Garage Lighting - Looking for recommendations

[oneheadlite]

I swear the builder for our house never put any thought into using the garage for anything other than parking - 3 oddly spaced screw in light bulb bases and one 2 place outlet on one wall (plus one in the ceiling for the opener).

Finally looking to move forward with making the garage a more pleasant / less stressful place to work. First up will be fixing the lighting situation. Looking to have a really good permanent lighting setup to reduce my reliance on portable lighting (which, no matter what I try the garage refuses to let be effective).

Planning on doing some iteration of LED strip lighting, whether it's fluorescent style dual light fixtures or some sort of 4 foot LED strip units. Garage is a pretty standard 3 car. Walls are sheet-rocked and painted white. Open ceiling with plywood above for in-rafter storage.


What are you all using for fixtures, and what kind of placement?

Anything you did but looking back would do differently?

Anyone have strip lighting on the side walls?


Thanks!

[Texchappy]

Sounds similar to my garage. Curious what people answer. Made sure I had a lot of led lights and good outlets when I built my shop.

[jth877]

If you have access to the space above the garage then it would be easy to add more light fixtures. I was in the same boat. Two standard porcelain screw type bulb holders. I first installed 4ft LED shop lights by switching the fixtures to ones that have an outlet as well as the screw fitting. I retained the bulbs and had the 4ft LEDs all on a switch. This worked good but didn't cover the garage door side very well.

Being bored during the covid winter I ran wire and put two more screw type fixtures on the other side of the garage. In these I put in the screw in "pedal" type LEDs which have more lumens than the 4ft lights. This covers everything pretty well.

[oneheadlite]

Do most go with 5000k color temp? Inside the house I tend to stick with warmer bulbs (not a fan of the sterile feel with super white light inside), but if the higher K is beneficial in the shop than I could see going that route.

Trying to decide between 4K and 5K.

[MIsnowman]

I would go with 5K and I would suggest going with more fixtures with lower lumen output vs less fixtures with higher output since your garage is probably a fairly low ceiling. The high output high bay lights are way too bright for low ceilings and don’t provide the correct lighting pattern when mounted at lower heights. Another option would be to get fixtures with some type of diffuser to help reduce the sharpness and spread the light.

I also highly recommend making sure you get dimmable lights and using a dimmer. It requires a few extra wires, but it’s well worth it. You can have it bright bright when you need it and then dim them down when you don’t need operating room bright.

[opie]

Anyone have strip lighting on the side walls?

Im curious about this as well. I would think this would be quite benificial?

[chilly]

I am resurrecting this thread rather than starting from scratch because there is already good input

Here is a picture of a typical finished garage by the builder we are using

They tape and mud and finish paint all their garages in bright white

They aren’t stingy with the screw in fixtures either and the model homes I looked at had 4-6 per bay



After framing we will do a walkthrough with the electrician and make any changes or additions to lighting, outlets, switches, etc

The only limits are how much we want to spend

I want a well lit garage overall but I especially want my detailing bay to have adequate lighting

I can have LED strips put in or I can stick with the screw in fixtures and go with these if I want


Has anyone tried these?

There are many options available as far as the number of panels, color temp, etc

I like that you can adjust the aim

I want to do it right the first time so any and all input is welcomed

Thanks


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[dgage]

I haven’t used those but I think those would in general work well but would leave you with shadows on the sides. What I did in a finishing booth was put a 45 triangle of drywall between the wall and ceiling and put 4’ led (sealed) lights on all sides and it provides immense amounts of light without any shadows. I’ll see if I can get a picture of what I’m referring to.

[chilly]

I haven’t used those but I think those would in general work well but would leave you with shadows on the sides. What I did in a finishing booth was put a 45 triangle of drywall between the wall and ceiling and put 4’ led (sealed) lights on all sides and it provides immense amounts of light without any shadows. I’ll see if I can get a picture of what I’m referring to.

Excellent

Thanks


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[dgage]

Here is an example of what I mean by lights on a 45 between wall and ceiling though I surface mounted my lights.



And these are similar to the vapor tight sealed led lights that were purchased.

Home Depot Vapor Tight LED 4 ft Fixture