Lighting for my 40x40

[Baclay9]

Getting ready to start on the inside of my 40x40x14.

I have read many lighting threads here and have only confused myself. The lights will will be hung between 13' and 14' off the ground. I will be doing general work in my shop. Working on my project truck mostly.

I went looking today and found some high output 6 bulb 4' T5 lights. They had some chrome reflectors on them to disperse the light. They said they were for high ceilings and should be great in my shop. I was thinking about 6 of them. I will have task lighting above workbenches and stuff as well. What do you guys thing about this?

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[Charles (in GA)]

Lithonia I-beam lights? Those are made with the super polished aluminum reflectors (high bay) and white reflector (low bay). 13 or 14 ft will be marginally low for high bay fixtures. What was the price of those fixtures? probably pricey. If you are going to have a white ceiling, I would consider open T5HO strips, certainly cheaper, and if the ceiling is white painted, it will act as a reflector. You will probably get a much better spread of light, with fewer shadows and dark or hot spots using open strips.

Plugging a 6 bulb T8 narrow distribution (the mirror finish reflector) <5% uplight fixtures into the online Visual program (the photometrics data are arrived at using FO32T8/735/ECO bulbs, not the best choice)...... to get 95 foot candles at a 2.5 ft working height, the program shows 12 of those fixtures needed, three rows of 4.

Going to the T5HO version of this same fixture, the program shows a need for NINE fixtures yielding a blinding 122 fc at the 2.5ft working height.

Using the wide distribution version of the 6 bulb T5HO fixtures (white reflector) I get the same NINE fixtures (54 bulbs), with 117 fc of illumination, but I'll bet its spread out more.

Using open 4 ft two bulb strips with T5HO lamps, the software shows 24 fixtures (48 bulbs) in four rows of six fixtures, and 104 fc of illumination. You could halve the fixtures using the 4 bulb tandem strips ("8 ft") version, and thus less wiring (four rows of three fixtures of the type Home Depot sells for about $69 each).

End result is, to get in the range of 100 foot candles of illumination, you will need somewhere in the range of 50 4 ft T5HO bulbs (54 watt) to do the job. The more fixtures, the more even the distribution.

Charles

 

[Baclay9]

My ceiling is the white vinyl backed insulation.

So you are saying something like this would be better?

http://m.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-L...ure-TZR-2-54T5HO-MVOLT-1-4-GEB10PS/202516724/

Doing 4 rows of 3? For a total of 12 fixtures.


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[Charles (in GA)]

Is this a steel building?

Something like this?

Charles

 

[Baclay9]

Yes, only difference being mine is not free span so I have trusses going across at 14'. Here is a pic.

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[Charles (in GA)]

Unless you can get the fancy 6 bulb reflector fixtures for cheap, and I'll bet not, I still think the open strips might be the way to go. A supply house might give you a special price on a dozen of them. I would mount them right to the bottom of the trusses, joined with conduit. Otherwise put them up higher. Lots of possibilities, spend some time standing inside the building staring at the roof thinking about it. Weigh all the costs. Conduit is fairly cheap, and THHN wire in 500 ft rolls is not too bad. Its fixtures and bulbs that eat up the money.

Charles

 

[Baclay9]

Thank you very much for your help.


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[Charles (in GA)]

Looks like a 10x10 roll door. Hate to say woulda-coulda-shoulda but you are going to wish that door was taller, and probably wider.

See my thread here about a problem with the roll door and the gap at the top of it.

Charles

 

[Baclay9]

Roll up door is going away. Builder is changing it out for me next week. I hated everything about it as soon as it was hung. It is getting replaced with an insulated commercial garage door. That is actually an 8x8. It is just my "get a breeze door" though. I have 2 12x12 insulated doors on the front.

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[joshgn]

update on this? what did you choose?

 

[Baclay9]

Electric company just got power ran to it the other day. Hopefully will start on the inside electrical in a couple of weeks. I am going to use the lights suggested but am still on the fence about how many.

