Garage Lighting

[spazzyfry123]

I’m racking my brain on this one. New attached three car garage, I’ve opted for (8) 4’ LED lights. I planned for two rows of four to be equally spaced in all directions within the main rectangle (excluding the bump out). Drafting came back and says this isn’t possible now - it will have interfere with the garage door tracks for the double door and the motor for the single.

Looking for ideas on best way to light the space without going nuts. Space is roughly 25’ x 35’ plus the bump out with 8’ tall doors. It isn’t intended to be a workshop, but I want a well lit space. There will also be six windows as well.

What I’ve attached is what came back from drafting.

What are your thoughts? What have you done for your garage?

[dscabra]

Put two or three of these in your garage and you'll be done!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...e?ie=UTF8&th=1

I have five in my 30x40 shop and the amount of light is fantastic.

[bagekko]

8 Lights for that space is overkill especially if not a workshop. I have 1 of those 3 way LED panels in a bulb socket and it lights a 25x25 garage pretty well. I have a multitude of portable lights I use if I need more light.

[Kilabyte]

I have 6 of these daisy chained, I like it bright in the garage and these do just that

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...f_=as_li_ss_tl

[Oldgixxer]

I'd put another row of 4 to the left of what you have pictured above,but thats just me.

400amp service? Damn! Good for you!!!!

[slilley]

Originally Posted by Oldgixxer

I'd put another row of 4 to the left of what you have pictured above,but thats just me.

I'd suggest the same, otherwise the front of the garage will be dark (relatively speaking) when the garage doors are closed. I do a lot of work with my garage doors open in the day, so I positioned lights horizontally in between and above and below the garage doors and dropped down to the same level as the doors in the "up" position. (So rotated 90-degrees from the orientation of the 8 lights you show in the plan above, and pushed to the front edge of the garage.)

Also, I'd suggest spreading the lights in your picture out top-to-bottom. Right now, there's very little light on the passenger side of the car at the very bottom.

[2000cs]

Really depends on the use of the space.

For just parking and storing/finding stuff, an 8 footer between each car and top/bottom in your pic should be fine.

For detailing, lots of lights at different angles, ideally diffused, etc. Lights on the walls as well.

For working on the cars, lights over and in front of the hood, as well as general lighting.

Personally, I’d focus on making that bay at the bottom tall enough for a lift and preparing the concrete/electrical for it. Plenty of outlets for charging tools and such. Garage vacuum. Stuff like that.

[wtwo3]

I got these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They're super bright and super convenient to install if you already have light bulb sockets.

[spazzyfry123]

Originally Posted by Oldgixxer

I'd put another row of 4 to the left of what you have pictured above,but thats just me.

400amp service? Damn! Good for you!!!!

Originally Posted by slilley

I'd suggest the same, otherwise the front of the garage will be dark (relatively speaking) when the garage doors are closed. I do a lot of work with my garage doors open in the day, so I positioned lights horizontally in between and above and below the garage doors and dropped down to the same level as the doors in the "up" position. (So rotated 90-degrees from the orientation of the 8 lights you show in the plan above, and pushed to the front edge of the garage.)

Also, I'd suggest spreading the lights in your picture out top-to-bottom. Right now, there's very little light on the passenger side of the car at the very bottom.

Attached is roughly what I had orignally requested (in red). What is black is what drafting came back with. Unfortunately, my original (red) plans have bounced back from drafting saying "to have them centered in the space left to right, but we cannot do that because the lights would end up getting in the way of the garage door ceiling tracks. Especially the lights that would go aligned with the two car garage door."

slilley If I understand correctly, you are rotating all (8) lights and centering left to right as I have shown in red? Just turned 90 degrees.

[Oldgixxer]

Ahhh,I see. Makes perfect sense

[spazzyfry123]

Originally Posted by 2000cs

Really depends on the use of the space.

For just parking and storing/finding stuff, an 8 footer between each car and top/bottom in your pic should be fine.

For detailing, lots of lights at different angles, ideally diffused, etc. Lights on the walls as well.

For working on the cars, lights over and in front of the hood, as well as general lighting.

Personally, I’d focus on making that bay at the bottom tall enough for a lift and preparing the concrete/electrical for it. Plenty of outlets for charging tools and such. Garage vacuum. Stuff like that.

I'm all for your bold comment. For now, this will be primarily a parking space with some tinkering here and there. Home is being built (well the trees were cleared yesterday at least) with this in mind. I wanted to do exactly as you mentioned, but opted not to as I plan on building a dedicated shop on the lower end of the property in the future.

I just don't like dim garages and shadow pockets are irritating. I'll still have my tools and the like in the garage for the foreseeable future until we ultimately build the shop, but that may be a couple years from now. In the meantime, a nice, clean shop that's well lit is the goal.

