What do people like for garage lighting? Recessed Cans, bare bulbs, Floresence tube lighting? I thinking about general garge lighting, not shop lighiting, although that would be an interesting subject as well.
How much light, ie fiture spacing?
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Replies
Good Lord, sorry for the typos
Fixtures, garage, florescent
"I AM thinking ..."
etc.
Sorry.
Same Here.
same here
If it gets cold where you live you probably want some incandecents, Flourescents are slow to start if they start at all when it is cold and cold start ballasts are pretty spendy.
I like the flourescents for work lights tho over my work stations.
I also have a couple lights on a motion detector so the light comes on as soon as I walk in but I have motion lights all over, inside and out. I can walk around just about anywhere and never touch a light switch.
I'm slowly changing everything over to LEDs. No cold start problems and they last much longer than either incandescents or CFLs.
I'd like to hear more about how your LED experience goes. I keep eyeing them with interest, but don't want to fork out until I know color/lumen detail.
We only see the Phillips products here. What are you getting?
My first need is 50W Par 20 replacements.
Thx.
I've been buying the no-name LED lamps at HD. So far I've just bought the standard 60w equivalent lamps -- they look a bit like a toadstool on an ice-cream cone, but they spread the light evenly. Cost around $25, last I bought one.
I've got one at the top of the front stairwell (which is exceedingly hard to reach, so the long life is appreciated) and you don't notice anything different compared to the CFL in the fixture near the bottom (though the LEDs are much whiter than incandescent). Got two more in the garage (one of which is in the opener), one in the spare bedroom where I am now, and one in our bedroom. The wife has had no complaints (and she'd complain if they had color or flicker problems).
I'm basically just swapping them in as the old CFLs die. They are a bit pricy to replace all at once, and might as well milk the CFLs, since they're nearly the same efficiency. When I have them all installed I may go around and reinstall some of the dimmers I took out when I installed the CFLs.
>>>I'm basically just
>>>I'm basically just swapping them in as the old CFLs die. They are a bit pricy to replace all at once, and might as well milk the CFLs,
Zackly my thinking. Nothing wrong with CFLs, even if LEDs are the way of the future. To my thinking the difference between incandescent and CFLs is huge. From CFLs to LEDs is significant, but not huge.
>>>since they're nearly the same efficiency. When I have them all installed I may go around and reinstall some of the dimmers I took out when I installed the CFLs.
Have you tried any of the flood/spot lights? I'm keen to know a bit about PAR20 replacements.
Thx.
No, we don't use any spots anywhere, so haven't tried those. But I see no reason why they wouldn't work. A big problem with the standard globe replacement is figuring out how th spread the light out, and with spots/floods that's not really a problem, so should they should work better than the globe style.
DanH-
Thank you for the Melville. Others might have had more prolonged experience in those areas, but few expressed as well the costs of being ill-housed, ill-warmed, and ill-fed.
Motion lights - great idea
I know you can get motion sensored Outdoor Flood lights, but what other lights can you put on motion sensors and where do you get them.
It is a great idea for a garage near your enterance into the house. Might drive you a bit crazy if you are working in the garage with lights coing one and going off all the time.
You can just buy the motion head (or an occupancy sensor) and use it to control any other kind of light but incandescents or CFLs seem to work best.
I have occupancy sensors controlling rope lights under the toe kicks and over the cabinets in the kitchen to stop the girls from using the fridge as a night light. I do the same in the bathrooms.
Motion lights - great idea
I know you can get motion sensored Outdoor Flood lights, but what other lights can you put on motion sensors and where do you get them.
It is a great idea for a garage near your enterance into the house. Might drive you a bit crazy if you are working in the garage with lights coing one and going off all the time.
do
There's combo single gang switch and motion sensor-look in the device aisle.
Lots of flourecents - but you have to have a couple different circuits depending on how you use the space. If you have a fridge or washer dryer just outside the door, you want a switch for a light over just that. You want another one for whole room light. You will also want some closer worklights right over a workbench.
I have 4 300 watt clear incandescent bulbs in ceramic fixtures for general lighting in my garage. I also have a 1950's 8 foot fluorescent fixture that is ceramic coated steel, industrial to the max! It now has t8 tubes and a low temp ballast.
I'm more of a turn on the lights and get what I want, then lights out guy. The T8 tubes work well under 0 F, but they are dim for while, while the incandescents are instant on and blinding bright. I know my system isn't close to optimal for average users, but works for me.
I have F96 T12 in the garage and they work great summer or winter. Also have inbasement shop area.
Just finished putting 4 of the 6 inch can retro LED's in old work J boxes in the kitchen ceiling. It was tight fitting all the LED modules in the PVC box, but it worked OK in the end. Had one issue in that the dimmer would not work. Took it back and put a Leviton #6633 dimmer in. That did the trick. The LED units were 75W equivalent and provide a pleasant white light.
I think Floresence tube lights are the best one
I hear the good old F40-T12 we have been using in our shop lights for years are going the way of the 100 watt bulb in July.
T8 are much better lamps, but I'm sick of our "leaders " meddling around with my lighting.
meddling with ....
ANd wit the size of your soft drinks, and light bulbs, and toilets, and lawn darts, and disarming honest people, and dictatorily mandating you buy stuff you don't want or need and ...... Of course our President says there is nothing we can't acheieve, nothign we can solve as long as the Chineses lend us 1.3 trillion dollars every year forever. Great plan.
