brad kellner
10-27-2008, 12:40 AM
i was talking to an electrician on one of the jobsites i was working on about lighting my new workshop. and he recamended using hid lighting with vented reflectors with inline fans pulling the heat from the reflector and blowing it out at the floor. he really sold me on the idea. he was telling me as for lighting the shop it isnt the most cost efficent but in the cold months it could help warm the shop quite efficenctly. i knew these lights produced alot of heat but how well? i was greatly surprised.
i went out and bought 4-400w hps ballast, sockets, and bulbs. wired it up in the shop temporarily and hung the lamps from the cieling rafters with tie wire. and after having everything wired and the lights suspended from the cieling i waited for night time, when temps would drop to around 40 degrees and i turned them on and left the shop and went into the house for an hour and came back and the temp was at 48 degrees. another hour it was up to 56 degrees and topped off at 65 degrees. witch temp wise was comfortable. this was over a 3 hour span which i would assume would not take as long if the shop was insulated.
so i am debating following through with using this method of heating the shop. becuase i did notice some downfalls with it also. one down fall is that it is only heating the shop while the lights are on and you are in there using the lighting. and when you are not in there with the lights on it gets cold and then you have some supplies like glue freezing and going bad. another downfall i realized is the yellow-orange light. that would make color matching pointless and unless you had high ceilings you would have alot of dark corner (this could be fixed by painting the ceiling white and hanging the lights about 2-3 feet below the ceiling and aiming the lights at the ceiling to difuse the light and spread it out over the shop.
another way of heating the shop i have been thinking about is using electric radiant heat panel mounted to the ceiling. i read that they are cheap to operate and that they heat the objects in the room and not the air. so then your not running a flame while making a bunch of flamable dust. plus i figure i could use these and set the temp at 50-55 degrees to keep everything above freezing and then heat the shop with the hid lights to heat the shop while im in there working. granted i would need some flouro lights with cool white bulbs to counteract the yellow-orange lighting from the high pressure sodium bulbs.
can anyone working in this field or that has more knowledge in the area chime in and give me some guidence or correct any mis-information i have been given. and if possible tell me were i could locate some liturature on the heat panels and about their effiency. i googled heat panels and couldnt find any useful info.
thanks
i went out and bought 4-400w hps ballast, sockets, and bulbs. wired it up in the shop temporarily and hung the lamps from the cieling rafters with tie wire. and after having everything wired and the lights suspended from the cieling i waited for night time, when temps would drop to around 40 degrees and i turned them on and left the shop and went into the house for an hour and came back and the temp was at 48 degrees. another hour it was up to 56 degrees and topped off at 65 degrees. witch temp wise was comfortable. this was over a 3 hour span which i would assume would not take as long if the shop was insulated.
so i am debating following through with using this method of heating the shop. becuase i did notice some downfalls with it also. one down fall is that it is only heating the shop while the lights are on and you are in there using the lighting. and when you are not in there with the lights on it gets cold and then you have some supplies like glue freezing and going bad. another downfall i realized is the yellow-orange light. that would make color matching pointless and unless you had high ceilings you would have alot of dark corner (this could be fixed by painting the ceiling white and hanging the lights about 2-3 feet below the ceiling and aiming the lights at the ceiling to difuse the light and spread it out over the shop.
another way of heating the shop i have been thinking about is using electric radiant heat panel mounted to the ceiling. i read that they are cheap to operate and that they heat the objects in the room and not the air. so then your not running a flame while making a bunch of flamable dust. plus i figure i could use these and set the temp at 50-55 degrees to keep everything above freezing and then heat the shop with the hid lights to heat the shop while im in there working. granted i would need some flouro lights with cool white bulbs to counteract the yellow-orange lighting from the high pressure sodium bulbs.
can anyone working in this field or that has more knowledge in the area chime in and give me some guidence or correct any mis-information i have been given. and if possible tell me were i could locate some liturature on the heat panels and about their effiency. i googled heat panels and couldnt find any useful info.
thanks