[dscabra]

I'd gone through two different sets of lights in my shop before getting the 35,000 lumen ones I recommended in my first post above. I started with 70w CFL bulbs in high-bay reflectors, then converted those the LED corn bulbs, and finally swapped to the LED UFO lights. The shop was never truly fully lit until I installed the UFO lights. It is now. I'll try to get you a picture or two. So you can see for yourself. My ceilings are 12' with a large 16' x 10' door. I installed the lights along the sides of the door (one on each side), and three across the 30' width in the space not covered by the door and that worked perfectly for me.

[2000cs]

Ok I understand better what you’re after.

I would suggest using jackshaft openers to save ceiling space (no center tracks). Put electrical outlets near the top corner of each garage door for those.

8ft LED lights parallel to the cars, off center towards the back of the garage (to get more light when doors are open). Place one at the top of your drawing, another between each vehicle, and one more at the bottom. The light between the garage doors will fit between the two garage door tracks and not interfere. Other lights are fine; I’m assuming you like the linear setup of the LED (formerly known as fluorescent).

[bagekko]

I would of focused on making the garage bigger rather than excess lighting LOL. 25x35 is pretty small for a 3 car by my standards. My prior 4 car was 40x60 which I miss dearly. I have two 2 car that are about 25x25 each and they feel so small, extra 10 feet and 3 car and I would have more self inflicted door dings.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by Kilabyte

I have 6 of these daisy chained, I like it bright in the garage and these do just that

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...f_=as_li_ss_tl

The 4' LED tube fixtures are amazing.

I've got 3 in my 3-car garage and it's plenty bright. 6 would be awesome.

OP, you can easily go with less than the design calls for and be okay.

[bagekko]

Yeah and they are cheap, I still have a pile of these I never installed after I moved.

https://www.bjs.com/product/feit-ele...00000004042747

4 of these in good placement for the OP would be plenty. That's 20000 lumens in about 900 sq ft. Use portable lights if working on cars or doing tasks that need more light, excessive ceiling light rarely does the job required than a light closer to what you are doing.

Originally Posted by sygazelle

The 4' LED tube fixtures are amazing.

I've got 3 in my 3-car garage and it's plenty bright. 6 would be awesome.

OP, you can easily go with less than the design calls for and be okay.

[4JawChuck]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, pretty slick and not very expensive.

https://www.amazon.ca/Cellular-Garag...90516782&psc=1

[Bc2005]

My solution was to use switched ceiling receptacles and corded 4 foot LED lights that I can hang where’ve I need light. They are designed to be daisy chained (6 foot cords?), so I could probably get by with only a couple receptacles in each bay, but I used four for each parking space. I can have lighting wherever I need it, and reconfigure if my needs change.

The power feed from the wall switch to the receptacles has a wall mounted 20 amp GFCI, so it meets current code for GFCI receptacles in a garage.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by bagekko

Yeah and they are cheap, I still have a pile of these I never installed after I moved.

https://www.bjs.com/product/feit-ele...00000004042747

4 of these in good placement for the OP would be plenty. That's 20000 lumens in about 900 sq ft. Use portable lights if working on cars or doing tasks that need more light, excessive ceiling light rarely does the job required than a light closer to what you are doing.

Great point. There are times when you need more light up close. There are lots of choices for that job. One I want to try is LED lights that hook up to my DeWalt 20v batteries. What a great idea. I always have 3 or 4 fully charged in my garage anyway. Just hook up the light to it and I'm good to go with portable lighting.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by spazzyfry123

I’m racking my brain on this one. New attached three car garage, I’ve opted for (8) 4’ LED lights. I planned for two rows of four to be equally spaced in all directions within the main rectangle (excluding the bump out). Drafting came back and says this isn’t possible now - it will have interfere with the garage door tracks for the double door and the motor for the single.

Looking for ideas on best way to light the space without going nuts. Space is roughly 25’ x 35’ plus the bump out with 8’ tall doors. It isn’t intended to be a workshop, but I want a well lit space. There will also be six windows as well.

What I’ve attached is what came back from drafting.

What are your thoughts? What have you done for your garage?

I've got one more point about your garage lighting. It matters what color you paint the garage walls and ceiling. My garage is all white walls and ceiling. I think it takes less lighting when the walls and ceiling are white.

[spazzyfry123]

Originally Posted by bagekko

I would of focused on making the garage bigger rather than excess lighting LOL. 25x35 is pretty small for a 3 car by my standards. My prior 4 car was 40x60 which I miss dearly. I have two 2 car that are about 25x25 each and they feel so small, extra 10 feet and 3 car and I would have more self inflicted door dings.

2400 sq ft is a bit more than 4 car I’d say!

This should be enough for our use case. A separate, dedicated shop will be built later.

[spazzyfry123]

Originally Posted by 4JawChuck

Not sure if this has been mentioned, pretty slick and not very expensive.

https://www.amazon.ca/Cellular-Garag...90516782&psc=1

Pretty neat!