Light fixtures on walls

[fwillison]

My building is 44 x 60 with 12.5 ft walls.
There are three 10 ft high garage doors with high lift track.
In planning my lighting, I've been struggling with minimizing the number of light fixtures obstructed when the garage doors are open, so that I can have adequate light while working with the doors open.

My GC suggested putting light fixtures on the walls instead of the ceiling to avoid the doors. Has anyone done this? Issues?

I'm thinking they could be mounted about 10 ft up, and perhaps just use the typical flush mount fluorescent shop lights mounted on their side.

Fred

 

[Highbeam]

Yes, I've done it. Mounted both vertically and horziontally on the wall. Look at a paint booth, you can mount them anyway you want.

I would mount them as high as possible while still under the open door.

You can always suspend another fixture under the door on a bracket so that the open door does not obstruct it. This can often be done without obstructing the opening.

 

[2ManyProjects]

My building is 44 x 60 with 12.5 ft walls.
There are three 10 ft high garage doors with high lift track.
In planning my lighting, I've been struggling with minimizing the number of light fixtures obstructed when the garage doors are open, so that I can have adequate light while working with the doors open.

My GC suggested putting light fixtures on the walls instead of the ceiling to avoid the doors. Has anyone done this? Issues?

You can do that; but then you run up against another issue... If you have anything mounted/stored on those walls (particularly shelving or upper cabinets; but this also applies somewhat to just "stuff" hung from pegboard or SlatWall), the wall-mounted lights will be almost completely ineffective at lighting up those areas. As a general rule, you want to keep the last "strip" of lights 2-3 feet off the walls, so they can throw some light onto the walls themselves (and whatever is attached thereto).

You can always suspend another fixture under the door on a bracket so that the open door does not obstruct it. This can often be done without obstructing the opening.

This is your best bet. Depending on the specifics of the garage and the doors, the brackets can take any of several different forms; but one of the easiest is a simple "L" shape, sized to drop the lights JUST below (and maybe a foot or so "inside of") the open door on each side. The key to this approach being successful is to have the overhead door tracks hold the (open) door as close to the ceiling as feasible (0.5-1.0 foot should be doable), regardless of the actual height of the door opening; then the lights themselves can also remain decently high. For that matter, if the open door itself is kept high enough (and is only a "single bay" wide), you might not need the "L" brackets at all; just hanging the lights at a level JUST below the open door may well be adequate, assuming they're open-tube strips or simple wrap-type fixtures.