24 by 24 garage, need lights

[street131]

Hey guys, i have a detached 24 by 24 garage, i have three dinky lights in the middle of the ceiling. Im in the processs of insulating the garage and putting liner panel up on the ceilin. Im goig to make those three lights into outlets and hang some shop lights and plug them into the outlets. I have 8 foot celings and i want it super bright in the garage. What lights would you recommend for my garage, how many? 8 fts or 4 fts? Im on a bluecollar budget, so i would like to get my most bang for my buck

 

[C2tuck]

Mines a 30x30 and I put up 12 8’ florescent ballast. Love it. There’s enough light in there at night that I don’t need drop lights or anything, even when under the vehicle. Think I spent about 4-500 on ballast and a couple hundo on the bulbs.


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[matt151617]

Are you going to finish the garage (with drywall)? If not, you're going to need really a lot of light. My garage is also 24x24, unfinished, and I have 11 4ft T8 fixtures up; it's by no means bright, but good enough for me. If you truly want it "super bright" be prepared to put up a LOT of bulbs, and also consider finishing with drywall or painted OSB.

 

[benchracer]

I have a 24 x 24 garage with finished drywall, painted white and 10 4ft T5HO lights. It's nice and bright.

 

[street131]

I am putting white liner panel on ceiling and painted osb on walls, sounds like 4ft are the way to go, should I wire them in series? How can I make the lights have a clean look on liner panel without wires going everywhere ?

 

[Bert_]

I am putting white liner panel on ceiling and painted osb on walls, sounds like 4ft are the way to go, should I wire them in series? How can I make the lights have a clean look on liner panel without wires going everywhere ?

You haven't even mentioned what kind of light you plan on installing so how in the world did you decide on 4' ?

For an 8' ceiling some sort of strip light, or wrap depending on the look you want, will work the best. I would not use the T5HO's that were mentioned previously due to low ceiling hight.

Also you might want to look up the definition of "series" and "parallel" before you use that term again. It doesn't mean what you think it means...

 

[John T]

I also have a 24x24

I started years ago with a bunch of old magnetic ballast t12’s

Started replacing them with LED hanging shop lights

They are OK

Don’t get me wrong a lot of people love LEDs

But I think if I had to do it all over again

I would go with T5 fixtures/ bulbs.




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[PhantomEB]

My 24 square with 9'6" ceiling has 12 4' 4 bulb t5hos wired into six zones, if I got all 12 on, I best be wearing shades.

 

[matt_i]

T5s are intense. But also power hungry. The box store LEDs are 42W/2 tubes, the T5s are 54W per tube, so 216W for a 4-bulb fixture.

Not against the light but for example Phantom's lighting draws something on the order of 2.5kW if all are turned on at once.

My take would be to use the LEDs for general lighting, and put the T5 fixtures where there's certain light-intensive tasks going on.

 

[jhexide]

Check these out from BigAss Fan Company

https://www.haikuhome.com/learn-more-about-garage-light

 

[matt151617]

You can't beat the price of T8s however. All of my fixtures are the standard cheap 4ft T8 fixtures with cold weather ballasts from Lowes: $15 each. A 48 pack of bulbs was about $35. 1600 lumens per bulb, you could have 77,000 lumens for $400.

 

[Showkey]

You can't beat the price of T8s however. .

That was true 18-24 months back..........no so much now. Many choices in LED with decent specs and prices have dropped to be very competitive with T8.

 

[PhantomEB]

T5s are intense. But also power hungry. The box store LEDs are 42W/2 tubes, the T5s are 54W per tube, so 216W for a 4-bulb fixture.

Not against the light but for example Phantom's lighting draws something on the order of 2.5kW if all are turned on at once.

My take would be to use the LEDs for general lighting, and put the T5 fixtures where there's certain light-intensive tasks going on.

This is why I only use half at most given time.

 

[850xpeps]

I am putting white liner panel on ceiling and painted osb on walls, sounds like 4ft are the way to go, should I wire them in series? How can I make the lights have a clean look on liner panel without wires going everywhere ?

My attached is 26x28 with white drywall ceiling and brown plywood walls. I have 4 - 4’ led strips and it’s like daytime in there.

