Lights- warm vs cool...help, I don't remember. LED too

11 years ago

One of my fluorescent lights burned out last night and after replacing the bulb, this morning the fixture went out. I had labeled my 2 fixtures per shelf as warm and cool and it was one of the cool ones that burned out. I easily replaced it with another fixture and cool bulb labeled for kitchen and bath, and I had written "cool" on the paper carton. But now I'm wondering what the warm bulbs are. Does anyone remember this conversation from years ago? These fixtures are on 16 hours a day 365 days a year and they've probably been installed for 4 to 5 years. The plastic is all brittle and I probably need to replace each and every one of them!

These cool bulbs are F15T8 18 inch bulbs. Am I hallucinating that there are cool and warm bulbs?

Ok, I just pulled two bulbs out of their package and one is specifically labeled kitchen and bath and the other has no different writing on except it doesn't say kitchen and bath. Does that mean that regular fluorescent bulbs are warm? I think it's just by coincidence that I happened to save all of the kitchen and bath cartons because some of them are specifically labeled as cool.

Please don't get into a detailed explanation about footcandles etc. as it will go over my head I'm specifically just asking about cool versus warm!!

Also has anyone switched from fluorescent to LED lights? If so what fixtures did you use?

Thanks!
K

Comments (2)

npublici
11 years ago
I use cool whites for maximum light and warm whites to induce blooming.The bulbs touted as "greenhouse" lights rarely are any better than cool whites.These days there are lower wattages available for florescent fixtures,which put out almost as much light as the previous higher wattage tubes. For example, 32 watt replacing a forty watt.That efficiency costs less money.
The led lighting market is filled with snake oil and wild, wild west atmosphere. A few stable corporations are standing behind products,still made in China,at low cost,which they are greatly overcharging for.Most are either direct marketed from China or by small local entrepreneurs and vary widely in honesty in marketing,quality,detailed capability information(specifications),and actual plant growing applicability.
There is a new family of leds on the horizon which are greatly more efficient. They use a non silicon base.even better and farther in the future are leds made using a carbon base ((OLEDs).I'm waiting.Unless the disposal costs of fluorescents start making them cost prohibitive, I am sticking with cool whites for now.
Del
kaboehm (zone 9a, TX USA)
Original Author
11 years ago
Del,
So you only use the cool fluorescents?
Where did I get the idea that we needed a mix of cool and warm??
Hmm... Thanks for the info on the LEDs!
K
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