If you are thinking about buying some grow lights to enhance your mini indoor greenhouse and are thinking about getting HID grow lights to do the job then you may want rethink.
It is widely known that these types of grow lights do work very well for mimicking the sun’s natural light spectrum.
They Cost A Lot To Run
What is not widely known is how much these lights actually can cost you in the long run. If you are thinking about getting some grow lights read on to find out if these lights are really what you want for your indoor garden.
The first way that these grow lights can cost you more than you think is by pulling a lot of energy from your houses power grid when they are starting up. These types of lights will always pull power from your house but they will do so especially when they are warming up. These lights take about fifteen minutes to warm up and in that time frame draw almost double the power.
Replacement Costs
The next way that these grow lights cost you a ton is that they tend to burn out pretty regularly. The average lifespan of one of these HID lights is only at the most ten thousand hours; the average lifespan of a LED grow light is around fifty thousand.
As with any thing that goes bad you must throw it away, but with these lights you can not just simply throw them into the garbage like many other lights.
These lights contain mercury must be sent to a special place to be properly disposed of. The sad truth is that often times they are just thrown into the trash and going into our landfills which will end up one day costing us all.
They’re Hot!
Yet another way that HID lights cost you more than you think is because they are hot. The ballasts are hot, the bulbs get extremely hot and the reflector gets hot.
All of that heat has to be cooled off somehow, more times than not being from your air conditioner which results in even higher power bills. So you see, you will end up costing yourself more than you would with other types of grow lights (such as fluorescent growing lights) or LED lights than you would with HID grow lights.
For more gardening information including how to develop a good plan for outdoor garden lights and lighting visit LandscapeAndLighting.net
