Charge of the Lighting Brigade
OK, I’m feeling better that the pads were indeed poured as 5″ and not 4″ as I had thought.
In speaking with the electrical contractor about lighting and power, he suggested putting me in contact with one of the rep’s he knows that supplies his wholesalers. I agreed and we met yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours.
We discussed everything from the control room lighting control to the outside fixtures.
One of my concerns is trying to make this studio energy efficient as possible as I can. It only makes sense to reduce the carbon footprint. My initial thoughts on lighting were to move from incandescent to LED or halogen, with my preference for LED.
In his opinion, halogen lamps are far more energy/cost per KWH efficient than LED at this time… and probably will be for the next 2-3 years, unless some major breakthrough occurs. The big trade off with LED’s is evidently the heat. I was kinda’ stunned about that statement, so I quizzed him on it.
It seems that while the lamps themselves are cooler, the electronics in the bulb units are rather busy generating a lot of heat converting the AC into DC as any power supply is. So when you factor the lower lumen count results in needing more fixtures and the more fixtures, the more heat generated, the higher the cost of operation per lumen of light… doing the math that way, halogen’s win out fairly big.
If anyone has any information to the contrary, please send it to me or pop in a comment.
On the build front… GREAT news!
I tried to get to the footing on the opening or dig enough out to create one if there wasn’t one. I got lucky… kinda’. Remember I’ve said before that this is one of the best rock farms in the county? Well… still holds true… even when they backfilled the building.
Then Ken called me this morning and asked if I minded if he were to come over and work on the studio. Guess what MY answer was??? (heheheh)
Unfortunately, I was planning on laying boards across the footing to drop the sand in by hand. The crew brought the backhoe and we ended up filling most of the footing back in to do the sand. We were looking pretty short on sand, so I called for another 8 yards. (That makes 40 cu yards of sand!)
I’ll get pix up tomorrow, but the tracking room is now ready for termite treatment. (They’ve been called and will lay down the termite juice Monday morning!)
My job this weekend is to get all of the expansion joint material up and in place, as well as backfilling the lounge foundation wall.
I had 10 tons of 6/7 gravel delivered to begin the back fill. After that’s in and compacted, I’ll finish the backfill and under pad fill with 8″ of compacted ABC or Crush and Run. The lounge pad will be a 4″ pad of 3500 concrete w/6×6x6 steel mesh.
We’re hoping to get the last pour in by Tuesday or Wed. Because the block mason will have just set the block on Monday (I hope) the mortar will be a bit too green to pour the concrete on Tuesday.
