Gymnasium Lighting & Gym Lights

What are the best fixtures to use for gym lights?
Metal halide lights are almost always the best luminaires to use in gymnasium and athletic sport field lighting. They are frequently found in school gyms, clubs, and recreational basketball courts and provide a robust source of white light with a high CRI.

What is the best way to mount gymnasium light fixtures?
The ceiling height is around 25’, so the best mounting height HID lights is 22’ above the gym floor. To protect the basketball court lighting against accidental ball impacts, using die cast aluminum luminaires suspended on hooks or safety chains to allow the fixture to swing with the impact if hit during a game.

What wattage works best in most gyms?
Due to increasing improvements in HID technology 400 watt lighting fixtures have replaced 1000 watt luminaires in most gyms. Lower wattage fixtures allow you to incrementally increase foot candles by installing more lighting fixtures in closer proximity to one another. At the same time, they give you much better control of the light and are much more effective at shielding players and spectators from glare.

1000 watt luminaires almost always produce excessive glare and have to be specially phosphor coated to create more comfortable distribution of light. This coating is an additional cost that isn’t worth accruing for yourself or passing on to your client, and it generally results in disappointing results because it diminishes not only glare, but luminance levels in general by as much as 15%. Pulse start metal halide lighting fixtures, on the other hand, can produce anywhere between 20-80 foot candles of light in gymnasiums of any size.

Is there a standard style fixture to use in gymnasium lighting?
There is no set fixture that is a “one-size fits all” luminaire. Certain characteristics, however, are universal in the best gym lights. These features have to do with how the luminaire distributes light and keeps glare at a minimum. Look for gymnasium lights that feature parabolic faceted reflectors that disperse illumination downward and prevent spill light from blinding the eyes of players and fans.

HID fixtures of this type are almost always the best choice for lighting college gymnasiums that play host to camera crews. Cameras need a higher luminance than the human eye to accurately render color and motion, and parabolic shielding and faceted reflectors will allow you to create up to 80 foot candles of light without white spots or pockets of glare. The number of sports lighting fixtures used, the height of the ceiling, and the reflectivity of the ceiling and walls all play a factor in both distributing illumination and producing the negative by product of light pollution if luminaires are too intense.

What is the best way to light a multi-court gymnasium?
Multi-court gymnasiums may require special considerations and planning. The best way to determine what fixtures to use and what intervals to install them is to have a photometric analysis performed on your client’s gymnasium. A photometric report will quickly reveal problem areas of glare and shadow can be immediately pinpointed, and strategies implemented to counter act them.

What are the best ballasts to use in gym lighting?
In most lighting case studies, the best ballasts to use are standard auto regulator CWA. These ballasts provide good energy efficient, reliable power distribution for most HID fixtures used in gym lighting. Other ballast types may be needed, however, for certain types of court lighting or areas of the country with heavy moisture or dust content in the air. Remote ballasting is recommended if at all possible to protect equipment from accidental ball impact.

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial & commercial lighting fixtures. If you can not find what you are looking for on our commercial lighting blog call us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you.

Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including like Ft. Lauderdale, FL (FLL), Orlando, Florida (MCO), Santa Monica, CA, (LAX) Columbus, Ohio (CMH) (LGA) New York, NY, (JKF), St. Louis, MO, Detroit, Michigan (DTW), Madison, WI (MSN), San Francisco, California (SFO), and Omaha, Nebraska (OMA)