Garage lighting

[NYEngineer]

When I bought my house, the area I designated as a workshop in the basement was lit with a single 60 watt bulb. Completely useless.
I used two LED fixtures from HF. Absolutely perfect. Now that my youngest is in his senior year of college, I'm finally building the 24x36 garage I've wanted for years. I plan on using the same lights.

 

[Donald]

I have three 8' x 2 bulb fluorescent lights. Bought LED bulbs where I could gut the fixture of ballast and rewire the inside of the fixture for the LED bulbs.

I figured with new fixtures I might need to move wiring in the ceiling and did not want to get into that.

 

[barbersurgeon]

When I bought my house, the area I designated as a workshop in the basement was lit with a single 60 watt bulb. Completely useless.
I used two LED fixtures from HF. Absolutely perfect. Now that my youngest is in his senior year of college, I'm finally building the 24x36 garage I've wanted for years. I plan on using the same lights.

Go 28’ deep. It’s a huge difference in the move around/bench area.

 

[barbersurgeon]

Thinking of adding some LED strip lights near ceiling height on a couple of walls to help fill in light at different angles.

 

[JHZR2]

Post in thread 'Who knows garage lighting'

Sep 4, 2025

I like 3000-5000K for task lighting. For large expansive spaces, I’ve had good luck with the 5000K 8’ 15k lumen tube-style lights.

I might even ditch the cans, use a lightbulb to outlet adapter, and then just link the bulbs.

https://a.co/d/aanEi1Q

Just four of these across the ridge of my 1000 sf loft puts out more than enough light. And they link together. Adding more would make it super bright.

• JHZR2

• 

 

[Speedbird001]

Do you have access above the ceiling?

My 2-car came with the standard 2 single [bare] bulbs... I languished for hours looking at awesome solutions, but a year later had done nothing. I do have access above. So to just get something done, I measured out a 3x3 square and surface mounted 9 shallow 11-b boxes. Climbed up into the attic and ran 14-2 between the 9 boxes (Eliminating) the 2 original hanging bulbs lights. Wired up and mounted the standard 4k "puck" lights from Amazon.

Is it perfect / 100% ideal for everything? No. but for ~$250 it is excellent and 10x better than the builder [minimum code] and looks pretty slick. (Price of wire is a shocker! ~$1/ft That was ~1/2 the total project cost) FWIW, my last house I connected a bunch of Horror Freight LED shop lights... Got the job done, but was a bit jankey... This way better for a minimum amount more.

 

[NYEngineer]

Go 28’ deep. It’s a huge difference in the move around/bench area.

I'm going 24 wide and 36 deep. It was originally going to be 24x30 until I realized how much space all of my tools are going to take up.

 

[GaryMX5]

Do you have access above the ceiling?

My 2-car came with the standard 2 single [bare] bulbs... I languished for hours looking at awesome solutions, but a year later had done nothing. I do have access above. So to just get something done, I measured out a 3x3 square and surface mounted 9 shallow 11-b boxes. Climbed up into the attic and ran 14-2 between the 9 boxes (Eliminating) the 2 original hanging bulbs lights. Wired up and mounted the standard 4k "puck" lights from Amazon.

Is it perfect / 100% ideal for everything? No. but for ~$250 it is excellent and 10x better than the builder [minimum code] and looks pretty slick. (Price of wire is a shocker! ~$1/ft That was ~1/2 the total project cost) FWIW, my last house I connected a bunch of Horror Freight LED shop lights... Got the job done, but was a bit jankey... This way better for a minimum amount more.

I recently did some wiring in my son's attic in Dallas and was shocked (pun intended) by wiring costs especially for shorter lengths (25'). You can get it for 50 cents or so per foot for a 250 foot bundle of 14-2, but I sure didn't need that much nor have future projects to justify buying it.

 

[B6_Dolphin]

I did drywall-depth (5/8") LED Strip lights when I remodeled, er, gutted to the studs, my garage in '22:

https://www.alconlighting.com/