 

[Burbman]

I built a 24x30 last year and did a fair amount of reading on lighting here and elsewhere. LEDs are still pricey per lumen although they last forever, so depends on what your budget is. The T5s win for lumen output, but the bulbs and fixtures are also pricey compared to T8 fixtures.

I wound up with 4 of these high-bay fixtures https://www.prolighting.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=b4146t81mht0000

Each is 20,400 lumens and uses 6 T8 bulbs, I opted for hi color temp "daylight" bulbs, and with 4 of these plus two 4' shoplights over the workbench, it's plenty bright in there.

I should add that I have the walls drywalled and painted light blue, but no enclosed ceiling. Rafters are set for a 9' ceiling.

 

[Showkey]

I built a 24x30 last year and did a fair amount of reading on lighting here and elsewhere. LEDs are still pricey per lumen although they last forever, so depends on what your budget is. The T5s win for lumen output, but the bulbs and fixtures are also pricey compared to T8 fixtures.

.

The corrected figures in this post say otherwise on the cost per lumen and lumen per watt used:

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=379038

 

[Burbman]

Good thread but looks like the OP ultimately decided to go T8 for the same reasons I did, namely cost of bulb replacement, cold weather start time and glare issues. Every application environment is different and there are qualitative properties about HOW the light is produced that bring personal preference into play. I'm not claiming my lighting scheme is the best, only that it works for me and I am happy with the type and quantity of light produced for the prices that I paid.

 

[cybrdyke]

Good thread but looks like the OP ultimately decided to go T8 ...

OP of the other thread went LED, but that's neither here nor there....

T8 is still the cheapest per lumen, but that's only if you consider initial cost as the only expense. Add in the cost of electricity to run them, and the cost of maintenance to keep them running, and LED beats T8 by a wide margin.
CD

 

[Bert_]

OP of the other thread went LED, but that's neither here nor there....

T8 is still the cheapest per lumen, but that's only if you consider initial cost as the only expense. Add in the cost of electricity to run them, and the cost of maintenance to keep them running, and LED beats T8 by a wide margin.
CD

Depends on how good of an LED fixture you buy and how many hours a day you use the lights. Some LED's are more efficient than T8 by a large margin (150lm/w +) others are worse than a good T8.

With the relatively few hours that most people run their lights it will probably take 30+ years to break even. I doubt most people average more than a 2-3 hours a day, though I'm sure there are exceptions. If your light's burn 12 hours a day then the break even point will be reasonable.

Someone else mentioned LED's lasting forever. I've seen name brand LED fixtures list anywhere from 35,000 -100,000 hours. A standard cheap T8 lamp is 20,000 hours, with better quality lamps normally being around 40,000. So you will probably have to relamp a fluorescent fixture 2-4 times to get the same life as an LED depending on the quality of lamps and fixtures you buy. I would not plan on an LED driver lasting any longer than a fluorescent ballast.

There are quite a few really good LED fixtures out there but they cost at least 2x that of a comparable fluorescent.

 

[cybrdyke]

With the relatively few hours that most people run their lights it will probably take 30+ years to break even. I doubt most people average more than a 2-3 hours a day, though I'm sure there are exceptions. If your light's burn 12 hours a day then the break even point will be reasonable.

Someone else mentioned LED's lasting forever. I've seen name brand LED fixtures list anywhere from 35,000 -100,000 hours. A standard cheap T8 lamp is 20,000 hours, with better quality lamps normally being around 40,000. So you will probably have to relamp a fluorescent fixture 2-4 times to get the same life as an LED depending on the quality of lamps and fixtures you buy. I would not plan on an LED driver lasting any longer than a fluorescent ballast.

There are quite a few really good LED fixtures out there but they cost at least 2x that of a comparable fluorescent.

