28x28 garage lighting

[allbottlenothrottle]

New to forum been browing for a while, and now I am motivated to clean up shop now. So the problem its a block garage with painted luan ceiling. 28x28 and very dark. I have one 8 foot light over the bench and 8 4 foot lights throughout. all but 3 of the 4 footers work the reason to need new lighting. they are all old lights except the 8 foot that I put in about 2 years ago. been to lowes and looked at purchasing 8 more 8 foot light but just want to make sure I am going to be happy with that before I do it. thanks for any help

 

[BioHazard]

Don't buy anything 8', unless you're talking two 4' tubes end to end. These are highly outdated and generally a pain in the *** to maintain. I say go with 4' T8 tubes, as many as you can afford. Part of my shop is roughly that size and I'm working on replacing my old 8' tubes with about 50 new 32w T8 tubes.

 

[allbottlenothrottle]

any brand impaticular I should get? or a certain place to get them? thanks for the help

 

[BioHazard]

I don't know about the fixtures, I plan on mostly just converting my old strip lights with new sockets and ballasts. Lithonia seems to be a pretty good light for the price.

For a ballast make sure it's electronic, I like the Sylvania "Quicktronic" ballasts from Home Depot. Only about $15 for a two tube ballst, doesn't make a sound or a flicker, and, believe it or not, two 32w tubes only uses 47 total watts of electricity! That's how great the new electronic ballasts are!