Going to light the GarageMahal shortly. Its about 2000 square feet and has 13 foot ceilings.

as I went thru the typical T5 T5HO T8 and T8HO fluorescents. I realized that even with these I would probably be using about 400 Watts while in the shop.
So was wondering if anyone has tried these things? Do you get a suntan? Is it like being to close to the sun lol

I can get 3 new ones for $90 a piece from a guy that went under and closed his business. I could have them on 3 different switches so burn 400watts at a time?




Dumb idea or not?

 

These fixtures are a better choice with higher ceilings. I still think that Fluorescent is still a better choice with ceilings that low. One thing that will really make a difference, is to buy 5000K lamps in the fixtures. The light is way more white, and gives the appearance of being much brighter. At the last re-lamping, I went from 4100K lamps to 5000K, and the difference was huge. you probably will not find 5000K lamps at you local Home Depot, you will have to go to a lighting supplier.

If you go the manufacturer's web site for those fixtures, they should have a photometric chart for those fixtures, that will show the cone of light that they throw, and you will see that the cone grows, the higher off the floor you go. Ideally, you want at least 25% overlap of the light cones on the floor. and I think that you would need way more than 3 fixtures to light 2800 feet with these luminaries, based on the design I see in these fixtures.



Regards, John McGraw

 

I just pulled out my lighting calculator, and 2800 sq/ft calls for 7 fixtures when using 400 watt metal halide low bay fixtures like this. Metal halide gives great light, especially with the higher degree Kelvin bulbs, but it is pretty hard to beat florescent for this application.



Regards, John McGraw

 

I don't care what or how you light your garage-----------------------you will never have enough light!!!! My current 6car garage (with another 6car to be built REAL soon) has 16 flourescent lights (2 tube-8ft). I have them on 4 circuits so that I only turn on what I need (some or all), and sometimes there STILL is not enough light in some areas. I often wish I had light in the floor for working under a car---------------drop lights are a damn pain!!! I have not yet decided how to light the new building.

 

they are a great light source. The only draw back is that they take a little time to come on, so if you want to run out to the garage and do something real quickly, you need plenty of incandescent light also.

 

You can use 2-4 or 6 lamp T5- HO and have great lighting and lower power use. voltage divided into wattage = amp load. The T5 fixtures are instant on - no warm up time.

 

I have just the thing for that. All the way around the hoist area I will have angled fluorescent lights. They sit on the wall flat but have an angled lense so they shine upward at a 45 degree angle and downward on the floor at a 45 degree angle. They were destined for the jail here, they are tamper proof and weigh about 40 pounds each.
Hate work lights too.

http://www.daybrite.com/vandal/Vanda...re.cfm?ID=4129

 

I have these in my shop. They are very bright and only take a few minutes to warm up. I hooked them up on 110 current but a buddy of mine say they use less if they were on 220. They'll work either way. I bought mine used, so I bet new ones are very pricey. When I'm not using them, I have regular lights that I use, although the bulbs are 400 watt energy efficient bulbs that are twisted and they only use 40 watts of current. I found them at Menards but no where else. Great bulbs.

 

One big problem with the halide lights is they really create shadows.

In my machinist days, our shop originally had fluorescent lighting that we replaced with the halide lighting to save money on the electric bill. I absolutely hated the halide lights once they were installed because of the shadows they would cause in front of me as I attempted to set tooling in a machine. We had the halide fixtures in place for maybe 10 years before replacing them with the high performance fluorescent available today from companies like Orion.

 

I have those in the addition on our shop at work, I hate them, slow start up, strange hue to the light, and if you turn them off you need to wait a few minutes (5?) before you can turn them back on. The machine shop and my home garage are on fluorescents. For the home shop (30x50 with 12ft ceilings) I ran 3 rows of 4 8ft fixtures and that is plenty of light even for detailing.

 

When I built my barn 4 years ago I went to our local electrical/lighting supply company for design specifications to insure I installed proper light.
I'm older than 60 and I need more light than when I was younger.
I knew from experience that I only wanted florescence lights because they cast almost no shadows and the new T5 HO's are so efficient almost all our local warehouses are replacing their older light fixtures with T5 HO's for operational cost efficiencies.



In the barn we used 20 T5 HO fixtures with 4, 4' lamps per fixture and white reflectors.




This is one of the rooms in the barn and this room is over 3,500' with a 16' ceiling at the peak.



They measured after the installation and I get 78 foot-candles of light at 34" (bench height) above the floor which is more than adequate for my feeble old eyes and the light is very even throughout the room.
In specific areas...



... like this corner, I added additional lighting over the bench to help with close detail work.
I zoned all the lighting with multiple switches so I only light those areas that I'm working in.
The color of your ceiling and walls will affect how much light you need as well.
As Tom stated, you will never have enough light!

Hope the pictures help visualize what T5 HO's will do in a large space with high ceilings. Good luck with your project.

Thomas

 

Thanks for everyone's input, I think I will do the T5HO or T8s
The garage will be continually heated as it has its own furnace, hot water heater and AC unit. So I can probably use t8s without the need for an HO as it will never be below 50F in the garage.

 

Even if the garage is not heated, you can still use standard T8 fixtures. You just have to specify 0 degree ballasts when you order. If it is cold, the lamps will not be at full lumen output for a couple of minutes, as they warm up, but the lamps will strike fine. One of my garages has 96" T8 lamps, and even with those long lamps, they still fire every time in cold weather, with 0 degree ballasts.


Regards, John McGraw

 

I hate my T5s.

Yes they put out a lot of light (a good thing), but they also play havoc with the FM reception making the radio unlistenable when they are on!

 

I don't have big, fancy garage like you are talking about (please note the extreme envy) but run into the problem of the slow start up time of flouresents. I somehow ended up with an extra outside floor light set and installed in my attached garage. Now if I need to pop into the garage, the light comes on automatically and turns itseld off when I leave.

 

Thomas,
Are your 62 & 64 cars 409/4sp cars?

 

How the garage is finished also affects the lighting scheme - my 2550 sq. ft. (44' x 58' x 12') attached garage is fully-finished (painted drywall); the white ceiling and off-white walls reflect lots of light, and the reflectivity of the light gray epoxy floor just about doubles the lighting effectiveness. I have eight 8-foot twin-tube fluorescent fixtures (switched in three separate banks so I don't have to have them all on at once), plus one more fixture hanging directly over the workbench, and my lighting is adequate, even for my old eyes.

 

Tom all are Super Sports, the silver ones are 4 spd, 327/300 cars and the '62 is a 327/250, powderglide. I'm the second owner of it and it has only 31,XXX miles.



Here's part of what my restored 1930's shop with 10' ceilings looks like...



... using T8's, 2 lamps, 8' long per fixture. I get very similar lighting levels as in the barn but all future lighting will be done with T5's as they operate much more efficiently.

Thomas

 

Then obviously you don't work on cars there---------------------------IT'S TOOOOOOOOOOOO CLEAN!!!!

 

After reading what everyone said about lighting I thought I would put my two cents in, I was always a fan of the high output (power groove) tube if you were to install six fixtures on three switchs you could regulate the foot candles on the floor very nicely. Tom