A couple of suggestions.

A typical fluoro tube is is about 45 Watts while a similar LED tube consumes 18 watts. Don't run them all at the same time.

The dark roof will soak up the light. Paint it white or cover it with reflective material and you will not need as many lights.

Paul.

+1 for the OP painting the ceiling and walls white. A good coat of emulsion would make a big improvement to overall light levels

Then install LEDs.

+ 1 for painting with emulsion, your fluorescents seem to be arranged centrally down the centre of the workshop which will mean that at times you have the light unit behind you, I would take the plunge and arrange the light units to the side of the workshop, staggered with half on each side, I would take the plunge and go for LED, my workshop is so much brighter since I changed to LED. I supplement my lighting by using a rechargeable LED head torch, it’s surprising how much easier it is to see fine details at the tool when it’s illuminated adequately. Dave W

My average electricity consumption in an old house is close to that of Andrew at about 2800/3000 Kwh per year, some of which [400+] is used by a converter heater in the inner sanctum which I try to keep a shade warmer in the cooler months.

We are gradually switching to LED lighting in the house from earlier miniature fluorescents, the difference in light output is really noticeable as these things begin to age.

I too am careful about switching things off after use and have some interesting stand-by loading figures to add to the discussion. A domestic shredder uses about 15 watts when not in use, the extractor unit over the kitchen hob gobbles 45 watts on stand-by. The unit I have used for such measurements is a Brennenstuhl PM 230 which has a number of functions such as current demand, power factor, voltage, frequency drop and so on of things that are plugged into it.

Brian

+1 for investigating what's causing the background load.

First, I unplugged everything and checked the meter: it was still turning! This was traced to my daughter's electric blanket, powered by an inaccessible socket under her bed. Anyone in your family leave stuff running all the time?   People who don't pay bills are remarkably careless!

Then I went round my house in the same way as Brian a few years ago with a plug in watt-meter and measured everything. Worst result was from a HiFi unit that used 40W on standby and only 15W when ON but idling. A number of devices, like a clock radio, turned out to be surprisingly greedy and worth turning off at the mains. Others, like my TV, use so little power on standby it's hard to measure it. Older gear tends to be much worse than modern, I think because the Energy Rating system requiring products to be labelled encourages energy saving design. Unlikely to find filament bulbs in modern kit! Anyway, I ended up with a list of devices worth turning off or replacing.

A friend found an unnecessary 80W Black Heater in his airing cupboard and that his wife* had left a 60W bulb on in the loft. *Wife got the blame: I reckon it was him!

Many domestic appliances use kilowatts in short bursts that don't add up to much in total. The devices that do the damage are those that sit quietly consuming tens of watts continuously rather than apparently obvious big hitters like washing machines. In my workshop the fluorescent lights use far more power than the machines and will be replaced with LEDs in due course.

Well worth checking power consumption around the house – I ought to do it again!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 05/10/2021 10:51:54

Got a Chest freezer one side of my workshop (helps keep the temp up a bit in winter).

Something that did rather surprise me is TV sets. We have a three year old one without an on-off switch and one about 7 years old with an on-off switch and green energy compliance label (same make).

Never bothered to measure the house consumption being frugal we switch stuff off as we go.

Edited By V8Eng on 05/10/2021 11:27:45

Great discussion.

I have painted brick walls in my workshop and it makes a huge difference. I used masonry paint.

I also have six double 4-foot luminaires and still like some local lighting. You can't have enough when doing fine work in my book, CIBSE says similar but they do have numbers.

Generally you can throw a new fluorescent lamp away, replace it with LED and still be in profit in a few years, the same was true of compact fluorescent over old filament bulbs. LED are also getting cheaper now and come in most sizes, even 2D which amazed me when I bought one.

I have a large 4bed 4bath house thats rented out in the summer…..

first years rental the electric was horrendus……

so went nuts, upgrade all the light fittings (mostley wall lights) trying to get the same type of bulbs…..

then ordered a job lot from China…..

what I pay for 1 and 1/2 bulbs here (a foreign land) I can buy 10……allowing for breakages (non occ) and duff bulbs we are now quids in…..

most clients leave every light and fan on all day…..even the outside lights (prob 10'ish, thankfully led x3w)

so to cover the costs rental went up……

for a laugh, we often get asked to put air con in the house, so that would at least 5 unitsx2kw'ish…..can u imagine the electric bill then…..better to have a couple of weeks empty than have that lot running…..

strangely we live 1/2 way up a hill and there is always a gentle breeze and plenty of coverd patios…..why do u need air-con even in 38-40 deg of heat……

water heating is solar and this works well for 95% of the year…..the cold days we go back to live there so heat with wood….mostley Olive….a bad winter we use 2 ton…..

so in answer to ur question, I'd def go LED and find something to cover those bricks, gotta be something easy to fit and removable…..actually some white vynal sheeting like truck curtains (used)(fire proof) and battens would do a treat…..

I was really shocked a few years ago when I worked out our average electricity consumption over a year and it came out to around 20 kWh per day, my first thought was that my machines in the workshop were power greedy. Analysis of our consumption illustrated that relatively large amount of consumption was down to my two large ponds with filtration pumps that were not very eco friendly, air pumps and uv lights burning away 24 hours a day. I had been trying to persuade the wife of the advantages of PV solar, the realisation that we could reduce the cost of our electricity substantially with generating our own convinced her. We now have panels that can generate 4kwh and batteries that can store 7.4kwh and on a good day in the summer we generate 25 + kWh. We have adjusted our living style so that if the sun is shining then we use the dishwasher or washing machine and tumble dryer and the impact is virtually nil on our electricity bill. I now do not feel guilty using my machines in the workshop during the day because in reality I am using “free” electricity, however I did change all the workshop lights for LEDs and they use considerably less power than the old fluorescents that were in there and the bonus for me is a much brighter more user friendly light, I didn’t realise that as we got older better lighting makes so much difference to our deteriorating eyesight. Dave W

Sell the bandsaw and buy a hacksaw. You can turn the heating off then.

;O)

Martin

In April 2017, I replaced the two 5ft 80 watt fluorescent tubes in my workshop (AKA garage) with six 9.5 watt (60 watt equivalent) LED GLS lamps. They improved the lighting spectacularly as I suspect the old tubes were on their way out anyway. The lamps are still going strong and only consume 56 watts as opposed to the 160 watts of the fluorescents. It's not a lot to save but "Every little helps……"

About the same time, I replaced the lighting in the house with the same lamps. Since they were fitted I've probably had about 10 fail. I opened up the last three failures and found 2 with faulty LED arrays and one with driver circuit failure. Being me, I transplanted the good LED array into one with a working driver circuit and glued the cover back on. Now have another spare lamp.

I have used LED lighting strips as described by John above to light a bank of shelves, Each strip goes on the lower outer edge of a shelf and illuminates the shelf below. I stuck my LEDs inside the angle in lengths of light alloy angle as I had some spare and thought that the bright surface of the alloy would reflect the light and the angle would shield the LEDs from dazzling me. I screwed the angle to the shelves and it all makes things a lot easier to find and keep tidy.

This was so successful that I have done the same with the storage spaces in my lathe stands, using double sided tape to secure the angles in place, and again, things have become much easier to locate. Previously the storage spaces seemed a little like black holes, things put away seemed to disappear forever!

,I have also read some indications more recently that LEDs are best kept cool ( LEDS do get just a little warm when lit) and the alloy angle should conduct heat away from the LEDs and prolong their life – I hope!

Rod