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Finishing a garage; lighting suggestions


87Warrior
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As most of you know, I have moved into a real house with a garage. Now that I have helped my wife paint and hang random cra....stuff in the house I can now shift my attention to the unfinished garage.

 

During move in, its much more picked up now.

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Yes, my wifes car sits in the driveway while the rusty MJ sits inside...

 

What I am starting out with:

- Stud walls

- Some cabinets from a hospital

- No outlets or designated overhead lights

 

What I want:

- Something bright

- Something easy to clean

- Minimal shadows

 

For lighting I am thinking 4 sets of fluorescent overhead lights, one set along each garage bay (side, center, side) and one more in front of the vehicles for work bench lights. I am thinking about finishing the walls with basic vertical wood siding then painting it a light semi-gloss color. Probably do something similar for the for the ceiling, but maybe with 1/4" plywood. Unfortunately I cannot run any 220v in the garage since the breaker box is about full. But that will be installed in a detached shop once that time comes.

 

I am more or less just looking for opinions and ideas from those of you who have been there and done that.

 

Thanks!

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I'd have to double check what we have at work, but holy hell. I used to work in a dungeon. We had overhead lights, but I don't know if they cast shadows so much as lit anything up. I don't know what they were, but I would akin them to the lights you always see in a gym. Single bulb, huge bastards. Have to warm up before they fully come on. The new lights that we had installed are a fluorescent type. They replaced the fixtures over the winter, and it was almost literally a night and day difference. The owner of the electrical co we had put them in said they are the closest thing you can get to natural light. Super bright and crisp. We had people from the back of our shop walking past thinking we had the doors open in the middle of December because the light being cast from our area was so pure. The new lights look like really skinny tube fluorescents... I will grab a pic of them tomorrow if I am thinking about it. They only cost about $150 a unit, and are low E also.

 

Rob

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Check the lighting section at homodepot, you will be amazed.

:rotf:

 

T12s may be obsolete, but not junk. I used them because I got 10 6' double lamp fixtures for $5/ea, including the florescent tubes from a local salvage store. The fixtures were 220V, another reason I got them so cheap because nobody wanted 220V lamps. This was about twelve years ago, and maybe I've had to change 1 or 2 tubes in all that time.

 

As for the garage 220V feed, I added an 80A 220 double-pole main breaker in the house main electrical box and ran a new 4-conductor feed cable out to the garage and installed a new electrical box there. This box has breakers for everything in the garage; 220V and 110V receptacles, lighting, garage doors, loft circuits, etc. For sure I'd recommend the garage have it's own dedicated electrical breaker box.

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You have to paint Bright White. That cuts down on the shadows and increases the intensity of the light.

 

This.

 

As you know, I also recently moved into a new house with a garage. Luckily my garage already had all of the wiring and lighting installed, HOWEVER, I had a drop ceiling hanging about 2' from the bottom chords of the trusses, which gave me a low clearance garage that is completely useless for anything requiring a floor jack. I did a lot of research on the topic of garage ceilings and spent a lot of time on the Garage Journal Forums (that place is an amazing wealth of information for garages). The general consensus on optimal lighting for a garage is fluorescent lights with a bright white ceiling. A lot of guys recommended using white corrugated metal roofing panels on the ceiling as they are relatively cheap and easy to come by. I looked at doing it for my garage, but it was out of my price range as I'm still hemorrhaging from the closing costs and down payment to get my house. Instead, I put up some cheap OSB from Lowes with the intention of doing the corrugated metal down the road. Right now with OSB and fluorescent lighting my garage is very cave-ish, but luckily I have four windows for plenty of natural light in the daytime.

 

 

Whatever you go with, a drywall lift is a MUST, even if you have two people doing it, this will make the job go by 5X faster. I rented mine from Home Depot for $35/day. You can also purchase one on Amazon.com for $145 and then resell it on CL after you're finished with it: http://www.amazon.com/Pentagon-Lifter-Professional-Drywall-Hoist/dp/B00149E822/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335617387&sr=8-1

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I thought I heard something about the flourescents becoming discontinued due to our governement thinking they are dangerous or something. I have a bunch of them that the balests need replaced on. I thought their days were limited but I don't know when.

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Unfortunately I cannot run any 220v in the garage since the breaker box is about full. But that will be installed in a detached shop once that time comes.

You can use two breaker spaces for a feed to a sub-panel.

 

Post a photo of your breaker panel ... with the door open.

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I thought I heard something about the flourescents becoming discontinued due to our governement thinking they are dangerous or something. I have a bunch of them that the balests need replaced on. I thought their days were limited but I don't know when.

 

The T12s are considered to be obsolete, and eventually will be phased out of production (which will drive the lamp costs up, if nothing else, and ballasts may be hard to find). I don't know what the intended time frame for this is. T8s are now considered to be the low-end lamp. The T5s are new technology and will be around for a long time, they've only really been on the home consumer market for under a year.

 

Light output per watt is miles better on a T5 than an old T12 (or even a newer T8), and this is worth something in energy savings and wire size savings. They're also a physically smaller lamp, making it easier to hang fixtures and replace bulbs. Also, I hate the old magnetic ballasts that are commonly seen with T12s, since the humming from them drives me nuts. There isn't any of those for T5s.