I wouldn't assume that most people use their lights 2-3 hours per day. There are tons and tons of GJ members here who use the barns, garages, shops for a hell of a lot more than that.
To be clear, the OP is only talking about strip lights and tubes in a 24x24 garage. Then the subject was changed somehow to a 6L T5HO highbay, a completely different scenario, so to get this back on track, lets look at how hours of operation affects the total cost of ownership of LED vs T8 in 2 lamp strip fixtures. We'll start with your scenario of 3 hours per day (1000 hours per year) and move up to about 12 hours per day (4000 hours per year)
Lets see the numbers...
One T8 2 lamp fixture costs about $20 if you buy the cheapest one out there. It uses 59 watts.
One LED 2 lamp fixture costs about $30 and that's with fairly decent lamps. It'll use 44 watts.
Difference is 15 watts and $10 in cost. Assuming 12c per kwHr rate, the difference in energy costs are:
Using 1000 hours per year: $1.80 Break even: 5.5 years
Using 2000 hours per year: $3.60 2.7 years
Using 4000 hours per year: $7.20 1.4 years

 

[C2tuck]

I wouldn't assume that most people use their lights 2-3 hours per day. There are tons and tons of GJ members here who use the barns, garages, shops for a hell of a lot more than that.
To be clear, the OP is only talking about strip lights and tubes in a 24x24 garage. Then the subject was changed somehow to a 6L T5HO highbay, a completely different scenario, so to get this back on track, lets look at how hours of operation affects the total cost of ownership of LED vs T8 in 2 lamp strip fixtures. We'll start with your scenario of 3 hours per day (1000 hours per year) and move up to about 12 hours per day (4000 hours per year)
Lets see the numbers...
One T8 2 lamp fixture costs about $20 if you buy the cheapest one out there. It uses 59 watts.
One LED 2 lamp fixture costs about $30 and that's with fairly decent lamps. It'll use 44 watts.
Difference is 15 watts and $10 in cost. Assuming 12c per kwHr rate, the difference in energy costs are:
Using 1000 hours per year: $1.80 Break even: 5.5 years
Using 2000 hours per year: $3.60 2.7 years
Using 4000 hours per year: $7.20 1.4 years

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[cybrdyke]

I built a 24x30 last year and did a fair amount of reading on lighting here and elsewhere. LEDs are still pricey per lumen although they last forever, so depends on what your budget is. The T5s win for lumen output, but the bulbs and fixtures are also pricey compared to T8 fixtures.

I wound up with 4 of these high-bay fixtures https://www.prolighting.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=b4146t81mht0000

Each is 20,400 lumens and uses 6 T8 bulbs

This will be a good example of the cost of efficiency, even though it's not really pertinent to the OP's garage.
The actual lumen output of this fixture is on the spec sheet at 17,054 lumens and it uses 220 watts (77.5 lumens per watt).
At 1000 hours of use, the 4 of them will cost $105.60 to operate.
A comparable LED fixture would consume about 120 watts (140 lumens per watt).
At 1000 hours of use, 4 of them would cost $57.60 to operate, savings of $48.
The difference in the cost of the fixtures would be about $40 each or $160.
Thats a 3.3 year payback on just a minimal usage time.

I'm just using this as an example, not criticizing anyones choices...
CD

 

[cybrdyke]

Looks good!

One benefit of fluorescent is that it "uplights" very well, especially noticable when hung on pendants or chains. Notice how the ceiling has some light on it. This makes the area seem less like a cave and helps fill in shadows.

CD

 

[Bert_]

Lets see the numbers...
Lets say the LED is 100w less than the T8.

OK I'll play

I'm going to pick out a couple fixtures I considered for a shop that I wired a few weeks ago. The fixtures are pretty close to 100w difference.

For the fluorescent I'll use a lithonia IBZ 632 WD. ~18,000 lumens, 218W, $112 with lamps.
For the LED I'll use lithonia IBG 18LM ~18,000 lumens, 114W, $242

Lets say the lights are used about 2 hours every day, I am going to assume this is optimistic for a hobby shop since there might be some days the lights don't get turned on at all or only for a few minutes but there will probably be more hours on weekends ect. If some one can prove they average more than 3 hours a day then my hats off to them. Most people I know don't spend alot of time wrenching during the week if they work a full time job. Obviously If you are operating a business and the lights run 12 hours a day then the payback will be much shorter. The numbers are easily adjusted depending on the use. Perhaps we should have a poll and see how many hours / days a week everybody uses their shop.

