Please help me with lighting layout

[eljay]

We are building a new house and my very first garage! Yay! That also means I am a newbie at whole thing and I would like to get some input on lighting setup.

Here is my garage floorplan with 8' ceilings:



I will be getting the LiftMaster 8500 jackshaft opener, so the ceiling should be free except for the garage door tracks. I also plan to add a workbench in the little alcove between the utilities room and the small closet. I will be parking two cars in there at all times and I will put a car in the middle if I need to work on it.

My plan is to buy 4 of the Innova Lighting LED 4-foot fixtures. See more on them here: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=279118
Their specs from that thread: 3150 lumens, 32 watts , 98 lumens per watt 4050 temp of the light.

Is it better to have light directly over the car spots or should I run two fixtures down the middle of the garage (top to bottom in my floorplan or between parked cars) and add two to the top portion running left-to-right in front of the cars?

Or should I just have one fixture above each car and put one in the alcove for the workbench and be done?

Thank you.

 

[pablo94sc]

If you plan to work on the car in the center of the garage, I'd run the two 4', 2-lamp fixtures parallel to the cars over their parking spots. That'll give you side lighting when you work on it, and general lighting when two cars are parked in there. Maybe add a perpendicular light on its own switch over where you plan to stand with the hood up, as well as a fixture or spot task lighting for your workbench. I have a 2 lamp, 4' fixture over my bench area, but may change that to halogen or incandescent bulbs to light the bench for general tasks, and also use under cabinet task lights for reading diagrams and detailed work.

Edit: This also depends on your lighting needs/wants. At a minimum, I'd have two lights per bay, one front and back, even if it's just some incandescent bulbs, so you have even lighting throughout the space. My biggest pet peeve in the past was only having light in the front or center of a garage.

 

[eljay]

Thank you.

So, here's the rough outline of my current plan:


4 tubes (LED or regular 4' T8s fixtures) plus an LED 4' strip over the workbench area shown in yellow.

I plan to get the Liftmaster 8500 jackshaft opener (shown in dark red), so I added the centre ceiling light fixture that comes with the kit.
However, I wonder if I could connect the opener with the lights that are perpendicular at the far end and activate just those when the door goes up. Of course, if they will be flourescent tubes, that would not be a good idea, but if they are LEDs that should work, right?

 

[cagullett1]

oh boyyy... you are going to want more than that lol. I've got a 20x20 with 7 of these: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-4-ft-Wraparound-Fluorescent-Ceiling-Fixture-SB-2-32-120-GESB/100427375?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053

One of them replaced the center light that came with the house. I have the other 6 running in 2 rows. This ends up putting 2 of the lights above the garage door (if it is up) and those 2 are on their own switch so that they aren't turned on while the door is up. Every once in a while I feel like I could use 1 or 2 more in the center.

 

[Platonic Solid]

cagullett1 linked to the right fixture for a garage with 8' ceilings. 5400 Lumens per fixture and you'd need 9 of them 3 rows of 3 evenly spaced to get a comfortable 75fc. You'd need 15 Innova fixtures to achieve that, plus are the Innova fixtures surface mountable? With 8 foot ceilings you certainly don't want fixtures hanging down on chains.

Unable to find any IES photometric files on the Innova fixture. Never a good sign.

 

[thrifty bill]

+10 You need more fixtures.

 

[cagullett1]

cagullett1 linked to the right fixture for a garage with 8' ceilings. 5400 Lumens per fixture and you'd need 9 of them 3 rows of 3 evenly spaced to get a comfortable 75fc. You'd need 15 Innova fixtures to achieve that, plus are the Innova fixtures surface mountable? With 8 foot ceilings you certainly don't want fixtures hanging down on chains.

Unable to find any IES photometric files on the Innova fixture. Never a good sign.

The problem with 8' ceilings and these small garages is it's hard to have 3 rows of 3 because of the garage door/garage door opener, that's how I ended up with 7. I omitted 2 of the them on the middle row as the opener and chain were in the way. Plus, with the 2 rows on each side, having lights down the center hasn't been an issue. Also, the bulb you choose will have a huge effect on overall light output as well.

 

[eljay]

Thank you for the replies. I did some more reading, including the excellent thread by Platonic Solid (thank you!).
As a result, I dropped the whole LED idea for my purposes and will stick with T8 2-lamp fixtures for the garage. I will keep one of those LED fixtures for use over the bench area.

Unfortunately, here in Canada, things are more expensive and with our dollar down the tubes, even more so nowadays. So, here's the same fixture as linked above at Home Depot Canada $43.98: http://www.homedepot.ca/product/4-ft-t8-2l-wraparound/972637

Looking at my layout, I would like to go with 5 of these fixtures linked above:
- 2 over the center of each car spot parallel to the long wall
- 1 perpendicular in the top center of the garage for "under the hood" lighting.



I know that this is probably not enough for my garage, but since it's my first garage, I will need to figure out over time how I will use it, so this may be a good start.

I would like an advice though on the type of T8 fixture to get besides the obvious choice above. Are there any 2-lamp T8 fixtures with a built-in outlet/plug that I can use to daisy-chain them? Also, another feature I'm looking for is a pull chain switch, so I can selectively light up the ones I need. I'm thinking that if I can plug them into each other, then all 5 would turn on with the wall switch, but I can turn off the two closest to the garage door with the pull chains and only turn them on when the door is closed and I'm working on something that needs all the lights on.
Another reason why I would like an ability to plug them into each other is for flexibility to add one more fixture per bay in the future to give me a total of 7 if I need it or an ability to start a new row down the middle.

Any suggestions?

Thank you again.

EDIT: I just calculated that with 5 of the T8 fixtures, I'll be only at 30fc. That's quite low, right?