ADVICE FROM THE EXPERTS

When it comes to illumination, the needs of barns are generally fairly straightforward: In addition to exterior lights and floodlights, you will want overhead lighting in aisles, targeted lighting in stalls and storage areas, and brighter task lighting in locations such as the wash stall and areas where the farrier and veterinarian can work. But the type of fixtures, their placement and their intensity can make a big difference in the comfort and visibility in a space.

In stalls, Eileen Fabian (Wheeler), PhD, of Pennsylvania State University recommends positioning lights near the door to the aisle, so that the horse greeting you there is well lit, rather than backlit from a more centralstall overhead location. Stall lights also need to be either recessed into the ceiling or protected with a light guard. In older barns, stall lights were often screw-in incandescent or fluorescent bulbs in a fixture covered with a metal cage. “Now there are LED bulbs that can be screwed into those, with a glass cover over that, encased in a metal cage to protect the light. It’s an industrial vapor-type fixture that can withstand a lot of abuse from the horses,” says Rob Rulison, owner of RMS Electric Services in Saint Johns, Michigan.

Remember that the wooden surfaces of most stall walls won’t reflect much light— and the lights need to be bright enough to see the horse clearly. Ahmed Tibary, DVM, DesS, PhD, DACT, a theriogenologist with Washington State University, says one of the big challenges he faces in some barns during an emergency call, especially attending to a foaling, is not having enough light in the stall: “It’s not always practical to bring the horse outside into the car lights. It’s better to have enough light in the barn.”

Ideally, a stall light would provide 300 watts, or the equivalent in lumens. Tibary suggests making sure that the light in the stall is bright enough so that you can read by it. “We used to say that with an adequate amount of light, you can easily read small print on a newspaper at arm’s length,” he says. “There are many modern ways to check intensity, but that was one way to do it.”

Areas where people wash, groom and perform other tasks will also require brighter lighting. “In these areas people often use fluorescent lights, the type we used to call