Compact Flourescents

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woodduder

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West Central FL.
I recently finished wiring of a new church nearby. The electrical engineer designed a lot of exterior lighting. The church does not have money to burn for what they feel is unnecessary lighting outside so they removed the compact flourescent lamps in every other fixture. Since there is a ballast in this fixture, will removing the lamp save them any energy. They believe it is like an incandescent, but I'm not sure of that.
 
Compact fluorescent lamps have the ballast in the lamp, so taking out the lamp also takes out the ballast. Are you really talking about PL fluorescent lamps?
 
mdshunk said:
Compact fluorescent lamps have the ballast in the lamp, so taking out the lamp also takes out the ballast. Are you really talking about PL fluorescent lamps?
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I think the op is talking about PL lamps. He said the ballast is in the fixture.

That being said I think you would be using some energy going to the ballst but less than if the bulb were in the socket.
 
woodduder said:
The church does not have money to burn...
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They do not contain the ballast.

All of these lamps are termed CFL's whether or not they contain a ballast.

The church members aren't electricians so they did what they thought would save themselves a few dollars. I just wanted to give them some educated info if they were wasting their time removing these lamps.
 
If they are PLs with magnetic ballasts then they use no power with the lamp removed. PLs with electronic ballasts will use some power, and I guess it's possible the ballast may be damaged.
 
dbuckley said:
If they are PLs with magnetic ballasts then they use no power with the lamp removed. PLs with electronic ballasts will use some power, and I guess it's possible the ballast may be damaged.
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Are PL lampholders circuit interrupting? I've replaced so few, I can't rightly say myself.
 
PL lampholders are just simple 2 or 4 pin sockets, the twos for the PL lamps with integral starters (ie magnetic ballasts) and the fours for external starter (mind you, I cant recall ever seeing a PL actually using an external starter) or electronic control gear.
 
I'd also be careful where they removed the lights. The IBC requires emergency lighting outside of each egress to a safe distance from the building. Average of 1fc.

The IBC, or its equivalent, may not apply depending on which state you're in.

But we cannot help what the Owner of a building does after they receive occupancy. If they modify the building then they assume liablity.

If there are lighting controls on the exterior lights then the energy savings will be minimum from removing a few lamps. The night time energy rates are usually pretty low.

I try not to use CFL on building exteriors here since they don't like our cold winters so much. It really reduces light output.
 
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