And we'll say electricity costs 11 cents / kw (that's on the high side for my area).

The T8 will cost $17.51 a year.
The LED costs $9.16 a year.

So the LED will save $8.35 a year per fixture. But the LED cost $130 more. So I guess it's not the 30 years that I threw out earlier but 15.5 years is still quite a while. I've seen quite a few people putting in new lights in their shop after 20 years.

Also the LED I used as an example is pretty efficient at 160 lumens per watt. Some cheaper fixtures are not as efficient.

For the record I went with the led's in the shop referenced in the beginning. That shop won't even run the lights 2 hours a day, it's mainly a toy shed, but money was not a major concern on the project. I was very pleased with these fixtures. The IBH series that my supplier tries to sell me before sucked.

 

[C2tuck]

Looks good!



One benefit of fluorescent is that it "uplights" very well, especially noticable when hung on pendants or chains. Notice how the ceiling has some light on it. This makes the area seem less like a cave and helps fill in shadows.



CD

Yeah I love it. Best pic I could get of it. There are three rows and it puts out a ton of light. My Electrician said that was too much light. I told him there’s no such thing!


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[cybrdyke]

OK I'll play

I'm going to pick out a couple fixtures I considered for a shop that I wired a few weeks ago. The fixtures are pretty close to 100w difference.

For the fluorescent I'll use a lithonia IBZ 632 WD. ~18,000 lumens, 218W, $112 with lamps.
For the LED I'll use lithonia IBG 18LM ~18,000 lumens, 114W, $242

Lets say the lights are used about 2 hours every day, I am going to assume this is optimistic for a hobby shop since there might be some days the lights don't get turned on at all or only for a few minutes but there will probably be more hours on weekends ect. If some one can prove they average more than 3 hours a day then my hats off to them. Most people I know don't spend alot of time wrenching during the week if they work a full time job. Obviously If you are operating a business and the lights run 12 hours a day then the payback will be much shorter. The numbers are easily adjusted depending on the use. Perhaps we should have a poll and see how many hours / days a week everybody uses their shop.

And we'll say electricity costs 11 cents / kw (that's on the high side for my area).

The T8 will cost $17.51 a year.
The LED costs $9.16 a year.

So the LED will save $8.35 a year per fixture. But the LED cost $130 more. So I guess it's not the 30 years that I threw out earlier but 15.5 years is still quite a while. I've seen quite a few people putting in new lights in their shop after 20 years.

Also the LED I used as an example is pretty efficient at 160 lumens per watt. Some cheaper fixtures are not as efficient.

For the record I went with the led's in the shop referenced in the beginning. That shop won't even run the lights 2 hours a day, it's mainly a toy shed, but money was not a major concern on the project. I was very pleased with these fixtures. The IBH series that my supplier tries to sell me before sucked.

We're pretty much saying the same thing. I just dont think many folks would take the time to do a bunch of research and post on an internet forum seeking lighting help and layouts if they were only going to use their lights 700 hours per year. Doesn't make sense to me. But, I've misjudged people before...

Also, If your supplier is trying to sell you a IBG for $242, you need to find a new one.
CD

 

[Bert_]

We're pretty much saying the same thing. I just dont think many folks would take the time to do a bunch of research and post on an internet forum seeking lighting help and layouts if they were only going to use their lights 700 hours per year. Doesn't make sense to me. But, I've misjudged people before...

Also, If your supplier is trying to sell you a IBG for $242, you need to find a new one.
CD

Who knows, I don't see most people who work a full time job being out in the shop for more than an hour or two during the week. I mean I think most people have a family and other interests as well . Unless most people on here are working out of their shop part / full time?

I would kinda like to see how much time everybody spends in their shop now.

Between 3 suppliers that price is about par for the course. They might have been $20 cheaper for 18 or 20 of them that got put up. I can't remember for sure.

 

[C2tuck]

Depends. With my schedule I’m home for a week at a time. Some days I don’t go out there at all. Some days I’m in there all day and night doing stuff. Just depends.


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[T_R]

My 24x24 has 6 4 foot T8s around the perimeter. 2 on each wall that doesn't have the garage door. It's pretty bright, but I think I am going to add 2 more up the middle.