Church Lighting 250 watt bulb question

We don't know the history, so it's impossible to say. Might have been properly designed originally, then added to later on. But it sounds like the lighting consultant might be remiss...

Most folks don't know even that. They just put a bulb in, often paying no attention to the ratings. The circuit is *easily* capable of handling *a* 250 watt can - but not 12 of them. Sounds like whomever installed them might be remiss...

Technicaly it could be - but you have a larger issue: 3000 watts on a 20 amp breaker. Bulb "management" is just a bandaid, not a fix.

Yes. The branch circuit itself is mis-designed. One has to wonder about the workmanship of the installation, the choice of the fixtures - everything when there's 3000 watts worth of fixtures installed on a 20 amp branch. *AND* 40 years of use may have caused deterioration of the wire's insulation directly above the cans.

I don't know about the lighting consultant. But you need to re-wire, if you want 12 fixtures. Run 2 new 20 amp branches with 6 lights on each. That makes the wire size vs length issue disappear; gets rid of old, possibly deteriorated

Ed

its likely that the fixtures met the price, availability, function, and aesthetic needs of the original designers who expected that 100W lamps would be used.

it hard to say what most folks would think and be accurate, however you seem to have encountered a problem and have developed a plan to deal with it.

you should worry about deterioration of the lamp sockets. insulaters that are falling apart, loose electrical connections, oxidization, pitting on contacts are signs of aging.

you might consider switching to quartz lamps... more light for the same power although higher cost per bulb. also harsher white light. this could be filtered with theater "gels" for effect.

i have seen ceiling cans ("high hats") that are burnt, scorched, and half melted because the users put standard light bulbs in then instead of reflector types.

any architectural company should have one on call.

Consider different kinds of bulbs: check out what Home Depot is offering. You can get a lot of light with a florescence style screw in bulb.

If 100w bulbs give enough light then that is the way to go.

If you want to use 250w lamps then you could split the fixtures up and leave 6 on one switch/breaker and add another 20A circuit and put a switch for the other 6 fixtures.

If your church has deep pockets then go for new stuff. I think the old stuff is safe. The breaker is doing it's job.

These cost much more but last much longer. This is a good way to go too.

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I can't answer to much about the code issues, but have you considered going compact flourescent? Large power savings, same amount of light, last much longer. I haven't personally seen a CF bulb that gives the equivalent light as a 250W bulb, but I'm sure they're out there.

TTYL

Beyond the electrical questions, a hint about bulbs in churches and high ceiling spaces, from a "been there done that in churches"

2) many lights shine the light out from the bulb in a specific direction, in a shaped beam e.g., narrow spot, spot, flood, narrow flood, wide flood, etc. The shape can be circular or long.

4) Most church overhead lights are more than 8 feet from the pew.

Thus I had fair success using spots instead of the usual floods to illuminate the large seating areas, since by the time the beam got to the pew 12-16 feet down, the circle was a lot larger than it was at its usual 8 feet rating distance. And since I didn't need larger output to get the same light on the pews, they were lower cost to run, more effective lighting. I chose bulb types so the light circle (recalculated for the type's circle size at that distance) to just hit the pew seats, as close as possible, and we just overlapped the circles to get full church coverage. In that particular application, outdoor spots (PAR 38?) had a smaller circle with a better fit at our socket-to-pew distance, and thus a better beam coverage at the floor, than did indoor (PAR 40) spots. (If I could have gotten beam-type patterns in the main part of the church, I would have used them and aligned the beam with the pews, which is a more efficient lighting scheme. However, we only had the beam-type sockets up front and were stuck with standard sockets)

As an example of how you can use the bulb's beam shape to get an effect: We used a fair amount of the lights that look headlights (type escapes me) to illuminate the huge cross, and those bulbs in the narrow and wide types give off light in bands rather than circles. I switched the type from floods to a combination of narrow spots, narrow floods, and wide floods, and the bulbs were turned and centered so that their light band long axis matched the axes of the cross and on the altar. That light made the cross almost glow on the cloth background.

fwiw

I won't duplicate the electrical answers, just agree. But I can help on the lighting consultants.

I am one myself and recommend that you check

Many folks are involved in lighting and many of them are excelent but, "LC" is the only professional lighting certification.

RickR

Take a look here for CFL info: