louisiana). Don't know if they had crappy ballast or a crappy installation.

Anyone else experience problems with theirs?

MikeC

They don't start that great but once they are warmed up, they are fine.

Do you have a heater out in the garage? This will help.

You can also get bulbs that are better in cold weather

If you don't have a heater in your garage, I'd leave some incandescent lights out there for when its cold.

427V8

You need to get cold start balasts, they cost a little more but they do work. They come on even up here in the north land!

Also I'd recommand getting the 8' ones, I have two in my garage and they are 100x better than the two 500 watt Halogens they replaced!

Barry's70LT1

Hi..
I converted my garage to fluorescent about 12 years ago. Six pairs of
40 watt, 4 ft tubes.
I did a lot of research before buying. I had the same concerns about low
temperature starts.

I ended up using a standard style garage fixture, (double tube, with a reflective hood), with a "cold start ballast" (sp?).

The important points are..
- Standard light fixture.
- Standard tubes (not cold start). I used "daylight" tubes, not cool white.
- Cold start Ballast.

These fixtures are available from any major electrical supplier.
I don't think you can get them from any retail type store, like Walmart.

They even come on at -15F and below.

Barry

GTR1999

Home Depot or Lowes will have the fixtures already with the cold start ballast- 4' light fixtures run about $30.
Gary

norvalwilhelm

I have both in my garage. My ballats are not the cold start. When I first go in when it is cold out and do not turn the furnace I turn on both sets of lights. The fluorescent don't come on but as the garage warms up because of the other lights they slowly start. I would keep both. I have electrical outlets in the ceiling and plug the fluorescent light in. They are not hard wired in. This is also a good place to plug trouble lights in. When you leave and turn the lights out it guarantees your trouble light is turned off. I also have 8 500 watt spot light mounted on the walls so when you are working on the side of the car like doing brake jobs you can aim a light from the side right on the job. My shop with all lights on have 6500 watts of power. The walls are painted gloss white to reflect light. You can never have too many lights.

paso

You Can't have enough light! I've got 16 8 foot flourescents. and still use spot lighting. :)

71-LS5

I have 6 pairs of flourescents in the garage. When it is cold, they take a little while to warm up, but then the lighting is great. Of course, cold is a relative term and the cold weather around Dallas does not last long. I also have a couple of ceiling fans that I get a lot of use out of.

chevluvr

I have 3 double 8' fluorescents in my 24 x 24 garage. It's adequate but , I will be adding some double 4' at some locations for extra lighting. Mine do take a little time to get rid of the flicker in cooler weather. An extention spot light is also helpful. Good Luck!


[Modified by chevluvr, 9:03 AM 12/6/2001]

INMYBLOOD

Like stated above they can be slow to start in the cold. My last garage had 12 4'tubes and 2 8' tubes. This garage has 2 incandescent bulbs and I am squinting looking for anything :mad . After about a million honey doo's I will get to add some lighting to the garage and it will be fluoresect. I will look for the cold start one too. Thanks for the tip. I am dreaming about making this a nice looking garage. I guess little by little would be a good approach for me.

yogi78

I just have the run of the mill Home Depot fluorescent fixtures in my garage and have not found to have any problems with them starting in the type of cold weather we get here. I do have my incadescent fixtures still in place for the few days that it gets really cold and the fluorescents take a while to get going, but they always have warmed up after a few minutes. Gives me time to sip a cup of coffee. :chevy

Juliet

WE had problems with the flourescents dying. The most they ever lasted was 3 or 4 years. Last time round we ripped them out and put in halogen track lighting - the little low profile guys which would fit under the rolled up garage door. Much brighter light - I can aim it where I need it - in the interior if I'm working there or towards the engine bay etc. :) It's only been a year so I can't comment on longevity, but so far no cold day issues with them turning on. There were some cold winter days the flourescents would never come on in the garage. :eek: ~Juliet

Techno

All flourescents are downgraded for a national power conservation. 40watts if they aren't now will be 35 w. Using the lower figure this will be 210 watts.
I suggest you leave the incandescences in and run more wire to where you want the tubes to be. install lower wattage bulbs. This allows you to turn the lesser wattage bulbs on when you only need to run out there for something. I don't know how much rumor this is but tubes consume a large amount of power on startup. Turning them on and off would consume more than just leaving them on for a period of time.
I don't like the halogens because they are power hungry. I once used a 1,000 watt incandescent bulb, just one(24,000 lumens). Then I thought about what this equated to for one hour. It worked well as a heater too.

High pressure sodium can supply large amounts of nice almost white light. The fixtures and bulbs are pricey though. These do require a warm up period but are very bright and economical.