 

If I had a bunch of T12 fixtures, or got them for a really good deal (like Hornbrod), I would use them... But if I was buying new, I'd buy the T5s and be done with it.

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My new to me house has a 3 car garage with 2 walls and the ceiling finished and painted with flat off white paint. When I moved in it had only 2 75 watt bulbs. The light was terrible. First thing I did was replace the 2 75 watt lamps with BIG screw in CFL, Next thing I did was mount three 4 ft. double T12 lamp fixtures in front of each car, so I could open the hood and have lots of light. I put new "Day Light" lamps in each fixture. I have 4 more T12 double lamp fixtures I planed to put on each side of all 3 cars. So far, I have not need to install them. The lamps came out of my old garage and my new kitchen/bathrooms.

 

The only money I have in my lights are for 50 ft of Romex and a box of Day Light lamps from Home Depot or Costco. And I have 300 watts of light in the garage. By the way, the T12 lamps don't make noise if you use an electronic ballast. The old ones with a "magnetic" ballast will make that humming sound.

 

Suggest you save the money you planned to spend on "finishing" the garage walls, invest it in more lamps and an electrical upgrade like Don suggested. You will be much happier, for way less $$ and less work!

 

I installed a pull down attic ladder in the garage. Then used salvaged 3/4 inch plywood to make a storage floor on top of the attic joists.(No thin plywood for me, I am just too heavy. Use this space for Xmas decorations and bulky things for my cars (like bumpers and old seats). Also watched CraigsList and got a whole bunch of Cosco $60, 6 ft high, 4 ft wide and 2 ft deep storage racks for $25 each. When we moved, tons of boxes went onto these shelves. Helped keep some order in the new place while we moved the thing in.

 

BTW, I have not done any electrical upgrade in the garage yet, but it does need more electrical service. The sub panel Don suggest sounds great, but I have no heavy duty electric tools (yet), what an excuse to buy more toys!

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Based on what I've read here, I believe we have the T5's. Here is a shot of the old lights in a dark corner we didn't swap fixtures in. Excuse the brightness near the front, I am standing in the shop where it's bright as all get out.

 

582802_368735306497296_100000824882082_946999_1096199715_n.jpg

 

Dark-ish light standing directly under the back lights:

 

559368_368735399830620_100000824882082_947001_1537948839_n.jpg

 

View into our shop with the T5's.

 

536016_368735503163943_100000824882082_947002_999042873_n.jpg

 

Super bright.

 

558731_368735613163932_100000824882082_947003_457599366_n.jpg

 

Brighter, more crisp light:

 

538834_368735713163922_100000824882082_947004_1827553617_n.jpg

 

View down the garage, the exposure of the camera makes it look brighter than it actually is... We have a couple of T5 fixtures down the way... You can notice that they are more of a pure white than a yellow.

 

149373_368735899830570_100000824882082_947005_1626679858_n.jpg

 

Rob

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I picked up my electrical supplies today. I got boxes, receptacles, switches, covers, wire, fixtures, bulbs and even a new spade bit to run wire.through the studs. Holy cow, when did the price of wire sky rocket!?!?!? But that is all I got done as my wife dragged me to several home decorating stores.

 

My shopping list, which my wife made fun of me for making:

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- 3 Shop T8's. They were dirt cheap and the display put out more light than the other fixtures

- 2 wet location covered fixtures. I found these with the lawn mower when we moved in

- lots of boxes and the goods to fill them

- wire that might as well be gold due to the cost

 

I have decided to take the following route:

- utilize the existing 15amp garage circuit (wired with 14/2) to power the lights, garage door openers and radon system

- run a new dedicated 20amp garage circuit (bought 12/2) for all of the outlets

 

I decided to forgo 220v since I currently do not own any tool or garage appliance which requires it. When the time comes and funds allow, I will have 220 in a dedicated workshop. It will be fed directly from the main disconnect at the meter. My meter is on a pole in the yard, not attached to the house.

 

It has always been a quirky dream of mine to have a finished garage. I will also insulate the walls since the it is on the north end of the house. Hanging siding is a piece of cake, I'll just be doing it inside and painting it bright white.

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We also recently bought a new house and are still poor from all the closing costs and needed repair . It has a 2 car attached finished garage with brown paneling also insulated only 8' ceilings and very few outlets on 14-2 and the only lights were the door openers and two of the old single screw in fixtures. I just bought 5 of the cheapest 2 bulb fixtures lowes had. There quite bright for the money but now you guys have me wanting to paint the paneling white. We had to rewire most all of the house and run a sub to the garage well over 1000 feet of 12-2 and 125 feet of 8-4 aluminum for the sub wanted copper but the price was crazy. I used cantex grey wire channel in the garage for everything much quicker and I like the industrial look. The garage and house both now have all 12-2 now with the garage on the 20 amp outlets and switches. No 220 yet as I just don't need it but with the sub panel its there when ready. I have not added up all the rewiring cost but I am sure it was around $2000.00 in supplys alone labor was free a retired contractor friend and I have been doing it all. I finally have a nice place to work even put heat in it was just getting into things for the MJ even bought a new mig and now I go and fracture my ankle and can't do crap. :fs1: I did however just a few days ago after I finished the wiring hang my Comanche calender on the wall!

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