Yes. I do. In my case it is my front garden and it is about 20 yards to the front gate. There is absolutely no street lighting or other ambient light so it is necessary for safety reasons. It is only turned on for very short periods when needed.
I have a fitting with 2 120W PAR lamps which covers that distance.
No you don't.
Wow. A whole 20 yards.
I have a couple of hundred square meters of hard standing in front of my house and the security lamp that illuminates it is nothing like 1kW. (I think it might be a 350W). And the nearest street lamp is over a mile away.
There was a smiley on my comment.
But many of us drive cars down unlit roads at some speed and able to see far more than 20 yards away with a mere pair of 60/55W lamps. Sure they are heavily focused - so perhaps the issue is actually one of virtually no focus throwing light in every direction rather than absolute wattage? So a car headlamp at each end would possibly provide more light where it is needed at around one tenth the wattage?
...
Only VERY stupid people measure light as Watts. You should consult my guru prof. David JC MacKay on this:
I discovered the other day that a 40 W filament bulb uses 554 watts when it is cold.
In message , Huge writes
You can turn an artic in my front yard:-)
Illumination is by 3 PIR triggered 150Watt halogens. Any one of which gives enough illumination to spot the Fox/cat or whatever has brought one on.
Mounted at gable or eaves height on barns the light wash can be set to avoid annoying people using the lane.
I don't do much field work at night now but, a dusty windscreen and a horizontally mounted halogen at up to a mile distance can be seriously annoying.
Possibly, although it seems that everyone wants to tell others how they should lead their life, while knowing nothing about the exact circumstances and without being asked.
All I did was answer your question. I did not ask you to like the answer. ;-)
Ditto. OK, he has to do a 17-point turn, but on the couple of occasions they've sent a full-size oil tanker by mistake, when Wickes send a 42-tonner and when we moved in with a full-size pantechnicon (wow, that's in the spelling dictionary!), they all got turned round without much trouble.
More recently, I've been fitting 150W ones. The back garden is illuminated by 3 of those, PIR triggered. And the driveway by 5 off 60W PIR bulkhead lamps on fence posts. No way was I paying the price asked for twee driveway lights!
Anyhow, I guess the conclusion we reach is that unless you're operating a major international airport, 1kW lights are massive overkill.
Quite - including most of the 'eco' lamp makers who insist on quoting the output of their device as a watt equivalent for an incandescent. Searching the world for the lowest efficiency incandescent they can find...
So by that the OP needs a 680 watt LED.
For the very brief time it takes to get to full output. And other more efficient types of lamps have a higher starting than running current too.
and it emits zero lumens of visible light while doing so.
My guru is a bit outdated on this. If we want to get the latest news on science (including climate science) we should always go to Wikipedia:
Only quote a technical article if you have read and understood the question.
Discharge lamps are not suitable for short periods of use - like a security light triggered by a motion etc sensor. They take too long to come to full output - and may not re-trigger when hot without damage.
Plain wrong in the case of stating that LEDs are 35 lumens/W. They are around 75 lm/W for current white LEDs.
Cree announced 208 lm/W LEDs two years ago. As R&D news. They announced last month that these are now shipping as 1W (2700K) devices.
20 yds, wow...
None here either nearest is over a mile away and hidden from view anyway.
You live in a special part of the world with no stars or moon? Yeah OK occasionally it will be cloudy and a new moon and the sun too far below the horizon to provide any twilight but TBH it is rarely that dark. BTW by dark I mean really dark as in disturbingly "have I gone blind" dark.
Where we park the cars has a single 60 W bulkhead above a door but in a bit of a recess so doesn't cover all the area and another bulkhead with a CFL in it but again down a recess. They give enough light to move about in safely, even in the area of shadow between the two. The light levels are low so don't seriously screw up your night vision, the reflected light from those sources is enough.
Get a 50W LED floodlight - that's bright enough for any sane purpose.
The mistake a lot of people seem to make is to install the lights high up pointing out horizontally. I have a 20m back garden and by adjusting the (150W) fitting so the centre of the beam is hitting approx 7m from the house the back fence is just illuminated. This is Ok for seeing where I'm walking rather than re-creating a summer's mid-day.
In message , Tim Streater writes
I think it should be an offence to illuminate anything you don't own from a fixed light source:-)
I guess most lamps get fitted in daylight so it is difficult to judge the spread. Also, the cheap PIR lamps I use have an issue where the reflector physically impinges on the sensor housing. This makes proper operation from a low mount height very difficult.
>HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.