Garage Lighting

[The Critic]

I want to upgrade the lights inside of my garage - there are currently three 4' fluorescent light fixtures towards the rear of the garage. These are not LED.

My ceiling height is about 10 feet. I am willing to pay for the best lighting option available since I sometimes work on cars at night. Someone suggested these options to me:

HD Option: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerc...-Pack-54677691-4PK/315006406#product-overview

Generic Amazon Option:
Would this be appropriate for my application?

 

[JTK]

Are the current 4 footers located such that retrofitting them to LED would be an option?

So far I've never had a retrofit fail, but I've had store bought LED fixtures fail. Just lost a 3ft Lithonia LED "shop light" yesterday in my basement. They're only 2-3yrs old.

 

[The Critic]

Are the current 4 footers located such that retrofitting them to LED would be an option?

So far I've never had a retrofit fail, but I've had store bought LED fixtures fail. Just lost a 3ft Lithonia LED "shop light" yesterday in my basement. They're only 2-3yrs old.

I have not had good success with retrofitting - I retrofitted one unit and between the LED tubes and the ballast, it cost me over $40 and the unit still hums and flickers periodically. I just updated the post with the link to a generic option that is the same price as doing my own retrofit.

 

[Creekside]

Maxima offers a really nice 4’ LED light. I have two that I use as portable work lights, slide them under a car or tractor face up on the floor. Works pretty slick for me anyway.

 

[dlundblad]

I got a quote from warehouse lighting.com for my pole barn for UFO style lights. $950. Somewhat of an odd designed, but I’d only have like 8 little lights to hang too.

I gave them the dimensions as well as the ceiling height and he made up a little blueprint of where to place the lights as well as what to use.

He told me I’d need something around 50-100 candle power for my intended use. (Automotive and woodworking) I think that was the terminology used.

 

[sloinker]

I've found these to be the best bang for the buck. Quite impressive and an easy retrofit. There are many different wattages and prices. I have six 90 watt fixtures in my garage in addition to the existing 8' HO fluorescents. I use them independently or together depending on need. Very impressive.
I bought mine through amazon.

https://www.newegg.com/p/0SW-01SS-0...bs-_-digiguard-_-9SIA8TCCXT9801&source=region

 

[Donald]

My 1 1/2 car garage just had 4 porcelain sockets. I put in the LED "corn cob" lights and its super bright in the garage now.

Like these:

 

[Snagglefoot]

What you selected there looks pretty good. It depends how far you want to go with this. The most important issue is to be able to get light unto your engine with the hood up. Running parallel to your bumper in front of the car works best. Next, running parallel to your doors just to the left and right of the car helps. Also above any work bench if you have one. LED would be good if you had a trustworthy brand. I have florescent bulbs that are now 9 years old and still going. I imagine I’ll go with LED’s when the fluorescents fail.

 

[Snagglefoot]

One way of doing a total re-fit is to use metal clad cable run along the ceiling and put the lights wherever you want. ( better yet get up in the attic if you can, or up amoungst the joists if it’s unfinished.)

 

[The Critic]

I decided to go with these:

There are currently 3 fixtures in the garage. Each fixture has two T8 tubes. I think they put out 2200-2500 lumens/ea, on average, so each assembly is 4400-5k lumens. As is, the garage is fairly dim. If the advertisement is correct, 8k lumens should be a noticeable upgrade.

 

[Oillover]

What you selected there looks pretty good. It depends how far you want to go with this. The most important issue is to be able to get light unto your engine with the hood up. Running parallel to your bumper in front of the car works best. Next, running parallel to your doors just to the left and right of the car helps.

I had a similar issue. Simply attaching a headlamp to my head perfectly addressed my lighting issue.
Sure, it's not permanent but on a "job to job" basis, it works perfectly.

 

[ondarvr]

You can find excellent LEDs for far less money.

There are several other current multi page threads on this subject to look at.

 

[RhondaHonda]

I have three of those fixtures you posted from Home Depot in the main 3 car garage that replaced 3 bare bulb fixtures. It’s much brighter now and I’m happy with them so far. This garage is mainly just for parking and storing kids toys so I don’t need as much light. You can string them together pretty easily if you need more fixtures or a different layout.

Edit-added a pic and I think they are the same, maybe the 4,000 lumen. I can’t remember now.

 

[Al]

What I did in my basement and garage is replace the yellow 100 Watt bulbs with Daylight ones. You can also screw a ""Y" in the socket and get more light. So I also replaced all my old fluorescent bulbs with led's (Daylight)

 

[funflyer]

I recently replaced 20 fluorescent T8 bulbs (10 fixtures) with hybrid LED's in my shop. These are so much better that I plan on replacing the 12 that are in my garage also. Hybrids are nice because you can leave the ballasts in or take them out, and it doesn't matter how the tombstones are wired. Best part is they only cost $98 for 20 bulbs.

Amazon LED Bulbs

 

[StevePLR]

You can always try LED strip lights or uplights, they give a cool ambience and can be calibrated for different RGB levels and powers.

Or like this:

 

[JHZR2]

I got a bunch of the GE LED retrofits for my shop, when they were announced on here to be $2 or so.

Theyre like 1800 lumen instead of the higher value from the t8 tubes, but I can’t tell. The led retrofits seem to be as bright.

The fluorescent tubes have higher CRI, for what it’s worth, so places where I want the best light I still have the t8 tubes.