...Which floodlight?

I have searched as best I can but cannot find the info I require

My house currently has 3 outside floodlights (300W halogens) which were fitted before we moved in. They are effective in that we are happy with the output they give. But they (the bulbs) do not last long (we are lucky to get a winter out of them)
I am sick of changing the bulbs and the units themselves are starting to corrode (making undoing the fixings very difficult)
I am about to hire a scaffold tower to sort out my guttering and this presents the perfect opperetunity to change them for something more reliable .....but what type is best?
- they are not on all night.
- they are not PIR activated and we do not wish them to be
- we want a fairly quick warm up
- we sometimes have to switch them back on straight away (we use them when our dogs go outside etc)
- we wish to preserve a similar brightness to the current halogens
- long lasting bulbs required!
cost is not necessarily the deciding factor

any advice gratefully recieved

(puts on full body armour and desends to bomb shelter)

Most of these would be worth considering. Brightest is equivalent to 200W halogen (it says) so maybe use more smaller lights to cover the area.

Alternatively if you leave them on for long periods because of the cheaper running costs, avoiding the warm up time issue, sodium or metal halide.

lymmranger said:

I have searched as best I can but cannot find the info I require

My house currently has 3 outside floodlights (300W halogens) which were fitted before we moved in. They are effective in that we are happy with the output they give. But they (the bulbs) do not last long (we are lucky to get a winter out of them)
I am sick of changing the bulbs and the units themselves are starting to corrode (making undoing the fixings very difficult)
I am about to hire a scaffold tower to sort out my guttering and this presents the perfect opperetunity to change them for something more reliable .....but what type is best?
- they are not on all night.
- they are not PIR activated and we do not wish them to be
- we want a fairly quick warm up
- we sometimes have to switch them back on straight away (we use them when our dogs go outside etc)
- we wish to preserve a similar brightness to the current halogens
- long lasting bulbs required!
cost is not necessarily the deciding factor

any advice gratefully recieved

(puts on full body armour and desends to bomb shelter)

Click to expand...

Unfortunately it is difficult to satisfy all of the factors you describe.
Assuming you still want to replace the floodlights then there are a few alternatives. If you want to keep the existing then there are a some factors which would help.
The lamps themselves MUST be horizontal - so no vertically mounted brackets or even at an angle. They must be horizontal. Secondly, the type of lamp you are using. Believe it or not, there ARE differences in the quality of lamps you can buy. Use branded lamps only - Osram, Sylvania, Philips or similar. So no Bell or Ring or Yong Chong Wong Kong, Aldi, Lidl or Asda smart price lamps!
Next, it is imperative that you do not touch the glas tube of the lamp when replacing. You must use the foam pad or the paper instructions or your t shirt or similar. Make sure the material covers all of the areas where your fingers would otherwise touch the glass when inserting new lamp. Otherwise the grease on your fingers will cause a "hotspot" on the lamp and it will fail in a short time.

As for the corroding paint and fixings, well ANY light that you buy these days will have similar properties as they are made down to a price, not upto a standard. You can minimise the corrosion by either replacing the screw that holds the glass door with a stainless type. Or you can coat the screw in silicone or copper grease (good practise anyway) and also the bracket fixing bolts similar.
There appears to be two standards of production light fitting now - attrociously crap and not quite as crap but still crap!!

If you want advice on different types of lighting then just let me know. Hope this helps!

I am not keen on the sodium or halide due to them needing to cool down before switching back on again - I love them (got them at work) and they are cheap to run but my missus will never get her head round the issues above and would give me grief about it

The flourescents (at least thats what they look like) may be an option as you can switch them on and off straight away and I suppose I could always add a few more to improve the light output

...thanks Owain!

@ SparkyStu - I always ensure never to touch any bulb with bare skin!

I also tried the lubrication/gease method but find that the heat of the lamp "burns" it off (not tied copper grease)

So! - yes please are there any other options????

lymmranger said:

I am not keen on the sodium or halide due to them needing to cool down before switching back on again - I love them (got them at work) and they are cheap to run but my missus will never get her head round the issues above and would give me grief about it

The flourescents (at least thats what they look like) may be an option as you can switch them on and off straight away and I suppose I could always add a few more to improve the light output

...thanks Owain!

@ SparkyStu - I always ensure never to touch any bulb with bare skin!

I also tried the lubrication/gease method but find that the heat of the lamp "burns" it off (not tied copper grease)

So! - yes please are there any other options????

