Pool improvements...

Something struck me as strangely different about Morley leisure Centre this evening, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Eventually I twigged, it was brighter and none of the lights were going on & off.

The main pool area has a number of discharge uplighters which wash the ceiling with light, there are probably about twenty of them. Some are yellow (Sodium) and others are a blue-white (Mercury), apparently randomly distributed. There are more yellow ones than white ones but Sodium lamps are cheaper.

The key difference is that they are all working- last saturday about a third were out and one of them was cycling on and off over a few minutes. They have been like that for at least eight months, but it is end of financial year...

I did wonder with some mild curiousity what sort of wattage the lamps were as uplighting relies on a lot of bounce light and the ceiling is in a fairly sorry state, discoloured & bits missing. I then noticed a familiar package at poolside, a grey cardboard lamp outer that presumably the electricians had discarded. On picking it up, I was stunned to find that it had a lamp inside it and at floor level right next to the male changing exit & a heap of floats.

After assessing the likely understanding of the staff on duty (who would have either looked at me blankly or evacuated the pool) I rescued it, put in in my locker for safe keeping & then presented it to the duty manager after getting changed again.

By the way, it was a 250W SOX High pressure sodium, you can get more than 100 lumens per watt out of those babies & they have fair spectral distribution.