The new garage has sloped ceilings and approx. 14' at the peak,need to rough in the wiring by Friday and struggling a little with what to use for lights.
Keep it simple/affordable'ish with 4' LED surface mount fixtures or has anyone have any other suggestions?.
Thanks in advance.
If you're roughing in the wiring, just put in receptacles. Then you've got flexibility. Because my home garage was wired that way (partially) 40 years ago, I have modern LED fixtures that plug right in. That's not something the builders would have seen coming.
With a sloped ceiling, it may be worthwhile hanging fixtures instead of surface mounting them. Means the light goes down instead of sideways.
These 4 foot fixtures have 6 foot cords, and chain attachments. You can make the chains however long you need so they're level, and the cords should get where you need.
The 6 for cord leaves plenty of space you could just rough centrally mounted outlets and plug all the lights in at once.
Late edit, these lights are on a switched outlet, makes it easy. I still want to extend the pull chains though, so I can select which are on or off a bit easier.
I went for the 3700 lumen LED strip lights that costco had on sale last year for ~$32 each. These are hung on thin aircraft cable (supplied with the light) that makes them easy to hang from the ceiling. They are very bright and so far, totally reliable
I went with outlets and hanging fixtures as well. It allows you to plug in an extension cord or extra light, as well as turn on or off light (string on fixture switch doubles as a parking depth guide) in a section of the garage you're not using at the time. 28x32' garage, 6 standard outlets for the fixtures wired to the light switch plus two more, separate switch, over the bench.
I've converted a few of the Florescents to LEDs but it's not quite the same lighting effect, more directional, than a conventional tube.
mike h
I will not be getting out a ladder to plug something into the ceiling that I'll be using on the floor,thats just silly.
I "might" consider hanging hardwired fixtures but I think they might look like poo in a brand new kinda swanky shop space.I get the keeping the fixture level part though.
You'll never notice hanging fixtures, but you'll notice weird lighting.
So it depends on where you fall on the swanky/cheap scale.
When we bought our new house, I knew I was going to be putting a lift in there, and I knew that ceiling height was at a premium (9.5 feet from concrete to trusses, and getting a structural engineer in to redo the roof wasn't going to happen). I wanted good lights, so I wanted something recessed, because anything that stuck down 3-4 inches was going to be taking away height I wanted to use for the car on the lift.
I wound up with GE "ET14" troffer lights. They are not cheap, but I'm very pleased with the results.
Keith Tanner wrote: If you're roughing in the wiring, just put in receptacles. Then you've got flexibility. Because my home garage was wired that way (partially) 40 years ago, I have modern LED fixtures that plug right in.
Very good advice! I have done this in the garage and shop in the basement. I actually took out the hardwired fixtures and put receptacles in their place. I got the same LED lights that LuxInterior got from Costco and really like them. The 6' cords allow me to place the lights where I want them and even move them if I rearrange equipment in the shop.
Keith Tanner wrote: You'll never notice hanging fixtures, but you'll notice weird lighting.
With respect I'm confident I'll be very aware of the hanging lights every single time I walk in the shop.
For the record my current garage has the same sloped ceiling but not as high,4' florecents mounted flush and 0 lighting weirdness as a result of the slope.
Hal wrote:Keith Tanner wrote: If you're roughing in the wiring, just put in receptacles. Then you've got flexibility. Because my home garage was wired that way (partially) 40 years ago, I have modern LED fixtures that plug right in.Very good advice! I have done this in the garage and shop in the basement. I actually took out the hardwired fixtures and put receptacles in their place. I got the same LED lights that LuxInterior got from Costco and really like them. The 6' cords allow me to place the lights where I want them and even move them if I rearrange equipment in the shop.
+3 on the cheap Costco fixtures, I'm sold on mine. My barn had a bunch of florescent fixtures hardwired in, and I took them down and put plugs in all the boxes so I could plug in the Costco fixtures. Works great, and the lighting is much better and more reliable than it was with the florescents.
