Basement orchid room finished

[Chris in Hamilton]

Haha...Feel like doing the same as you......Thanks for sharing.

Thank you! The lights are on at night so it should save a lot on electricity.

[Azizan]

Loving your set up! I'm crazy over your Phalaenopsis collections especially!

[Chris in Hamilton]

Loving your set up! I'm crazy over your Phalaenopsis collections especially!

Thank you Azizan! There are 12 spikes on 7 plants. I have 4 species plants none of which are big enough to flower. Love to find more.

[Azizan]

Thank you Azizan! There are 12 spikes on 7 plants. I have 4 species plants none of which are big enough to flower. Love to find more.

Expecting pictures soon!

[ksriramkumar]

Wow. Very neat and nice arrangement

[Chris in Hamilton]

Wow. Very neat and nice arrangement

Thank you Sriram!

[Traci]

Chris this looks great! What type of lighting do you have? In a little over a year we are likely going to move from our house to a temporary condominium I will likely need to add lighting.

[Chris in Hamilton]

Chris this looks great! What type of lighting do you have? In a little over a year we are likely going to move from our house to a temporary condominium I will likely need to add lighting.

Thanks Traci! It's all fluorescent T5's and T8's. I already had all of the fixtures or I might have gone with LED's. A friend is having great success with those but the initial cost is pretty high. I'm hoping having the lights on in off peak hours (5pm-7am) will reduce my $8 a day hydro bill a bit.

[sciencegal]

Get the fluorescent fixtures that can be converted to LED tubes. Some can and some can't easily. Then they can be slowly changed over to LED as the budget allows. The price should come down in the future, I would think and there is no ballast failure problems and the lights last much longer and are cheaper to run.

So Chris, does that mean you can only work on your orchids at night?

[Chris in Hamilton]

Thanks for the tip Karin. I already had the fixtures so when I'm ready to change over I'll just go directly to LED. I'm wondering though about the possibility of using these reflectors and most of the wiring and just removing the ballasts. Have to do some research. Does that mean I can only work on my orchids at night? Yea, but this time of year I'm pretty much housebound anyway and find myself watching way too much TV. If I have to pot or mount a plant that could be done any time I suppose. More than half of my orchids are still upstairs so lots to do during the day.