Proper garage lighting

rockford33

rockford33

New member
Well, I just bought my first house :eek: (closing in Septmeber). After signing my life away for a mortgage, I will need to properly light the garage (one car garage in a townhouse). The garage is kinda small, but doable. Only one 60 watt nulb lights it up at the moment. What do you guys use for lighting? I was thinking of replacing the bulb with a twin flourescent tube fixture. Would this be bright enough? There is also an outlet in the ceiling (I don't think it is attached to a switch). I thought about adding a second flourescent fixture to that for some extra light when needed. Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks,
Neil
 
If you are considering detailing, and your at a stage where you would like to build a very nice setup, I would recommend mercury vapor bulbs. You would need a set of fixtures that are on a switch of their own, becuase I doubt you would want to use them on a normal basis. However, for finding scratches and swirls, outside of normal sunlight, this is about as good as it gets.
 
This is just for my own personal use. I don't really want to get into any re-wiring of switches, etc., as this is only a starter home.
 
Its not really all that complicated to do, do you have a friend who is an electrician? He could wire it up, and perhaps even help with the mercury vapor fixtures.

If you dont want to go with the mercury vapor, I would get as many flourescent bulbs as you can muster.
 
rockford33 said:
This is just for my own personal use. I don't really want to get into any re-wiring of switches, etc., as this is only a starter home.
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I understand and Tassadar actually added some good insight here that you can't replace sun light....some indoor lighting will drive you nuts...you will see things that will never be seen outside where the rest of the world sees you car...
limited ceiling height is usually also a problem if it's just a normal garage...

at home depot they sell a set of small halogen lights that you can angle and attach almost anywhere with an extention cord...they are very low wattage but put out great light....

mercury or flouresent lighting in a small garage will end up driving you nuts...same with too powerful halogens...
 
I agree

I agree with lighting. I am Optical Engineer/Program Manager for GE when I am not detailing cars :) My set up at home has a combination of fluorescent tubes and halogen. I have a 2 car garage and I have a few haolgens on the cieling and about 8 double tube fluorescent fixtures. I like to see as much on the surface, but when possible I do pull the garage out for natural light to make sure I am not over compensating for surface imperfections which are not readily viewable in natural sunlight. The problem I have with arc discharge lighting goes back the the spectrums of light available. Sodium lights too much yellow, arc discharge too much blue, not enough red component. Just my two cents.

-Matt
 
What I do when I work on a swirled area is use a small LED light, preferrably the highest contrast color possible (blue is best, green works as well) and it can show me just about anything. Sometimes I swear I see stuff thats not there, because I can never get it out.
 
You can get color corrected bulbs that are meant to match sunlight as close as posible. They can be incandecant or florecant. We use these in our paint booths at the shop i work at. They are not perfect but they are very pleasing to work around and are much better than standard florecent bulbs.
 
Koop, have you tried mercury vapor? I havent ever seen or used them myself, but they seem to get raving reviews, any comments?
 
Thanks for the tips everyone. Since it is a rather small garage, I think I will replace the incandescent bulb with a flourescent twin fixture, and then get a couple of low wattage halogen fixtures like Poorboy suggested and plug those into the ceiling outlet. I think that might best balance the color spectrum while still providing enough light. Does anyone think that the fact that the car parked in there is bright red will make a difference as to the kind of lighting required?
 
Tassadar said:
Koop, have you tried mercury vapor? I havent ever seen or used them myself, but they seem to get raving reviews, any comments?
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No i haven't tried them at all. I may have to look into it though. They sound like they could be nice. Rock, What you have proposed sounds good. I would get more florecant lights thouh. In my bay at work i have 12 double bulb 8' fixtures. Still want more though.
 
Koop your ceiling in the shop is probably much higher , needing more bulbs and light ....a 10 x 20 garage won't need that much...more on angles than just plain overhead light to get a better view in a tight area
 
I just went to home depot and seen some awsome Flourecent lights for 24.99 the are pretty big 4 feet long probley 9-10 inchs wide give off alot of light come in so many styles also.
 
I just recently went to home depot and bought some of the handing 2 bulb flourescent shop lights. They cost about $10 or so...they don't have a cover and they hang by two chains. I put them around the perimeter of the car area. The only thing now though is the rear of the car isn't that well lit because of my garage door...I can't put any lights there because of the clearance
 
same here I was thinking of gettin those flourecent screw in bulbs rated at 150 watts but they where 11 a peace I rather just get the big long tube set for 24.
 
Poorboy said:
Koop your ceiling in the shop is probably much higher , needing more bulbs and light ....a 10 x 20 garage won't need that much...more on angles than just plain overhead light to get a better view in a tight area
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bah 28' isn't very high! j/k. you're right. I actualy realised this after i posted. I think i would be satisfied with what i have if it where in a smaller area. I don't think i would get any less than what i have though.
 
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