Need suggestions for light.

[SSCR]

I posted on the heat A/C forum for suggestions on my heat and got fantastic answers and helped me make what I think is a fantastic choice. So.... I'm hoping the same will hold true in this forum. I have a 22' X 31' garage that I would like to have adequate lighting for. The garage will be used to house my cars/ bikes, use as a work shop, but also as a party room. I was just going to hang between 12 - 16 6" cans for light that can be dimmed but I'm worried it might not be bright enough out there for projects. Now I'm considering having 12 cans run the perimeter of the garage and have mayb 4 4' T8 units in the center for when I'm working on a bike or other project for even more "working" light? Any ideas on this? I did see a real cool garage on this forum that I got the idea from, just wanted to see what you guys thought. Thanks-

 

[SSCR]

here is a photo of the inside so you can get an idea of the layout. I should mention that my ceiling joists are 16" centers. I know the rope light is corny but I actually like the light it gives off.

 

[jtshusker]

Typical recessed can lighting is affective up to a five feet diameter, where your can would be the center. Or 30 inches in any direction, considering your bulb is the center. Anything past that 30 inches, the light quality is greatly diminished. I would def. look into installing some F32 T8 fixtures for your main lighting and look into getting the 5000K or what is sometimes known as natural sunshine bulbs. That would be the best for lighting larger areas. And using the cans on the side would be fine.

 

[ddawg16]

I'm quite happy with my 18 cans....I'm using 23w CFL's.....

I do a lot of woodworking....was having problems finding recessed strip lights that would fit flush....too easy to break bulbs when swinging 1x6's around.....

 

[SSCR]

Ddawg, I do love your shop and it looks like it has plenty of light. What is the footprint? I was just going with 12 cans, thats why I'm considering also using flourcents. Maybe I just need to up the number of cans.

 

[ddawg16]

Garage (downstairs) is 20x25.....upstairs 20x27

 

[NUTTSGT]

I put T8 light strips in my garage. I am happy with them and they give off plenty of light. If you do something like John did and might be swinging stuff around, with the low ceilings, it may not be a good idea.

 

[SSCR]

I would place the T8s up between the rafters since I don't plan on drywalling the ceiling. Still need to make a decision, I'm leaning towards adding T8s though for cycle and FJ40 work when I finally find one.

 

[SSCR]

I whipped up a quick image of an idea of how the lights could be installed and wanted your guys input. The yellow cirlces are the 6" cans and the orange rectangles are 1' X 4' T8 double bulb fixtures. I already bought the cans so I have to use them. I like how the rope light gives some accent light for when i'm having people over in there for parties so I am hoping the cans can replace that. The blue boxes are windows, garage door, and french door. Let me know what you think- Thanks

 

[NUTTSGT]

I would place the T8s up between the rafters since I don't plan on drywalling the ceiling. Still need to make a decision, I'm leaning towards adding T8s though for cycle and FJ40 work when I finally find one.

I wouldn't recommend putting them up between the rafters. This is of course you plan on having the bulbs below the rafter and the fixture in between. Flourescents flood an area with light, all around them. If you stick them up in the rafters, you'll negate the benefits of the lights.

 

[SSCR]

I was planning on having the shield even with the bottom of the rafter, but it might be better to have them a little lower. Good point. I priced the lights I would use and they came back pretty cheap, around 240 for all 8 not including bulbs. I just looked at the drawing I posted, sorry it looks like a postage stamp. Does anyone know how to resize it? I was thinking of running maybe 2 cans also down the center.

 

[BFBOB]

Lighting is sooooo personal. Here's something that worked for me. I needed a lot of light in a small package, very efficient. LED's are efficient, but not NEARLY bright enough yet. For me, Metal Halides filled the bill. I got NEW 70W MH ballasts on fleaBay for very little, added medium base bulbs, wired them up in ordinary medium base sockets, and voila' HUGE amounts of light for small bux, little electricity. I used ordinary clip lights. Some said the high voltage ignitors will destroy the sockets, but they haven't yet. Probably porcelain sockets would be a good idea if available in your application. But, going this way gives you the flexibility to use a wide variety of medium-based fixtures to give you lots of light, spread out exactly as you like it. There's a choice of several colors, too. Not as many as the newer fluorescents, but you don't have to have that blue-green tint some dislike. Mine are rated 4100K, and I find that gives good color rendition. I often use them for photography, and the colors look waaaaay better than with fluorescents, even "warm whjite" CFL's.

The only real downside I see is the turn-on time. MetalHalides take several minutes to reach full brightness.

Oh, yeah, and up-front cost. Unless you luck onto a deal like I did, significantly more than fluorescents or incans.

 

[HIRISC]

In my opinion, you'll need T8's or T5's for working on projects without supplemental (directed) light.

We used 16 cans on the perimeter of a 16' x 30' space under our mezzanine and an additional 19 two bulb Troffer lights.

Home Depot - 2 Bulb 4' Troffer

The cans do a 'decent' job of filling in the gap between the T8's used under the mezzanine and the four bulb T5 fixtures in the 18' high bay. Likewise, they provide some fill in light above the cabinets in our setup. IMO, even if there were another 20 cans in the center in lieu of the T8's, the lighting type/volume would not be sufficient if you're going to be doing detail work on your cars/bikes.

Could you do it? sure, but I think you'll be squinting from time to time.

Now, to be fair, I have not attempted to crank up the lumen value of the cans or played with lighting temps, but I have seen similar spaces to mine with cans only and I would call the lighting only 'sufficient' for general use.

I'm very spoiled by the lighting we put in our place, but I've turned off 1/2 of the T8's under the mezzanine, and to my eyes, it's still not enough.

Nobody has ever said, 'you have too much light' to me.

Original 'all-can' plan layout below:

Pretty much the final layout/plan:

Cans only on top - all on the bottom (sh*tty cell phone pics)

'In-Use' pic:

 

[scott750]

HIRISC - that is a sweet looking shop!

What did you use to seal/stain the concrete floor? Any problem with the jacks digging in into it?

 

[HIRISC]

Hi Scott,

Thanks much.

It's MMA (not the fighting kind) aka Methacrylate. Basically a fast drying acrylic.

Re durability - my short answer is that it's pretty durable to everyday wear/tear like driving your car over it. It also handles carefully handled floor jacks OK (though I now put cardboard down first), but you can't be careless with MMA.. the acrylic is more brittle than epoxy or quartz. If you drop sharp/heavy objects on it, it will put little marks in the floor. I've had to learn to work with that in mind.

The good news is that if you mark/scratch it up too much, you can pretty easily have another coat of MMA put down over the first one.

All flooring surfaces are a trade off (unless you're smart and just leave plain concrete alone). We wanted the 'exposed aggregate look', and since you can't see 'through' epoxy or quartz, we went with MMA.

PM me if I can help further.

Chris

 

[SSCR]

Chris, thanks again for the suggestions. I did end up buying the same Troffers and was framing them in today. I already have the cans in so Just have to wait for the drywall to install them!

 

[HIRISC]

Awesome!

Glad they worked out for... post pics when you're done.

 

[SSCR]

Will do!