Metal Halide

[Toby]

Just after some opinions on Metal Halide vs Halogen and fluorescent lighting for outdoor use...

I am after the most energy efficient lamp that is practical to illuminate a patio area, a 500w halogen does the job well, but is 500w, obviously.

I am not bothered if there is a few minute warm up time, as I won't be using it for PIR activation, just general use when having a BBQ etc.

My options seem to be, stay with a standard 500w halogen, go for a fluorescent like this

a metal halide unit like this 70w one this 150w one is the average lamp life of these units, and the approximate halogen equivalent light output?

Thanks!

[Nige Danton]

Not an answer to your query but would comment that unless your patio is very large or and the lamp is located some distance away then 500W is very bright and a little harsh for general BBQ lighting. Have you considered fitting two or three smaller lamps at appropriate locations? Perhaps 60W incandescent equivalents mounted in suitable outdoor housings.

If you have and decided that 500W of halogen equivalent is what you want - then I'm sure that others will be along with more helpful replies.

-- Nige Danton For all your UK legal jobs contact

[Andrew Gabriel]

However, as Nige says, a 500W halogen is normally quite unsuitable for the use to which you are putting it, unless you have a very large patio and the lamp is mounted 18'-25' high so it points downwards.

Multiple smaller wall lights would be much better, fitted with CFL's.

Somewhere in the 8,000-12,000 hours range when switched rarely (can get higher with electronic control gear, but not worth it for what you want it for).

You want to get a warm white lamp for it if you can, or it will look rather cold outdoors at night.

[Huge]

Our deck is illuminated by a 150W halogen in a reflector fitting, and even that is a little bright ("lasered to the spot" is the standard joke.) We have a 500W at the front to illuminate several hundred square yards of hard standing - it's about 30 feet up - I certainly wouldn't want that over a patio/deck.

[Peter Parry]

Have a look at

I had some of these fitted to a warehouse to provide illumination around it a few years back and they are remarkably good with very even light coverage.

Midi version might do what you want.

They take 5 min's or so to get up to full output but are useable immediately they come on.

have nowhere near the effective output of the eco-flood using the same lamps.

The Lumens per Watt of the lamps themselves is in the order of :-

Linear Halogen -16; life 1,000 to 2,000 hrs CFL - 55; life 6,000 to 15,000 hrs Metal Halide - 82; life15,000 hrs however this drops with frequent runs of less than 10 hours. At 2 hrs per start its is about 6,000 hrs.

For floodlighting the reflector becomes important as cheap fittings often have poorly designed reflectors with a lot of overspill of light into unwanted areas and poor evenness of light which makes the illuminated area appear subjectively darker than it is (the eye tends to adapt for bright spots).

The colour temperature and colour rendering index of Metal Halide is generally considered to be better than that of CFL which is usually a bit "cold" and is broadly similar to incandescent lighting.

[Adam Aglionby]

Personally have just over 2Kw illuminating immediate area out side workshop doors, for the application , loading and maintenance at all hours, more is definately more.

For a barbie on the patio ,lighting task is slightly different, unless you are Max Mosley looking for that barbie at Checkpoint Charlie feel....

a patio light but mebbe just thing as cook up illumination.

MH comes in all sorts of colour temps and CRIs, just like CFLs, cheap MH lamp, as supplied with low cost fitting, will probably be north of

4000K and appear quite blue.White SON is a nice option but lamps and fittings are several multiples cost of econo yard light. MH has a smaller source size than CFL or incandescent so will cast more pronounced shadows, might look nice , might look spooky.

Whilst when actually cooking on the barbeque you want as much light as possible, with decent CRI rather know how red the meat is, its not neccesarily the corner of a car park feel you`ll want whilst eating. Multiple lower power sources around the area , anything from fairylites to post lamps, will give a much more relaxed ambience.

HTH Adam

[meow2222]

You can use a single high up light source, but it will put you in hard shadows wherever you go. You lso need to put it high to get a reasonable light distribution and size of light pool - and that makes relamping a right pain. And you've only got one lamp, so total darkness when it goes.

A few ordinary domestic sized CFLs at wall light level would give more pleasant, softer light, the light sources would look far nicer, and you've got no relamping issues, and no chance of being left in the dark. Put them among foliage and they look rather nice. Not quite as efficient as halide but much nicer to live with

NT