 

[BKB]

Just went threw all of this with my 40X64x16 and was going crazy with all the calculators out there. I ended up just using common sense and buying what was cheap. I bought 15 6 bulb T-8 high bays at home depot, no one could come close to the price and if you buy more then 10 you get them for $77.70 a piece. Got the hangers threw HD also and all shipped to my house or free. Went on 1000 bulbs for bulbs and they wanted to hit me with $100.00 for shipping cost. Found the same bulb at Amazon threw 1000 bulbs for cheaper plus only 4.95 for shipping. Went with 3 rows and if you listen to everyone else they will say you will have dark spots and need to use a candle to work on your car. It is by far the best garage I have ever worked on when it comes to light, no dark corners you can work right up against a wall and still plenty of light. I do have a upper level running 8x64 and that will have task lighting under it. I used recepticals in the ceiling and that way I can add or move lights around if I need. also broke it up into 4 zones because they **** power 30 amps for lighting.

 

[fnieto]

T-5 6 per fixture beam style HI bay with polished reflector. 18 total for a 40'X80'x14' eves.
Plenty of light and on four circuits so each bay (20'X20') can be turned on/off independently.
www.relightdepot.com *And my stereo works with them on. Light fixture with lights,pig tail plug and chain kit was $124.** ea.

 

[Baclay9]

T-5 6 per fixture beam style HI bay with polished reflector. 18 total for a 40'X80'x14' eves.
Plenty of light and on four circuits so each bay (20'X20') can be turned on/off independently.
www.relightdepot.com *And my stereo works with them on. Light fixture with lights,pig tail plug and chain kit was $124.** ea.

I like your lighting. You say those are at 14'? Can you give me a link to the particular fixtures you got?

 

[fnieto]

14' to eves and around 16' at center. Sorry no link, all you need to do is search T5HO and pick a fixture that will work for you. I purchased the I-beam style. Make sure you get the chain kit included if you plan on hanging them. I wired the building to include receptacles at each light fixture. I didn't want to work on a ladder to replace/trouble shoot ballast etc. simply unplug and bring fixture down. Any way, best of luck.

 

[BuickFarmer]

Considering 9 (3 rows of 3) of these http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia...put-Fluorescent-High-Bay-IBC-454-MV/202838871 for my 28X40X14' work area with 2-3 of these http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia...-Fluorescent-1242ZG-RE/202052422?N=5yc1vZc7bu over my work bench areas. The ceiling will be rusted tin so not much reflectivity and there are no windows. This is probably borderline sufficient.

 

[BuickFarmer]

Looky what I get in images when I googled " T-5 6 per fixture beam style HI bay with polished reflector "

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Thats odd, really odd.

Charles

 

[IMStuner]

Have you thought about led lighting? I have a small garage and I was thinking about putting in led lighting. I like Titan Led but having a hard time finding a local distributor in MA. I think they are made in the U.S. too. http://www.titanled.net

 

[Snowman87]

Any updates?

 

[Baclay9]

Ended up going with 12 8' T-8 fixtures. Nice and bright.

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[racerex]

Nice. Where did you get the fixtures and what bulbs are you using?

 

[Baclay9]

Fixtures came from Locke Supply and I ended up going with 4100's. I bought some 5000 to try in one fixture. Much whiter light but just couldn't justify the price difference with so many bulbs. These are plenty bright. I have then split in two switches and usually only use half of them.


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[dogdas]

I do work in many commercial buildings and I haven't seen anyone using fluorescent tubes for lighting anymore. With the cost of LED's dropping every day that the hassle of replacing tubes all the time, especially the high cost T5's and the low cost of operating the LED's nobody goes that route any longer. I did a spreadsheet with operating cost, purchase price over T5's and the pay back was about a year at 5 hours per day. This didn't include the cost of burnt out T5 tubes either.

 

[BUGTHUG]

Hey Baclay9, do you have a build thread on your building? Who built your building?

 

[Baclay9]

Yes I do, search "40x40x14"
Barker Steel Buildings built it


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[Catadj78]

Great looking shop! Nice lighting too!