Click to expand...

I have experienced the fluorescent lamps designed to replace tungsten halogen - they appear to be fine when left on for longish periods but do not like being switched on and off using a PIR. As you don't have any, just a switch then I would use those. Light output is probably equivalent to 150w TH lamp.
You could also try the new LED floodlights - equivalent also to about 150w I would say although the light is very definitely in one defined area - not spread out like a conventional floodlight.

As for sodium lights, there are high pressure (SON) or low pressure (SOX). Both are much cheaper to run and both give excellent light output. Son is pinky orange and Sox is yellow orange. Son has the better colour rendering although not brilliant.
Then there are MBF - high pressure mercury and HQI - metal halide. MBF is a bluish white light, cheap to run and nice and bright. HQI is the nearest to daylight you will find. If you want to see the colours of evrything you are illuminating then this is definitely the light to use. If colours are not so important, use SON.
They are all available in a variety of wattages - 70w would be suitable for domestic, as would 150w. If you go higher, say 250w or 400w then this would be exceptionally bright (very nice if you are holding regular football matches in your garden!) and obviously cost more to run.
Son is slightly cheaper to run than HQI. They are both the same (ish!) to buy both fittings and lamps. Both easy to replace lamps.
Only problem as you mention is they all need to cool down before reigniting again. This could be a problem if you need to switch on again immediately after.
They also all take a short while to reach full brightness after initial switch on although this usually doesn't present a problem. My advice would be to fit this type (either SON or HQI) and use a photocell to switch on at night and either leave on until dawn or use a timeswitch to go off at say midnight.
Hope this helps!

lymmranger said:

I am not keen on the sodium or halide due to them needing to cool down before switching back on again - I love them (got them at work) and they are cheap to run but my missus will never get her head round the issues above and would give me grief about it

The flourescents (at least thats what they look like) may be an option as you can switch them on and off straight away and I suppose I could always add a few more to improve the light output

...thanks Owain!

@ SparkyStu - I always ensure never to touch any bulb with bare skin!

I also tried the lubrication/gease method but find that the heat of the lamp "burns" it off (not tied copper grease)

So! - yes please are there any other options????

Click to expand...

I have experienced the fluorescent lamps designed to replace tungsten halogen - they appear to be fine when left on for longish periods but do not like being switched on and off using a PIR. As you don't have any, just a switch then I would use those. Light output is probably equivalent to 150w TH lamp.
You could also try the new LED floodlights - equivalent also to about 150w I would say although the light is very definitely in one defined area - not spread out like a conventional floodlight.

As for sodium lights, there are high pressure (SON) or low pressure (SOX). Both are much cheaper to run and both give excellent light output. Son is pinky orange and Sox is yellow orange. Son has the better colour rendering although not brilliant.
Then there are MBF - high pressure mercury and HQI - metal halide. MBF is a bluish white light, cheap to run and nice and bright. HQI is the nearest to daylight you will find. If you want to see the colours of evrything you are illuminating then this is definitely the light to use. If colours are not so important, use SON.
They are all available in a variety of wattages - 70w would be suitable for domestic, as would 150w. If you go higher, say 250w or 400w then this would be exceptionally bright (very nice if you are holding regular football matches in your garden!) and obviously cost more to run.
Son is slightly cheaper to run than HQI. They are both the same (ish!) to buy both fittings and lamps. Both easy to replace lamps.
Only problem as you mention is they all need to cool down before reigniting again. This could be a problem if you need to switch on again immediately after.
They also all take a short while to reach full brightness after initial switch on although this usually doesn't present a problem. My advice would be to fit this type (either SON or HQI) and use a photocell to switch on at night and either leave on until dawn or use a timeswitch to go off at say midnight.
Hope this helps!

Thank you for that quick lesson - I think I finally understand the different options open to me

........now to sit the boss down and let her decide (it will still be my fault when she doesnt like them though)

http://www.powerlite-lighting.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=91
are blinking good fittings... they do them in HID and Halogen and they last much longer that the cheap shed ones

Every time I go in B&Q I am frustrated by their lack of CFL (PL) range.

Joe Public DIYer has no idea that you can get very nice PL lighting online.

Most of B&Q's lighting range is HALOGEN. Awful stuff.

this may it may now but here goes this is more info on SON + SOX lighting i know there street lights but there you go.

http://lanterns.webs.com/thecollection.htm