OK to mount T5's "directly" against wood?

[Kengar]

I bought a 4-bulb ballast kit to use to burn in T5 bulbs before installing them in new ATI fixture and ramping them up/down. Previous experience with T5's was years ago, as actinic supplements to MH in an Outer Orbit fixture.

Question: do T5's burn so hot that it would be a fire risk to install bulb mounting clips directly to wood, with no reflector to protect the wood? I'm thinking I could put a set of clips on each of four sides of an exposed 2 x 4 in fish room and just run all four right there -- one on each side.

Yay or nay?

 

[outssider]

that's doable...they won't get nearly hot enough to cause a fire... I believe you need 400+ degrees to ignite paper....

 

[Scythanith]

Nope, it will be completely fine. neve a bad idea to have a fan blow down the lengths of the bulbs to increase bulb life though. And if you're really worried, slap some aluminum duct tape nicely along the surface to reflect a little bit of the heat back.

 

[Kengar]

Ended up using one of these formed steel studs from Home Depot. Mounted the clips to that and mounted it horizontally up along a framing header in the fish room. As noted, this is just to burn in new bulbs and there are only four there at a time mounted two side by side and two along the length of the stud, so there turns out not to be much heat at all. Will run for two days straight to get them burned in then switch over to the next batch of four.

Thanks for replies