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Hello everyone, I am looking for info for my new to build garage as far as lighting. It will be 24 x 24 x 9 all drywalled and probably painted in a light colour to get as much brightness as possible.
I want to install led lighting, 2 lights of 4 feet per fixture probably with at least 4600 lumens if not more. I will be using my garage for my 928 to do some work on it and would like it to be lit up as good as this link with the red car on this page.
Now if you have a setup which looks like this as far as lighting, could you please post a picture and descrive if you are aware how many lumens per light.
I was thinking of putting 5 lights all together which produce about 5330 lumens per fixture. The placement of the lights I am not sure, so I thought to place them in line with the vehicle at 6 feet from the external walls and probably 6 feet from the front and back to have them centered as much as possible front to back and then add one 4 foot light in the centre width wise in the front for a workbench area and it would be 2 or 3 feet away from the front wall, what do you think ?
I want to do this right the first time without it costing me an arm and a leg ! The lights I am looking at are $170 Canadian each plus taxes and for 5 it's not too bad, I don't want to install 8 since I would have to loose an arm or a leg on top ! lol
I calculated online your room and If you use 375 Lux for a workplace you need 10 lamps a 4600 Lumen.
That is the advice for easy mechanical work.
Storage rooms should have 200 Lux. Here you need 5-6 lamps.
I put up 8 LED "tube style" shop lights in my 26'x26' garage. Got 'em on sale at Costco...plenty bright. However, shadows are now darker in contrast to the overall increased ambient brightness. The most important lesson learned? No matter how bright the overhead lighting, where you are actually working will still require a light on your head or otherwise positioned close and directly illuminating what you are working on under/inside the car.
My 42' x 34' x 12' height garage has 6 home depot Lithuania lighting wrap around led's. 2400 lumens each. $89.00 each here in Ontario Canada. 8 would have been better but with the garage door opener lights its plenty bright. Pic attached.
My 20x30' space has a ceiling with 9 regular electrical outlets, in which I have 100-watt equivalent bulbs with two-prong adaptors. Cheap. Flexible. I'll hang cords for tools from these fixtures, too. For things out in the open, it is plenty bright.
Still dark under the hood, though. Very dark under the car. I cast a shadow on anything near a wall. My old eyes seem to exacerbate the situation. Jon's paint-booth lighting scheme might be the only solution other than...
A good headlamp. I recently got a very nice LED rechargeable unit, except for a detail: the battery is in a housing on the back - it interferes with laying my head down on the creeper.
I will soon be designing a garage. I may do the same thing on the ceiling. I'm toying with the idea of putting LED rope lights all around the walls, about six feet up. But I'll be sure to get the perfect headlamp. I was eyeing the one my dentist uses the other day.
Oh I forgot to mention the floor coating reflection makes a huge difference. I'm halfway done doing polished concrete. Closes the pores of the concrete so no oils can penetrate, cleans up easy and great light reflection. My last house had epoxy floors and it was mega slippery when wet.
Lights in the floor? Even Dr. Bob didn't think of that. Hmmm...
Sonny's point about a very white floor sounds good, too. Everything white, like in that insurance commercial. Not white aprons, though. This garage I'm building was going to be a simple affair, but I see mission creep developing. I think we'll have a brainstorming session about it at Camp 928. In fact, let's call it the Camp 928 Clubhouse.
Oh I forgot to mention the floor coating reflection makes a huge difference. I'm halfway done doing polished concrete. Closes the pores of the concrete so no oils can penetrate, cleans up easy and great light reflection. My last house had epoxy floors and it was mega slippery when wet.
Polished concrete isn't much better, trust me. It is also extremely slippery when wet. I had many close calls over the years, now I shuffle my feet when wet ;-)
Lights in the floor? Even Dr. Bob didn't think of that. Hmmm...
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I did look at that option in the new workbay, but quickly eliminated that option since mine is genuinely a workbay. With tools and parts getting dropped just often enough to make even tempered glass covers vulnerable.
Overhead lighting in the 500 sqft workbay is 7 4-bulb T8 flourescent fixtures, plus half a dozen strategically-placed LED recessed cans.
05-30-2017, 05:48 PM
Help with garage lighting for my new 928 garage
