Ambient vs task lighting

[Ed T]

I am about to pour the slab for my new shop so it's time to get serious about figuring out the wiring and, especially, the lighting. The shop is 24' x 36' with 10 foot ceilings which will be sheet-rocked or maybe suspended ceiling. I'm over 60 and, as many have found, too much light is never enough. That said, I will be working in the shop alone a lot and there seems little value in lighting the whole thing all the time like the surface of the sun. It costs a lot for the fixtures and it costs a lot to run unless you partition the lighting into small chunks which feels like lots of trips to "turn on the back corner" or whatever. Any comments on the relative merit of modest ambient lighting with really good task lighting at the various work stations? In my basement shop I have a really big O.R. light which is FANTASTIC as a task light. No surprise given its intended purpose. I also have accumulated about a dozen articulated arm lamps of various flavors which are also good task lights.
My inclination is to go with moderate lighting from the ceiling and good task lighting where the tasks occur. Comments?

 

[bradleys]

Ed,

Maybe it's just my eyes or my personality, but I dislike task lighting very much. There's never enough light where I want it, and I constantly have to reposition the lights.

I'm installing brain-surgery-bright overhead fluorescents in my 50x74 shop to avoid that problem. However, I'm not insensitive to the cost of running all 4500 watts of light at the same time. To that end, we're wiring up three separate zones. This will break up the seven strings of lights into sections of two-three-two. I'm not concerned about the heat that the lights emit, because I'm in northwest Washington state where we can can use it (right now it's 43 degrees and hailing.)

Will I have portable lights for specific purposes (like working underneath a truck)? Of course. But, I won't design the lighting so that I need them for most things.

$0.02
FWIW
YMMV
EIEIO

 

[srmofo]

I just built a 24x36 with 10' ceilings also. I choose 12 of these lamps. 3 rows of 4 spaced 4' apart. Each row is on a switch, with the 4th switch for ceiling fans. I also dislike task lighting, it doesnt matter if its a trouble light or a focused lamp up above, its never where I need it. I'm sure its over kill, but I dont want to go back and do it again.

http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-F...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Home depot gave me 10% off just for asking, they also have military discount.