Indoor lighting

Hello I am new to this sight and have a question.

I am in the process of building a 1000 square foot garage I plan on using to do some wood work and automotive projects and was want input on the inside lighting.
I would like to use LED for its low power consumption.
I also didn't want to spend a ton of money.

I have a couple of LED outside fixtures outside that put out a ton of light and I bought a spare bulb. It screws into a standard fixture so I put it in my garage.
It works great with a lot more light than a 60 watt bulb. It claims to be 150 watt output.
I was thinking on using a barn light fixture to help with reflecting the light.

Any thoughts.

More than a few GJ members use the 4 foot LED shoplights from Costco. The light is more spread out compared to a single bright bulb. Unless you really like the barn style fixtures or somehow have a source for free ones, you will pay less for the Costco ones. Now 30 bucks each. Hang on chains or surface mount.
3700 Lumens light output. Compare that number to the ones you are trying out.

If cost is you biggest concern, you may want to hold off on LED for another few years. Most fixtures are only marginally more efficient than fluorescent and are more expensive. You may never see a ROI vs T8 depending on how many hours a day you expect them to be on and what you're paying for power.

Read this:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=278420

Jonsylvia said:

Hello I am new to this sight and have a question.

I am in the process of building a 1000 square foot garage I plan on using to do some wood work and automotive projects and was want input on the inside lighting.
I would like to use LED for its low power consumption.
I also didn't want to spend a ton of money.

I have a couple of LED outside fixtures outside that put out a ton of light and I bought a spare bulb. It screws into a standard fixture so I put it in my garage.
It works great with a lot more light than a 60 watt bulb. It claims to be 150 watt output.
I was thinking on using a barn light fixture to help with reflecting the light.

Any thoughts.

Click to expand...

How many fixtures are you planning to put up? How bright do you want it to be?

I don't think you will get a great return on investment for the fixtures if your primary objective is cost savings. I have a 832 SF 26*32 detached garage that I built about 3 years ago. Originally I wanted to put up 4' 4 bulb fluorescent fixtures everywhere, but by the time I got to installing the lighting the budget had been consumed by other expenses that weren't in the original budget. I still wanted decent light but I was out of money. So, I wound up installing ceiling boxes mostly on 4' centers along the 32' length and 8' centers along the 26' length for a total of 21 ceiling boxes.

I installed a total of 6 T8 4' 2 bulb fixtures on the end of the garage with my work bench and then put keyless fixtures (the single socket no enclosure "bare bulb" fixtures you typically see in attics and crawl spaces") with the thought that I would eventually go back and replace the keyless fixtures with better fixtures as budget allowed. I installed a 23 watt CFL (100W equivalent) bulb in each fixture. You can't get much cheaper than that; about $2 for the ceiling box (required no matter what fixture you put), $3-4 for the CFL, and $1.50 for the keyless fixture.

This wound up putting out much more light than I thought it would. Here it is 3 years later and I still haven't updated those fixtures. I wound up swapping two of the CFLs for 65 watt equivalent LED flood lights I had left over when I upgraded the recessed lights in our master bedroom and had to buy in bulk to get a decent price.

I don't particularly like CFLs, especially the warm up on a cold start. As the LEDs get cheaper and brighter, I will probably replace the CFLs, but I haven't been as motivated as I thought I would to replace the keyless fixtures.

This is one time that living in California can be to your immediate benefit.

Recently, two weeks ago, a local market had LED flood lamps for sale, 3 lamps for $1.00.

This is because Governor Moonbeam, AKA Jerry Brown, is pushing us away from incandescent lights.

Do the Costco LED shop lights put out enough light to mount directly too a 12' ceiling in my garage. it is a 30 x 40 with currently have 8 96" t-12 fixtures and lighting is adequate. But with seemingly constant replacement of bulbs and ballasts im looking for a better option. but brightness is key to safety and precision.

PyroWorx said:

Do the Costco LED shop lights put out enough light to mount directly too a 12' ceiling in my garage. it is a 30 x 40 with currently have 8 96" t-12 fixtures and lighting is adequate. But with seemingly constant replacement of bulbs and ballasts im looking for a better option. but brightness is key to safety and precision.

Click to expand...

I have not personally seen installations with higher than an 8 foot ceiling, but I'd bet that if you substitute 16 four foot Costco LED fixtures for your existing 8 eight foot long t12 fixtures, you would get MORE brightness plus instant full brightness in cold weather and zero maintenance.
Are your walls painted white? That helps enormously. Are your walls covered with open shelving like mine? That unfortunately ***** up most of the reflected light.

Shiftless said:

I have not personally seen installations with higher than an 8 foot ceiling, but I'd bet that if you substitute 16 four foot Costco LED fixtures for your existing 8 eight foot long t12 fixtures, you would get MORE brightness plus instant full brightness in cold weather and zero maintenance.
Are your walls painted white? That helps enormously. Are your walls covered with open shelving like mine? That unfortunately ***** up most of the reflected light.

Click to expand...

Agree. I have the Sam's led fixtures that have a little more output than the Costco ones (4200 lumens) in my shop with 10' ceiling to augment my fluorescents. The leds are brighter than the fluorescents. I'll be switching over to all leds as funds allow.

I just picked up my Feit 4ft. 3700 lumens LED fixtures last night from Home Depot. I plugged one fixture in at night, turned off all the interior garage lights, and was blown away how bright just one fixture was inside a 600 sqft. garage. I purchased 7 total, so this should be really bright. Plus it's instant bright, with temperatures yesterday at -11, -25 wind chill.