Recently there were lots of posts on re-building and equipping garage/shop areas. Mine's coming along nicely thank you, and I need better lighting. Surface mount fixtures to 9' ceiling probably simplest. Any practical and hopefully inexpensive recommendations appreciated. I searched Home Despot/Lowies. HD didn't have much and came up with more at Loowees. Choices are 2 or 4 tube 4' Flourescents in different wattages, 8' -2tube flourescents and various styles of each with and without tubes included. How about the shatter shield clear tubes, where are they available? Thanks Powerband
Look for High Bay lights, ususally mercury vapor or HPS. I bought 3 for my shop, $100/ea, and they light it up like daylight. My ceiling is 14' to the center. They take a few minutes to come up to full light, but they really work well and don't cost much to run.
The 4' lights are the least expensive and do a good job,,,,the 8' bulbs are kinda pricy. The shields are avalible from electrical supply houses,,,maybe even the big box stores. HRP
Not sure how big your shop is. But in my small 18' x 20' two car garage I'm using four 8-foot florissant fixtures and painted the walls semi-gloss white. Works great.
Stay away from the cheap non-ballast flourescents. They aren't very bright and go through bulbs real quick. Make sure to get a decent light with the ballast. (not sure if i spelled ballast correct?)
I use 6, 4'-2-tube ballast with cool whites. They work great,then have two reels,one on each side for close up work.
is there anyway you could put in a few windows, even if they dont open and have green fibergl*** instead of gl*** theres nothing like natural light, in my 24ft x 24ft shop at home i have 8ft lights, 12 bulbs in total and thats only just enough, i`m renting a shop thats 30ft x 50ft with 16 ft ceilings, its has 10-4ft x 2ft fibergl*** panels in the roof and in the daytime you dont even need the lights on.
Thanks for the excellent suggestions. Balancing effectiveness, wallet and local availability of lighting gets me back to working IN the garage instead of On IT. Powerband
You might take a look around another of Ryan's boards, http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/. There are lots of threads on this type of subject. Slonaker
Go for the 8ft flouresent fixtures. I have 4 of the cold start models in my 24x28 foot shop. The walls are painted white. They have been up for two years and have not had to change one yet. At my dads place all he had was the cheap four foot lights. It seemed he was changing one at least once a week. FWIW
i would avoid those unless you're tryin to grow pot. they kick out a lot of heat. also the average garage doesn't have the height for them. florescent is the way to go in the garage, some have mentioned that the 4' don't last, but it has more to do with the ballasts/fixture quality than bulb length, 8' is a pain in the *** if you ask me. i run 4' florescent fixtures, not the cheap ones, these cost about 30 bones a piece. the bulbs you buy make a difference too, i can't remember the designation on them, but i started with the fatter diameter bulbs, and they didn't last for ****, switched them to the thinner bulbs as they quit and haven't lost one yet.
My 2 cents........I am in the process of finishing my new garage with 12 foot ceilings and I am using a 4 foot, 2 bulb unit from Home Depot. It is the new style with an electronic ballast that works well in cold weather and it takes the F32T8 bulbs which are much brighter than the old fat bulbs! So far I only have 2 rows of 6 and an unfinished ceiling and thet are already pretty bright.......and they are only about 8 bucks a piece !!
The 8 foot tubes last MUCH longer than the 4 footers. If you are putting them high up there, you'll get tired very quickly of the h***el of constantly changing the bulbs. The eight footers are a snap to change compared to trying to get those damn skinney pins in the correct slot on the 4 footers. If you have roll around scaffolding and nothing in the garage it's no big deal, but if you are like most of us, changing a 4 foot bulb 14 feet in the air hanging out over a non-movable project car can be a real PITA. I do have some of the 10 dollar 2 tube "shop lights" hung low over strategic work areas but they are easy to reach.
Pony up for electronic ballasts and t-8 lamps 4 or 8 foot. flourescant They will give you a ton more light and go easier on your electric bill. As stated before the tube guards should be sufficient for protection.
