I wanted to show you the REAL Torture Chamber - my garage plant area.
I built the light system you see there. Here is a bit closer - sorry - so bright it is hard to see.
One day while driving something caught my eye. So I pulled over. Cool - a piece of furnace exhaust pipe. Hey - I can use that some time.
So I checked the internet and there are a bunch of Youtube vids showing how to make this style light. A trip to Ace hardware and Home Depot and I was off to the races.
The light has 8 CFLS as follows:
100 Watt eq. at 23 watts
1,600 lumens
6.500 K light - pretty cool range
These use 184 watt hours, so it takes 5.4 hours to use a Killowatt hour. Our electricity is ~ 10 cents per KWH. I run the lights ~ 12 hours a day, so it costs me 22 cents a day. Not too bad for something giving me the equivalent of 800 Watts - equal to my two metal halide lights in the basement.
Since my goal here is not to GROW plants, but to keep them alive - it is doing a pretty good job. The plants have been in there for nearly 3 months.
There IS a story that goes along with that purple stool - if anyone is interested, just ask.