And healthcare, religious freedom, free speach, morals, private interprise, etc are threatened.
Threatened by what? (And what does it have to do with garage -- excuse me -- garge lighting?)
We are on separate political sides, you just don't get it, and I'm sure you don't think I do.
What does it have to do with garage lighting? The 100 watt incandescent bulb is pretty ideal for the ordinary average garage, now they have been rendered illegal by the government. Yeah it's Bushes fault, I know, (it really is) but I'm tired of the Feds reaching out too far.
The 100W incandescent bulb is pretty lousy for garage lighting. It takes about 4 of them to adequately light a 2-car garage, and the lifespan of them is too short, so you're constantly having to move the cars (or worse, stacks of "treasures") out to put up a ladder to change them. CFLs (and regular fluorescent lamps) have longer life, but are useless when the temp is 10 below. Quartz lamps have a longer life than standard incandescent and are slightly more efficient, but expensive.
In an opener, regular incandescents fail even more quickly due to the vibration. Quartz is a little better. CFL would likely suffer from the vibration as well, but I've never tried them due to the temperature problem.
Along comes LED, which is robust, long-lived, and efficient, and doesn't care about the temperature. The 100W incandescent is a dinosaur.
I have had CFLs in the garage door opener for a few years. No problems so far.
It is warm here. YMMV in the frozen north
Incandescents Have their place:
I live in a cold climate. I heat my garage/shop with a large wood burning stove. There are base board heaters installed, but since I am rarely in the shop during the winter I keep them off. My water based paint storage box has a heater that keeps it from freezing, the oil based stuff is on it's own.
When it is 15 below outside, incandescents are an ideal solution. Sure a lot of their energy is expended as heat. It is below zero, so extra heat is not a problem, it is a benefit. They will also fire at the low temperatures.
The flourescents that I use in the summer, and evening after the temperature gets up into the fities, just make nasty thunk noises when it is that cold, and burn out. And, they are modern fixtures and electronic balasts rated to twenty below.
CFLs might light eventually, but the odds are they will just burn out the enclosed ballast. Resulting in a haz waste that I have to dispose of.
So, I go out and turn on the light circuit with the incandescent bulbs, so I have light to load the stove, and light the fire. I then go inside and fix dinner, before I go back out to work in the shop.
If I need to go out and grab a tool to work on something in the house, the incandescents are used every time. The flourescents take a bit to come on, and I don't want to wait for them.
And I still don't see what this has to do with healthcare.
To provide some physical protection for the bulb, consider using vaporproof sockets. The cost is greater, but if you're there for an extended period, the cost will be amortized. In a warm enough part of the country, CFL warmup time won't be an issue, and if you use pigtails, the globe provides the added benefit of keeping dust, saw or otherwise, off the loops. For the rest of us, appropriately sized LEDs will work. Siting will require a bit of thought, but you can still relocate them if needed. I've used the wall-mount style, even on the ceiling of my cellar, to reduce vertical intrusion. A section of Tyvek or drywall over the globe will serve as a reflector.
garage lighting
We built a new house a couple years ago with a 24dx28w 2 car garage. I had the contractors install 6 bare bulbs on one switch. I hated it - there was too much light most of the time, or not enough. So this past summer my BIL and I made some changes. We seperated the single switched circuit into 2. Along the storage and workbench wall there are 2 flourescent fixtures with with pull chains (FL1). I rarely use them - but they give LOTS of light when I need it. They are swtched with 3 incandecsnts (Inc1) of the middle bank and the one down by the garage door. Again - they provide plenty of light for general illunination if needed - like when I had a bunch of friends over after a football game this fall.
Then there is a door to the house and a door to my grilling area - and this is what I like best - we put a single bulb motion detector there on a seperate switch. It provides PLENTY of light for heading out to put the trash away or do the recycling, and it's "hands-free".
garage door
FL(1) Inc(1) Inc(1)
FL(1) Inc(1) Inc(2) door to grill
door to mud room
Sounds pretty good
I think the task lighting makes sense and some for general lighting.
Heated or unheated
I have fluorescent ( looked it up) lighting in mine and it is useless in the winter but it is a detached unheated garage.
Plenty of info on lumens per foot for various uses.
Yeah, I like the LED lamps for starting in the cold while providing good white light. In addition, they're pretty rugged -- less likely to be damaged when you swing a ladder overhead or whatever.
The newer narrow fluorescents (which pretty much by definition use electronic starters) are also better in the cold than standard fluorescents. (Have no idea how Floresence tubes are in the cold, but do "garges" get that cold?)
Garage lighting
In my new garage / shop, with 10' ceiling, I installed what's referred to as "liner metal", a lighter weight siding material. It comes pre-cut to your dimensions and your color of choice. Once it's mounted you're done, no taping, sanding or painting. Next I mounted 3 banks of 2 (end to end) double 4' florecent (reflector-less) fixtures. The whole ceiling becomes a reflector. I think it's at least one of the brightest places I've been.
Just saw some LEDs at HD for $10 - replaced 2 hallway spirals and I can't tell the difference.
100 Watt bulbs may be dinosaurs, but what are people now using to heat crawlspaces and pump houses now that 100 Watt bulbs have gone? Someone sell 100 Watt heaters?