Will a red ceiling ruin my lighting?

[jimy]

My current pole barn garage is 20x24 and has a red metal roof which we don't care for (it is close to our house and it clashes with the house). I plan to build an addition to the garage which will double the size. I also plan to pull the metal roof off the old part and chose a better color for the 20x48 final roof size.

I want to use the old roofing for the ceiling on about half of the garage. I had a metal ceiling at our previous place and liked it just fine. I can either flip the old roofing and have a white ceiling or possibly have a cool looking red ceiling.

I'm sure the white will give better lighting, but how bad would red hurt it? I do like good lighting, but might consider red if just a couple more 4' fixtures would make up the difference.

Jim

 

[gungatim]

why not just paint it? I used scrap steel siding of 4 different colors when I built my shed add on. took a piece of the main barn in to Home Depot and had them mix up a gallon of exterior paint and rolled it on. matches perfectly.

just clean the steel good first.

 

[TurnipTruck]

A friend painted his kids small bedroom red. He needed 3 or 4 100 watt bulbs to see well in it. He repainted it within a year and it didn’t need nearly as much wattage after.

 

[jimy]

Thanks, I think I will use the white side.

BTW - there are previous threads that had the answer. I should have done a search w/o specifying "red".

Jim

 

[saradanyal]

Dark pigmented colors like red are the hardest to get uniform coverage. Make sure the paint is thoroughly mixed, the pigment tends to settle. It will take 2+ coats for sure.

 

[Norcal]

White will reflect light better, there are times that dark colored ceiling is desirable but a shop is not one of those.