What Lights for Big Garage/Shop?

disk_drive_eng · Feb 27, 2004

I'm building a large metal 60 x 30 ft. workshop/garage that wil be about 14 ft. at the ceiling. What lights should I plan on installing? I think incandescent will require too many fixtures and too much power, but mercury vapor has a long warm up time, and flourescent doesn't work well at low temps. The building will be occupied only occasionally, during weekends and evenings, so leaving the lights on for a long time is not an option.

Any advice on what would be the best way to approach this?

Glenn9643 · Feb 27, 2004

I used 8' high output flourescent's in my shop that will work in low temperatures. They're recommended for use in walk-in coolers, etc. Bought them at Lowe's, but don't remember how much, but sort of pricey. Worth every cent!

Bob_Skurka · Feb 27, 2004

Ditto Glenn. The high output flourescents do work very well, we have some in our warehouse. As for the low temp issue, there are special ballasts that work in low temps and fire up the lights pretty quickly. Be careful when you order the bulbs and fixtures, the high output units are not commonly available at the super centers or hardware stores. Try a specialty or industrial lighting shop.

JDgreen227 · Feb 27, 2004

Cheap lighting for a work area is a waste of money, buy quality low temp flourescents and suspend them about 8 or 9 feet from the floor. In my garage I use good lighting over the areas where I spend most of my time (workbench, etc) and cheaper fixtures for general lighting.

slowzuki · Feb 27, 2004

Low temp flouresants. Best bang for your $.

Glenn9643 · Feb 27, 2004

Bob,
The lights that I have are low temp units as you described, with special ballasts, and I think the connectors at the ends of the bulbs are different from the normal tubes also. I have eight of these in a 24x40 shop and they light up immediately and have very little "hum" when burning. They are available around here at Lowe's, and I'm sure at electrical/lighting suppliers also.

Bob_Skurka · Feb 27, 2004

Glenn . . . we have ours hooked up with a relay and a 12-volt switch because we run the wires along our pallet racks in our warehouse. Our set up may be why we have a slight delay in firing up the lights? Ours are set at 22' above the warehouse floor and produce lots of light (for a warehouse storage area), we use 2 8' bulbs every 18' of working aisle. I believe you are correct about the different connectors. I know you are correct about teh special ballasts. I can't tell you if they hum, because our warehouse is not quite enough to hear that. I had no idea that Lowe's carries those, we just had a Lowe's store open up in our county last year, I think I'll mention it to the G.M. to have him check the bulb prices.

PineRidge · Feb 27, 2004

disk_drive_eng we used 8' high output fluorescents but since we don't have the heat on all the time in the pole barn we also installed some incandescent lighting as a back up plan. I use the fluorescents the majority of the time.

moeh1 · Feb 28, 2004

DDE,
I have a steel building also. I set up several switches as you come in. The first one turns on a few incandescent floods at the ceiling for quick light to get around, if that's all you need to do. The second is a center ceiling mounted high pressure sodium. Takes a few minutes but really bounces off the metal and lights the room. The other set of switches runs a row of flourescents down each side of the barn to fill the barn (no shadows) and even out the color temperature that the sodium lacks. Overall pretty good light, cheap to run. As the guys said, heavy duty ballasts on the flourescents are a must.

disk_drive_eng · Mar 2, 2004

TBN to the rescue again, thanks everyone for your advice!

I think for my situation the HO florescents will work well, with a few incandescents in key spots.

Boondox · Mar 2, 2004

I gave up on the cheap fluorescents as they seem to hate winter. In my shop I mounted T8 fixtures (high output with electronic ballast) and got instant steady light with no hum as low as zero degrees. Then I went to a farm show and saw the new T5 fixtures which are good to minus 20 and put out half again more light than my T8s. Those tiny T5 bulbs were so bright I was unable to look at them! Wow!

Pete