# cfl in cold climate



## berkey (Jan 22, 2008)

has any one started using cfl wallpaks in colder climates. they say the electronic ones will work to 0 degrees. im not sure if i buy it


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## sparkyboys (May 3, 2009)

berkey said:


> has any one started using cfl wallpaks in colder climates. they say the electronic ones will work to 0 degrees. im not sure if i buy it


I am in provo, utah. they work here. cold 9 months out of the year!

jan.-feb. -2 - -10
park city -15

done plenty


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## erics37 (May 7, 2009)

We installed a metric buttload of CFL wallpacks on the local Forest Service HQ building last year - it doesn't usually get below the mid-20s here in the winter, but they all worked just fine regardless. It does, however, get extremely windy and rainy so we have to silicone the  out of everything we install outside.


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## Toronto Sparky (Apr 12, 2009)

My CFLs work great outside. However they do take a while to heat up before they get anywhere near bright. (5-10 minutes) 
BTW Toronto does tend to get cold at times


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## frenchelectrican (Mar 15, 2007)

I did work on quite few CFL wallpacks { commercal verison } and they are pretty good as long the housing is enclosed. yeah we do get some pretty cold snap as well.

I know one gaz station have quite few of them and they work combation of timer and photocell however there is special SOP is super cold weather when it get colder than -5°F they are manually lock on 24/7 during that duration. { it will take quite a while to get them warm up so they leave it on so the CFL bulb stay warm }


{ HID verison is not a issue at all }

Merci,Marc


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## Mike_586 (Mar 24, 2009)

Toronto Sparky said:


> My CFLs work great outside. However they do take a while to heat up before they get anywhere near bright. (5-10 minutes)
> BTW Toronto does tend to get cold at times


I'm not much farther north (Ottawa) and one of the apprentices was complaining about the CFLs outside his house this winter, though the problem was only during the most brutally cold days. He said they'd give off a purple tinge and never warm up.

Might be that some lamps are better than others in extreme cold *shrugs*


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## nrp3 (Jan 24, 2009)

I wondered if going cfl in this parking garage retrofit job I was trying to get would be the way to go, but was concerned about the warm up time. 325 fixtures, probably could have saved some money on the electrical bills, just wasn't confident enough to spec it.


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