Need more light but not sure where to start.

[wolfestone]

I have a ~750 square foot single story 3 car garage which I am trying to light.

Right now, it has two screw-in bulb fittings (100w max) on the ceiling, two double outlets on the ceiling (garage door openers are plugged into one socket on each outlet). It also has two exterior lights (60w max) and all the power outlets on the same circuit, which as far as I can tell goes through a 15A breaker. The house is <10 years old.

Ideally I'd like some kind of bar lights which I can raise/lower on chains. It would be great to have them switched at the wall but I can definitely make do with having pull cords/inline switches on the cable.

I spent some time in Lowes and saw they had one which seemed brighter than the rest: utilitech light but I still can't figure out if this is a regular flourescent light with confusing marketing, or an actual LED system.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions on what type of lighting (flourescent/LED), how many additional lights my system can probably handle, and anything else e.g. one four bulb light vs. two two bulb lights. Ideally I'd like to budget for around $50 per light or less, but I can go a little higher if it would make a difference.

Thank you for any help.

 

[JoeFin]

Personally I would bite the bullet and see if a couple of circuits could be pulled from the panel over to the garage. You won't need them all for lighting but you'll want them as you add more toys

For lighting I would "fish" a piece of 12-3 down the wall to a switch box to provide 50/50 switching. Now you can run at least 6ea of the 8' 4 tube tandum T-8 fixtures they sell for around $45 at lowes

This is a pretty general approach since we don't know what you plan to do in the garage but it should work out well for you

 

[Compy222]

I'd consider buying a couple of the "big" CFLs like I did. They are only about 15 dollars each.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=239334

Starting with Light Bulbs!?!

And I'd also consider at least 2 hanging t8 double fixtures that plug into your open sockets.

That's just a start. If you're really serious about it. I'd follow the above advise and do a full rewire with a new circuit or two.

 

[Mustang51js]

Your using 2.6 amps with your lights now and that's if all are on at same time, you still have 10 amps you can use before your close to max amps on a 15 amp breaker, I'm sure you will be fine adding a couple lights on the circuit

 

[Mustang51js]

And you can get 2 bulb t8 lights for under $20 each

 

[wolfestone]

Thank you guys. I checked my breaker box and it seems to be full, no blanking plates or empty spaces.

If I were to remove the two screw in fittings from the ceiling, and wire in dual or quad t8 bar lights in their place, would I need to do anything else electrically or is that a direct replacement?

If I then run an additional light from each one, would I just wire them up in parallel?

thank you again for the help.

 

[Mustang51js]

Yeah you can just jump them off of the other lights.

 

[Katodog]

I had a single incandescent bulb in the garage when we moved in, first thing I did was take it down and add a double-gang box and outlets. I bought four 4-foot fluorescent fixtures for $20 each, added cords and plugs, hung them, and plugged them into the outlets. Since the original incandescent was on the switch all I had to do was replace it with outlets and now I have a fully-lit garage with the flip of a switch. Easy to do and fixtures are cheap. Using plugs instead of hard-wiring allows me to take down the lights if I need to with no hassle, and I can add lights if need-be. I figured if I ever had to fix the lights it'd be easier to unplug them than it would be to take the cover off a box and screw with the wiring. Pus it means I don't have to turn off the lights if I need to take one down.

Our garage door opener was always a weird setup, it was attached to an extension cord and the cord was dropped down through the ceiling and plugged into the only wall outlet in the garage. So, I just left it that way The only other thing on the outlet is a stand-up freezer, I added outlets on a separate breaker for the other side of the garage.

 

[wolfestone]

Thanks all, this is a big help.

Would anyone have an opinion on LED vs. flourescent lights? Lowes had one LED bar, and it did seem noticably brighter than the flourescents next to it. Cost was a little higher but comparable to a 4 tube flourescent.

 

[Stock Car Mafia]

Katodog that is a different approach than I've been reading about. I am looking for a similar solution to running lights off of the existing ones.

What kind of costs are involved with running a couple circuits from the panel? My problem is the panel is FAR away from the garage in a finished basement. Any suggestions?