No matter what lighting you have, putting as much white/light colored surfaces in your work area will be surprisingly effective... get that light bouncing all over the place and the lights you have will "go farther". I keep threatening to paint my garage... but get too busy on car stuff. Kinda like the guy who was pushing his bicycle to work as fast as he could because he didn't have time to get on it and ride!
Also, if you plan on using a radio, the quick start electronic ballast 4' lights do not permit the use of a FM/AM radio. The 8 footers do not cause this type of interference for some reason. I usually play CD's so it doesn't matter, but there a few cool radio programs I can't listen to if the 4 footers are on. Spend the extra $$ & get the ****ter shields. It has saved me more than once from being showered from broken gl***.
In addition to ceiling lights I mounted two 8 ft single tube horizintaly on each wall, seperate switches, 2 foot off the floor. Great for body work.
The National Electrical Code calls out 1 watt of light per cubic foot of space. You need to figure out what light source you will first use, then multiply your space length times width to come up with the cubic foot of your space. Add as much lighting you can afford to get close to that number. I have a 28 x 32 shop with 16 fluorescent lights that are 4 foot long. It looks like daylight in there. Make sure you get descent quality US made lights. The cheap chinese lights will give you fits.
Stay away from the HPS (high pressure sodium) lights. They put out ugly *** yellow light that will strip and manipulate all the colors in your garage. They are for industrial settings only. I would go with metal halide or mercury vapor LOW bay lighting. You don't want high bay, the low bay has a different diffuser to increase the angle of spread to cover a larger ground area from the lower height. If going flourescent it might be worth your money to get the high output fixtures, IF you live in a cold climate or have a garage that won't be heated all the time. The HOs get to maximum brightness faster. I would advise staying away from the electronic ballasts unless you plan on dimming the flourescent fixtures, they are simply not worth the extra cost, especially for the money. Many times you can get a brand new fixture for less than the price of replacing an electronic ballast. TIPS If going with a metal halide or mercury vapor fixture I would also add one or two cheap incandescent (regular light bulb) fixtures. This is because these light take quite a while to reach full capacity, so if you need to run in and out of the garage to grab something you don't have to wait for the lights. Or if it is particularly cold, you can turn on the regular lights and get started while the lights warm up. Hang the lights between rows of cars and around edges of vehicles to light the sides, the light will wash over the top of the vehicles. Hanging the lights above the cars can create bad shadows on the sides of the cars. Stay away form quarts fixtures, at least I would. Sure they are bright and put out a ton of good colored light, but replacing bulbs is a pain. The bulbs cannot be touched with your bare hands, the oils on your skin will cause the bulb to burn hotter and crack the bulbs. So if one burns out when you are working on your car, you have to wash up like a doctor and wear gloves to change the bulb. Paint the ceiling white, the color of the ceiling has a greater impact on the amount of light reflected down on the surfaces than the wall colors. Trust me, this is from an lighiting engineering calculation cl***. Try talking with someone at an electrical wearhouse and or check a lighting company website, alot of these places can calculate the amount of fixtures you need to light the area for the type of work you are doing. Hope this helps Geno
Thanks for all the useful suggestions. I especially like the idea of mounting 8' lites horizontally on walls. All the lumens up above the car don't help much I got four 2 bulb 8 footers I want to install this wknd. I also got the polycarb sleeves for the eventual oops... Powerband
I am an electrician by trade and I deal with all of the above mentioned types of lights. They all have their good points and bad. Recently I have been using some screw in fluorescent lights. You've probably seen the small ones at your local hardware store. However through my lighting suplier I've been getting some that are equivalent to 400 watts of regular light. They are about the size of a Nerf football. They also screw into a regular socket like you already have. Trust me 2 or 3 of these and you will have plenty of light. They are kinda expensive though. I think the last ones I bought were around $35.00 each Hope this helps.
The Jalopy Journal
