Garage LED Lighting

[pete_c]

I've always liked to work on my automobiles in the garage. In my first home I set up florescent lighting on the ceiling. It wasn't just a few lamps though it was 8 foot regular shop style florescent lighting across the entire ceiling giving it a daylight quality to it when all switched on.

Fast forward to my next home. Here I put in enough 4 foot fixtures to create the same effect as the 8 foot fixtures from the old garage. I divided the garage into 4 quadrants (it was a 24X24 garage) and each quadrant had a set of 4 foot lamps providing a daylight quality to it.

Today I don't really work as much on my automobiles as I used to but really due to my age need more light in the garage.

So I am looking this year 2012 to update the lighting. Today I have only two 200 watt bulbs and the lighting from the two garage door openers (each have two 60 watt bulbs on either side of the garage door motors). In Florida the garage ceiling was really kind of high so I put 4 200 watt bulbs on the ceiling which do OK. It was difficult to install because I used the garage door opener steel brackets for the 18 foot ladder climb to the top and didn't really have any means to work with an area wider than about 4-5 feet.

I can get 4 foot dual florescent lamps for probably less than $10 each and would do something like diving my garage into 4 sections each with a set of 4 foot lamps (maybe 8 or 6 or maybe just 4 per quadrant).

So instead looking at maybe doing LED lighting. I did a quick look at what is available and found the following. (attached JPGs)

This will be a DIY project and will utilize whatever I can find at a reasonable cost. Just wondering if anyone on CT has done a similiar endeavor or comments relating to said endeavor.

 

[bpwwer]

I was kind of thinking the same thing. I do woodworking in the garage and need decent light too. I currently have 6 4ft florescent tubes, mostly concentrated where the tools are and they do OK once warmed up.

I just installed a couple of these:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=202823462&langId=-1&catalogId=10053

in closets. They provide quite a bit of light and fit in a standard 4" junction box, no can required. They aren't great when dimmed and do flicker a bit, but the price at HomeDepot was reasonable. I could put up 12 of these and get much better light distribution in the garage and would be using about the same energy (probably a bit less). The cost seems a bit high for that application.

The lamps you show above seem to be for industrial type applications. Any idea on the cost?

 

[gatchel]

I also wanted to do LED's in my recently built 500 sq ft garage. I did every calculation possible to see if I could convince myself to go with LED's. Unfortunately, it just wasn't cost effective at all. It really depends on how much time you are going to spend in the garage.

I looked at doing several LR6 DR-1000 units to the much more expensive BetaLED (Now Cree) high bay fixtures.

I ended up with a few quality T-8 fixtures and and Sylvania 800 Series Phosphor bulbs and it is plenty bright in there. I am at 141 Lumens per sq ft. The bulbs are rated for 20,000 to 30,000 hours also.

The cool factor would have been nice also but the cost was just way too high for the amount of time I spend in there per week.

 

[pete_c]

Thank you for your suggestions. (actually interior LED project #2 - #1 being the chandelier lighting).

The lamps you show above seem to be for industrial type applications. Any idea on the cost?

No

The ceiling is finished drywall right now in the garage. (22' X 37')

I have current one outlet and one lamp on each side of the garage ceiling. I have room in the conduit to run addition power to the lamps outlets. The outlets power the garage door openers / current lighting.

Initially going to start by bring 120VAC to each center of "quadrant" space of the ceiling. Easy but time consuming for me.

I also have the means for a unique fuse/circuit for said endeavor as the conduit run from the garage to the fuse panel is not really too populated.

 

[Del91574]

I think the fact of the matter is those commercial LED fixtures are going to be cost-prohibitive for a payback vs. initial investment and forget about the energy savings factor. In the case of a garage in FL, that doesn't have to contend with low temperatures affecting the ballasts, I belive the most bang for the buck would be florescent troffers or similar, even reflector based units.

I don't know if the full height of the garage ceiling is used (you mentioned 18') but running some flex/MC and jack chain to drop the fixtures lower tends to help, or you can go the route like bodyshops always do and mount fixtures up about 6-8' on the side walls.

 

[pete_c]

Thanks Del.

Yes it looks like the easiest / cost effective will probablly need to be the florescent lighting. The ceiling in the garage here in the midwest are normal 8 foot ceilings. Actually will be starting the electric infrastructure base in the next week or so a little bit at a time.

 

[apostolakisl]

I agree with Del, LED's are not going to pay off ever as compared to fluorescent. There just isn't enough electricity difference per lumen to ever pay back the big price difference.

Also, unless you get really good (and expensive) LED"s, you will have light that won't be poly-chromatic. In other words, the light will be a series of mono-chromatic spikes. This will look sort of like white light, but it isn't the same. Some objects that are a certain colors won't hardly reflect any light being oddly dark and contrasty looking despite there being what seems like a lot of light. This is particularly troublesome in a workshop where you really want to see well. The only LED's that I have that I don't perceive this with are CREE LR/CR6's and Phillips bulbs with the phosphor coating. Not that others don't exist, these are just the ones I have seen.

I have fluorescents in my garage in central Texas. It gets kind of cold in the winter at times and the ballasts struggle. But, in a few minutes they will kick it up to full brightness.

 

[pete_c]

Yes I had fluorescents in the detached garage in the previous home. It would take a bit to warm up during the winter. I did find conduit friendly dual lamps yesterday at the big box hardware store.

This morning looking at the ceiling I think I can get by with 3-4 4 foot dual fluorescents lamps per quadrant with a total of 12 or 16 lamps.

Basically will run conduit to 4 electrical boxes and from each box will run conduit to one of three or four lamps. Same fashion as my old garage many years ago. WIll go slow with this piece. Pulling the wire will be easy.

Thank you for your suggestions.