I am in Zone 5B Northwest Missouri and grow in my basement from December - April. The normal temperature is 60 - 65 degrees and humidity 40 - 45.
I have ran into several posts here where people wonder about growing under Fluorescent (Abbreviated below as fluor) lights when they grow out of window sill space. Aside from watering, lighting is the biggest downfall of growing from seed indoors. And the biggest lighting problem is not enough which results in leggy plants. (One trick to help prevent legginess is to run an oscillating fan towards your seed trays.)
This post summarizes what has worked for me. I start between 500 - 2000 or more plants from seed each year in my basement. In my grow area, there is one South window 2 ' x 4' which provides just a bit of light. My entire regular grow area is about 12 ' x 20 '. Other areas are available for storage.
Now one can spend a lot of money on lighting systems, but I am just going to address relatively cheap setups. For that you can start with a standard 2 bulb 48 " "shop" light. (If you need the width - you can go with a 4 bulb unit.) Replace the bulbs if your unit comes with them and use them in your basement or shop. They are ineffective - yes I have tried them. I do not buy the absolute cheapest fixture. If there are 3 prices available, I buy the middle one. The cheapest will be least efficient and will "break" soonest cause it has the cheapest ballast - the guts of a flour. light.
In general you also do not really need fancy grow or plant light bulbs. If you want though to shell out the added bucks - go for it. They do provide better light, but for the average person just wanting to start a couple of seed trays or so, it may not worth it. A grow/plant type bulb can be 2 or more x the price of "natural" or 3 - 4 x the price of cool or warm bulbs. Based on my experiments, natural light bulbs provide almost as good results as grow or plant bulbs.
I have tried about everything that is available and in combination. Do not use plain cheap bulbs. You will get no joy and they do not last. (In fact though a bulb may be "rated" at xxxx hours - you will likely never see that. If you get 50 % of xxxx consider yourself lucky.) From my experience, using just cool or just warm is not as effective as using one of each. But now days, I use bulbs called "natural". They work better for me than using a combo of cool & warm. They are also referred to as full spectrum.
Whether you use T-5 or T-12 is just a matter of size and choice. I have stayed mostly with T-12 since that is what I have most of.
I have fixtures that are 5 or more years old. While fixtures will "wear out" over time, the bigger problem is the ballast going out. If you are handy, you can replace them. While I am handy, I simply replace the entire unit.
Buy some small cheap chain and some S hooks. Light weight rope or twine can also be used. Attach your lights to ceiling or shelves as best works. On my top shelves, my lights hang from the ceiling where I attached to rafters with eye hooks. However you set things up, you want to be able to adjust the height of the flour. fixture above your seed trays. When you first start the seeds, the light bulbs should only be a couple of inches above the seed tray. As germination occurs, start adjusting the lights up but maintain a few inches above the plants. Once germination occurs and the seedlings are an inch or so - Check what you are growing. Some things require the bulbs to be closer or farther.
You can get a timer and run the lights on/off. I typically just run mine 12 on and 12 off.
A multiple outlet box will be useful too so that a timer can turn everything on and off at the same time.
I typically am running 8 - 16 fixtures. Less in Dec & Jan and most by March. I start moving things outdoors to my "pretend" greenhouse in Mid to late April. We typically cannot be considered frost free until about Mothers day.
You can go whole hog and literally spend several hundreds even thousands of dollars on lighting. Today, there are many choices and numerous options. I don't use LEDs or any other fancy new tech lighting.
Obviously there are many other things needed depending on how fancy you want to get and how much control you want. Lighting is just one important factor.
In addition to my fluorescent lights, I also have 2 - 500 Watt Metal Halide warehouse lights
Humidifier
Dehumidifier
3 oscillating fans
Small resistance heater unit
4 standard seed tray sized heat mats
Controller for heat mats
Two timers
And an understanding wife who is also a plant lover.
