“Our plant has 1,000 fixtures with 1,000 metal halide bulbs.  Now we’re going to have 6 times as many light bulbs to change.  It takes us a half an hour to change those darn bulbs and what’s worse I have to stay late to do it  because I have to turn off a whole circuit of lights to change one bulb and they don’t restart for several  minutes after I’m done.  Nobody wants to work in the dark and the boss doesn’t like paying my guys overtime, so I’m it.  Sometimes it’s 4 or 5 times a week. I’ve been missing my son’s ballgames and haven’t been fishing in 3 months.”

“Well,” “the salesman exclaimed, “Then you’re really going to like your new Paragon fixtures.”

“Why is that?” Bob said, with a tone of skepticism.

“Well, the lights in your plant are on 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s about 4,000 hours per year. Metal halide bulbs don’t last nearly as long as the T-8 fluorescents we are replacing them with. According to data from the manufacturers, if you put new metal halide bulbs in all these fixtures today you would have to replace 553 within 5 years.  In those same 5 years you will only replace 436 of the Paragon fluorescent bulbs.”       

“It still sounds like a lot of late nights” Bob grumbled.”

“But it gets better”, the salesman said, “The fluorescents have 6 bulbs per fixture, when one goes out there are still 5 working and still producing 84% of the light from the fixture.  When one metal halide goes out, 100% of the light from that fixture goes with it.  While you may have to replace a metal halide every time one goes out, the 16% light drop from a 6 lamp fluorescent fixture with one bulb burned out will probably not even be noticed.  This will allow you to change lamps in groups rather than every time a single lamp goes out.  If you replace bulbs when 7 or more are burned out you will only have to do so once a month."

“Now you’re talking!” Bob said.

“But I’m not done yet, you don’t need to turn off a fluorescent fixture to change bulbs and if you do, there’s no restart time like the metal halide, you can change them when it is more convenient for you which means no more missed ball games and more time to fish.”

“Boy, it sure sounds good to me, but is there a catch?”

“Only if the fish are biting,” the salesman said with a smile, ”only, if the fish are biting”.

Maintenance savings is an added benefit that is often overlooked when replacing HID lighting with fluorescent lighting. All Fluorescent T-8 lamps sold by Paragon Enterprises, come with a manufacturer’s three year warranty. Ballasts carry a manufacturer’s warranty of five years.