Lights in attached garage

I am looking to install lights in my attached garage. It now has 6 small high quality lights but they are over the tops of the cars and useless if you want to vacuum a car in the winter etc. If you open a car door there is little useable light that goes in the interior. Plus they are towards the front of the garage and useless if you want to look in the trunk of a car. I have thought about this for a few years now and have looked at what type of light fixtures I could use. I think the best light fixture to use is recessed lights. So I wonder how many I should install. There will be 4 rows. 2 next to the side walls (1 row and each end) and one row over each isle between the cars. That will provide (I think) a very nice amount of lighting in my garage. So I wonder how far apart I should put them. My garage is probably around 24 feet deep. So maybe 5 in each row? That would be about 4 feet between each one.


Rodney Dickman
1990 348 TS
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I would recommend you installing four flourescent (4bulbs per unit), 6500 kelvin units. I put them in my garage and they provide "daylight" indoors and are absolutely fantastic. No light throws more light than a flourescent bulb can. Forget the old blue flickering units that are used in your office. These are instant on and are just bedass. You can get them at Loews for $60 per unit, and the bulbs another $12. You'll be thanking me. See Griots Garage as he sells a similar unit, but these are less expensive and easy pleasie to install.

 

I've looked at many fluorescents. I do not really want them. If they are not sealed bugs die and lay in the lenses so you have to clean them regularly. Plus they will look bulky in my nice finished attached garage. That is why I want to use recessed lights. I do not really work in my attached garage. I occasionally clean a car in there etc. in the colder weather. Ultimately I may take out the 6 fixtures I have in there now and fill in the holes or put recessed lights there also for a clean look.


Rodney

 

check out www.hubbell.com

 

Go with fluorescent fixtures. 4 foot fixtures with F32T8 tubes will do the job great. If you go with exposed tubes (no lens) they are easy to change, brighter and won't have bugs inside. Recessed lights are good for some task lighting and have a more "upscale" look but won't throw as much light. Perhaps a combination of types with 2 switches. For me it can never be too bright in the garage.

 

I thought the same thing. I spent three months studying this before I went with Flourescents. The higher kelvin temperature provides incredible outdoor like lighting. I'll take pics tonight after the sun goes down using my Canon D5 (it doesn't have a flash) and post 'em up. Do your homework and you'll see you have few alternatives that will yield good results. I've been in my house over four years and have twelve foor ceilings and when I removed the old ones, I had two dead bugs in one light of three. When I was searching, I wanted results, good results. I hate spending money and coming up short.

Also, these flourescents are so white, they call them "Noon". I'll post once the sunsets completely with car in...

B~

 

Here ya' go my man: first know I have a four car garage and three slots are always occupied (important from a light throwing and receiving perspective).

PIC 1: Bay one with Ferrari and only the garage door opener light on, and bay two is on as well (a 100watt bulb in each opener)

PIC 2: The new high-output flourescent fixtures before they are turned on. Note: their rise is no more than three inches.

PIC 3: With fixtures on (there are three four-bulb fixtures in my garage total, spread amongst the bays and over a work area off film.

PIC 4: The fixture on (camera aperture adjusted for the high light so you can see all four bulbs on).

Result, very happy. Oh, no bugs either. I live in Texas, home of the largest bugs in the country--don't make me post 'em. It won't be pretty.

THESE ARE T8 6500Kelvin (temperature; aka- High Noon). No editing to photos other than reducing the pixel count, used my Powershot 10mp--NO FLASH-slr battery was dead.
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I'll look at these but I still would like the recessed cans for the cosmetic look.

Rodney

 

Rodney,

I recently put cans in my new 950sf garage. I put them on average 8' apart from each other, thus I have 12 cans @ 65W each to cover the 950sf. I could use a little more light in there...but overall it's fine. 75W each would help a lot and 100W each would be more than enough....sun burn.

There are some sites that will provide formulas for can spacing. Can't think of any right now but if you google "recessed can light spacing" or combinations of those words something should come up.

Just looking at your pics, I had a few thoguhts....

Is the garage heater supplemental or the only source of heat? Reason I ask, is another reason not to like flourecents is that they can be slow to light or not even come on at low temps.

I also noticed the existing lights are fairly large square fixtures. At the very least you'll have some paint or patch work in and around those existing fixtures if you use the same locations...you probably already knew that though.

Good luck on your project.

 

These flourescents are "instant on" lights, a new technology for these T8's. I hated the idea of flourescents, but one I put them in and turned them on, I smiled...bingo.

If they're not for you, no worries. I wish you luck on your search.

B~

 

Looked at this several more times today. I still think the recessed lighting is my choice. Mainly for cosmetic reasons. I will probably leave the flourescent fixtures I have in there in place for now. I will have 3 switches since I have 3 existing light switches. One for the 6 existing flourescent lights. I will use these when I want light. One switch for the 2 center rows of recessed lights. That lights the center stall well when I want to work in the center stall and need more light. One switch for the outer light rows. If I happen to need more light on an outer stall I will turn on the outer rows of light also. My recessed lights will be about 4 1/2 feet apart. If 65 watt bulbs are not enough I can put in higher wattage bulbs.

Rodney

 

Get the best of both worlds - you can get recessed fluorescent lights. They are not as effective in terms of cost/light output compared to the old tube style but that just means you will need more of them than you would tubes (but the same or less than recessed bulbs) and it will cost more than just going with 4' tubes.

But they do look nice.