I have just (like this weekend) started replacing the fluorescents in my garage with LEDs. It seems like a 4' double strip LED ($44 at Home Deopt) puts out at least as much light as the eight foot fluorescents did. I think if I replace all of my existing fixtures with similarly sized LEDs (six twin 8 foot T-12s and two twin 4 footers), it will be uncomfortably bright in there.
Also, white painted walls make a huge difference.
I use a mix of photography cfls and eBay bulk rate 4ft retrofit LEDs. If you are broke or cheap they are a much better deal than the big box stores. Easy install and no failures after 1-2 years of frequent use.
The difference in bulb/emitter shapes cut way down on shadows and dark spots than just more of either on their own. It's nice to have a few aim-able lamps around too especially near engine bay.
I likes the 4' LEDs Rev cited, there were a few here that bought them on special from Rural King. $20 ea. online only w/ free shipping over $100. Rather than a solid mounted fixture they can be moved when and where you need 'em. Currently have six, will add more down the road.
I used some half round white rain gutter I had left over. Put 4 passes of adhesive backed 5 m LED strips on the inside of the gutter and power from transformer plugged into outlets in the ceiling which had been used for florescent lighting. They hang on cloths line loops.
In reply to Woody:
I'm been looking at doing this same thing. I have a few ballasts out, and was just looking at these double 4 footers at Home Depot recently.
I have 18 of the twin 96 inch flourescent lights in the ceiling, and another 3 over the workbench.
In reply to TIGMOTORSPORTS:
Home Depot just started selling double eight footers for $80.
I bought two four footers over the weekend. After installing the first one, I found a six inch dead spot in it. They are just enough of a PITA to install that I would suggest bench testing every one before you put them up.
I agree about testing first. I've discovered that with the low-cost LED fixtures, the quality control is somewhat suspect. I would NEVER hard-wire a cheap LED fixture for that reason. Just too much of a PITA to swap out (and I personally have no problems with working on a live circuit).
If appearance is a concern, then the recessed lighting codrus installed is the way to go. They are getting cheaper all the time (I only spec LED fixtures now at work - fluorescent and HID are dying), but installation is definitely a bit more involved.
Amazon has tons of shapes/sizes/colors of recessed LED fixtures. Many are designed for commercial use in drop ceilings, which might work well, or might be a huge hassle depending on the spacing of your trusses. If you just want to light up a large area, then a smaller number of large fixtures seem like a good option. If you want to finely tune the lighting in small areas, then going with something like dimmable can lights on different circuits could allow you more flexibility (but would require more material cost). Search "LED troffer" or "LED panel".
SA142 wrote: I can share with you my experience in installing this outdoor lights for garage. I was using 4 x 250 watt ceiling fixtures on the 5 m ceiling, the old metal halide is very cheap, however, I was used to take off them and then buy the new ones from time to time. It is quite inconvenient to me.
Now, I am using 4 x 100 watt LED, which produces even brighter light beam coming from 250 watt metal halide. The result is pretty impressive. I love this setting very much.
Thank you for your advise. It seems LED lighting is a good light source for parking garage.
Second or Third the response to install outlets and then figure out the lighting from there. Can always make up some brackets to "as-close-to" flush mount as you can get away with and the future-proofing of an outlet is awesome. Ive wired up 4 garages now and I always put switched outlets in for the lights. I also put duplex box every 4 feet at 48" high around the entire perimeter, each wall on its own circuit and GFCI. Plus dedicated circuits for the air compressor and welder.
Also suggest putting some outlets right by the overhead doors, makes driveway work a whole lot easier, and if you are feeling swanky, a welder plug right by your overhead door as well so you can wheel your welder out into the driveway for large projects or quick fixes. Sometimes its easier to take the tool to the work.
I also hate running woodworking tools indoors if I can avoid it so its nice having the outside plugs for tapping those items in as well.
I agree with the install receptacles comments. I put in 2 HF 5500 lumen LED's last weekend. They are chain able and they are on sale for $30. I am really happy with them and then other 4 standard lights in my garage are about to take a hike.
Did you guys mean to revive a zombie thread?
In reply to ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) :
Nope, I'm a dummy, I didn't look at the dates. My bad, Can / Should I just delete my post and this reply?
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