Commercial Lamp Supplies News

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has said he wants to see energy wasting bulbs start to disappear from the shelves in January and be phased out by 2011.

From January 2008, stocks of 150 watt light bulbs will not be replaced by retailers, 100 watt bulbs the following year and 40 watt bulbs the year after that.

For those of you who will need the high wattage bulbs such as the 150watt filament lamp and cannot use low energy (such as with a PIR) we will still be able to source the high wattage lamps.

However, our advice is to switch to low energy wherever possible and when considering lighting think about energy burn. (and remember low voltage does not mean low energy)

A rule of thumb for working out which wattage low energy lamp will replace your filament lamp is to divide the high wattage by 5

For example an 150 watt high wattage lamp is replaced by a 30watt energy efficient lamp

The 30 Watt Giant Helix lamp we have on our site really does put out alot of light and is only 56mm taller than a standard 150watt bulb

The compact Low Energy Lamps now come with two colour options, warm white and daylight.

The warm white colour is, as the name suggests, a warmer colour and is similar to the light given off by filament lamps.

The Daylight colour is much whiter and gives a crisp, bright light. It is good for desk and reading lamps, garages, workshops, art studios and anywhere where you want accurate colour rendering.

Better still the daylight colour (64K) also helps combat SAD (SAD is a type of winter depression which affects an estimated half a million people in the UK every winter. This is usually between September and April, and in particular during December, January and February.)

PS: For those of you in offices or anyone with fluorescent fittings for that matter the Activa tube is the best way to combat SAD. We use the Activa in our office and warehouse (and we have the choice of any fluorescent available!) the light is very gentle on the eye and can even help reduce headaches in certain situations.

Im sure you’ve noticed the evenings are drawing in. We have finally got around to properly lighting our horse barn after moving here a year ago!

As it is quite a tall barn we have gone with two 400watt Mercury High Bays with acryllic reflectors (the acryllic reflectors allow some light to spread up onto the ceiling so making it seem lighter) If the ceiling was lower we would have considered Low Bays instead or perhaps even fluorescent fittings with a small barn or individual stables (we would use special fittings that have protective covers on to stop the horse damaging the tubes)

We decided against metal halide as it is quite a harsh light (but very good for places where you need strong bright lighting such as an arena) and the horses seem to prefer the softer mercury light. The other advantage to the mercury light is when they are switched on they dont suddenly flood the barn with bright white light and scare the horses! They start with a gentle pink light that turns to white in less than a minute - so our horses are nice and relaxed!

Sodium or SON lights are also good if you wish to avoid harsh white light but as it is orange it makes mucking out quite tricky as you cant see the ‘muck’ against the shavings or straw. Also farriers find the orange light from a SON difficult to shoe under.

All in all we can see what we are doing, the horses dont get scared and the farrier can shoe under the light so we are very pleased!

To top it all discharge lighting such as mercury, SON or metal halide is much more energy efficient than using filament lamps

It is worthwhile noting that it is a bad idea to light an arena or manage with Sodium (SON) lighting as the horses can’t see very well in the orange light. A menage is a good place to use Metal Halide lighting - if you have a manage or arena you want to light then please get in contact with us as we have a very simple and cost effective way of doing so!

Just to let you know that our order arrived yesterday for which we are very grateful. We spent over a year looking for replacements but had previously struggled to find anything remotely suitable.

Nowadays people seem to experience plenty of shoddy customer service but we must say that in this case it was the complete opposite. The lighting arrived well-wrapped and in perfect condition, in quick time and also at a very reasonable price!

The details on your website were very clear, but being a bit useless at DIY I had my doubts when it said they were easy to fit, but I needn’t have worried.

Many thanks,

Steve and Alison Dorrington.

Thanks for the orders sent while we were shut down, we have a bit of a backlog which the girls will try to clear today if possible.
Thanks for your patience it is very much appreciated.