Garage Lighting

[Romad81]

Since I get to rebuild my garage to my specifications I have been looking at new lighting. I have a 2 car garage, 20'x20', about a 12 ft ceiling, with a 16 ft door. Looking at putting in two 4' 4 or 6-lamp fluorescent fixtures on each side of the center chain, towards the outside tracks and towards the entrance, and two 4' 2 or 4-lamp fixtures across the width behind the door opener. Do I need the 6 lamps? Or just go 4 all the way around? 35 watt or higher? 5000K or 6500? I'm tired of crappy diffused yellow light from a 4' 2-lamp garage light and want to be able to see. My old eyes aren't helping things.

[Jarhead0754]

It it was mine i'de do more.

[gclark26]

One could suspend halgens from the ceiling. I also have florecent lights but they dont give the same brightness

[Jarhead0754]

Maybe look into led lighting.

[Bruce Devilbiss]

Re: Garage Lighting

I have a 26 x 30 garage. I put 4 8 ft. florescent ceiling lights up for general work. But when it gets down the the final step a have a halogen light that follows me around the car. I don't seem to have a problem.

[larry0071]

We did an addition that included a 2 Bay garage that is 26x38 and what I did was ran regular light sockets down both sides and a row down the middle.

Nothing centered over the bays. I did 4 sockets from the garage door back and at the rear most section where I have a 4x8 Island work bench and my tool boxes I put 4 foot fluorescent lighting over top.

Also did sprayed foam insulation and a natural gas thermostat controlled heater hanging from the ceiling. It's awesome.

The only thing I'm missing is high ceilings and a lift.

The garage is actually 2 levels, so in the lower part (3 bays, entering 90 degrees from the upper level) I put a big 2 stage 175 psi compressor and ran black pipe up through the floor in the corner with a couple ball valves in line to cut off air. Up top I have 2 Chicago fittings for air lines. Now I don't hear my compressor! I love it!

It's funny, with the original 2 garages plus the 5 in the addition, I'm still out of space and have 3 cars in the driveway!

[jarred767]

Re: Garage Lighting

I'm in the process of redoing my garage lighting as well as I've started doing more work from home and less via mobile. Plus it helps during short days with it getting dark by 4 this time of year in Seattle.

I'm not 100% sure on the exact size of the garage, but its a standard 2-car garage, I could go measure, but I'm lazy right now. haha I'm planning on running 2 8' fluorescent lights (each has two bulbs) the same direction as the car spaced about 6 feet apart in the middle of the garage, then 2 4' lights perpendicular to these at the front and back of the garage (to help with light on the front and rear bumpers). Then I'm running two 4' fixtures along the walls about two feet up on either side of the car to help light up the sides of the car and aid in the interior work a little too.

I'll post some pictures once I get it all finished and wired.

[zhackwyatt]

Re: Garage Lighting

(Hopefully I'm not hijacking this thread.)

I find the fluorescent lighting in my garage is adequate until I open the garage door and then I can't see anything. My guess is the brightness of the sun is causing my pupils to contract. Anyone else have a similar experience? I bring my car in the garage to get it out of direct sunlight so I can wax, etc., but then I can't see anything. Too hot to leave the door shut.

[Stephan]

Re: Garage Lighting

Since I get to rebuild my garage to my specifications I have been looking at new lighting. I have a 2 car garage, 20'x20', about a 12 ft ceiling, with a 16 ft door. Looking at putting in two 4' 4 or 6-lamp fluorescent fixtures on each side of the center chain, towards the outside tracks and towards the entrance, and two 4' 2 or 4-lamp fixtures across the width behind the door opener. Do I need the 6 lamps? Or just go 4 all the way around? 35 watt or higher? 5000K or 6500? I'm tired of crappy diffused yellow light from a 4' 2-lamp garage light and want to be able to see. My old eyes aren't helping things.

Romad: Look at it this way. At typical small office is about 10x10 or so with a 9' ceiling and it has 2 2x4's with 4 lamps in em typically. Think about that.

A 12 ft ceiling adds 33% more cubic volume to illuminate, thus the 12 ft clg puts you in the hole right off the bat. (Don't get me wrong, a high clg is a great thing, but it will cost you lumens at your work surface)

6 lamp fixtures are kind of oddball, but who cares. The more light the better. You might look at an 8 footer and a 4 footer in line to really light things up. How many rows, at least one each side of your centerline. You can always dual switch the fixtures so they can be set either partially or all lamps on. You can use you imagination on switching.

2 lamp fixtures ain't gonna make things happen for you. You'll find yourself buying stands and contractor lights someday and tripping over the cords moving around and using expletives.

Almost forgot, if you get cool white lamps (not WARM white) they won't be yellowee [sp].

[Xianla]

Re: Garage Lighting

Sorry for bumping...just my two cents...
In my garage I have fluorescents 34W T12s https://10carbest.com/best-led-garage-lights I have a total of 5 fixtures - 2 on each side of the garage and one in middle near the light of the garage door opener. so, a total of 10 long tube bulbs without surround. They do a great job but have to be replaced about every 2 years or so. I also live in an area that doesn't get colder than about 26 degrees in the winter and therefore the OP needs to specify exactly how cold it gets where they/he/she is at. Also, I have tried motion sensor lighting, but some of the sensors used to replace switches (or other means) seem to be sensitive to cold and therefore might not work well below freezing - at least they didn't work for me. The problem with having to replace long tube fluorescent bulbs is not the expense - as they are relatively cheap in my opinion - the difficulty sometimes is with proper disposal. One should go to a place that accepts fluorescent bulbs in a recycling program.I like watching a video on YouTube on such topics, I'll leave you one of them here, I hope it will use to someone.
There are many interesting videos on YouTube, I'll leave one of them here, I hope someone will help in the future.

[gregpack]

Re: Garage Lighting

Old post I see, but T5 HO fixtures are your friend. My local home depot sells both the 2 lamp 4 ft and 4 lamp 8 ft fixture. Their limited selection of bulbs though is very expensive. Lamps are best bought online though at a site like 1000bulbs.com

Costco sells an LED worklamp I installed and they are really bright. cant remember the color temp.

If you have an unlimited budget, look for high CRI LED lights.

[Sleper]

Re: Garage Lighting

I switched to LED and would not go back, better light, no heat and **** they are bright. My 0.02$

[jfelbab]

Re: Garage Lighting

If I were to relight the garage today I'd install single conventional light A19 base sockets in a 3' x 3' spaced grid, so in a 20 x 20 space I'd have a grid of 5 by 5 or 25 total lights. I'd fill these with LED 60w equiv. Daylight 5000K lights. This yields a LOT of light (~21,000 lumens). Figure about $30 for the bulbs and about $75 for the receptacles. I'd put these on two circuits so that you can light half at a time as that is way more light than you would normally need except when detailing. If you can find clear bulbs I'd alternate half and half with frosted bulbs. The clear bulbs have a great point source of light for seeing swirls. These bulbs draw around 9 watts each so the total power draw is only around 225 watts.

[Nick Winn]

Re: Garage Lighting

Good Discussion, having just moved into a new place myself, I am weighing out my options for garage lighting as well.