Need some recommendations for garage lighting

Danny9447537

Danny9447537

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Hey guys,

I had just received my products from Autogeek and I'm eager to do a full detail on my vehicle but there's just one problem, my garage lighting sucks! I have one light that's hard mounted to my ceiling and it's barely giving off any light.

What should I do? Should I go to Lowe's and buy those work lights or should I order one online? Any suggestions? Thanks for reading!

P.S. Here are some of my products and the one light that I have in my garage.

I also like to give a huge thanks to MARKD51 for giving me extremely helpful tips in picking out my polisher and products.
 
I had the exact same issue. I went down to my local hardware store (ace hardware) and picked up two kinds of lights.

1. Standing Dual Halogen on pedestal with variable height.
2. 1 extra large LED on mini pedestal with fixed height.

These two lights cover almost all bases well for me and also provide two types of lights to inspect work.

I personally used the LED a lot more as it does not give off any heat and lasts for hours.
 
Wow Danny, that's quite a collection of goodies you've amassed in short order! You've definitely been studying from some of the "Jedi Masters" here "young Luke"! :-)

When I lived in Chicago, I decked out my 2-car brick garage with a slew of 48" bright white Floro Lights.

I had gotten them fairly cheap at somewhere like Home Depot, the fixtures, and a whole box of Lamps. Got some adequate lamp cord, some plugs, hung them at strategic areas across the ceiling, and at the sides where the walls meet the ceiling angled towards the center of the garage.

If memory serves me correctly, I had a total of eight 48" fixtures. The garage was bright! And one thing about flourescents lamps, you see everything!

Every little swirl, sleek, fingerprint, smudge, speck of dust shows up.

Downside with Floro Lamps, is that in quite cold temps they take a while to warm up and settle down. Other than that, they run cool, won't give you sun tan lines like some of the high powered and high heat Halogens will. (Still, a halogen lamp or two on a stand do come in handy for close work, and inspection that you can then move around to an area you're working on)

I don't think the entire fixture installation cost me more than $100 total, if that. I think I remember buying an entire 12 box of 48" lamps for something like $9-$10. And the single 48" fixtures with ballasts were about the same price as well.

I wired all to an additional power strip, thus simple to walk into the garage, flick the switch, and light this optional lighting when I detailed.
 
Originally I had 10 dual bulb fluoescents in a two car garage plus several drop drowns. Pulls about 6.5A. Tube lights on the floor for working under a car (prefer tube or CFCs because they do not get hot).

How to run depends on your ceiling but is not difficult. Easiest way is to daisy chain the lights and run to a wall socket.

When I built the big garage I followed the old rule about lights and wall sockets: "If enough is good more is better." with four foot fluorescents on an 8 foot grid, a dual 20A wall socket every 8 feet around the perimeter 3 feet off the ground, and 220v sockets front and rear. A professional would probably add air lines around the perimeter but I just use hoses and a central compressor.

Key point is to plot where vehicles will be that you will be working on and spot two dual tube lights on each side about three feet fron the car, one about three feet in front and another about three feet in back. A light over a car does very little good for work.

Just a minor part but a flat ceiling over stored cars allows for overhead storage when strengthened but a cathedral ceiling using scissors trusses over the work area makes it easy to pull an engine.
 
Hi,

I use 3 fixtures, for a total of 6, 4 foot florescent bulbs. I'm using the skinny bulbs. This provides very good overall garage lighting. I also use a tripod mounted halogen light, for detailing.

Caution: It does not happen frequently, but florescent lights can explode, this happened to an Autogeek forum member.

Get & install florescent light bulb (plastic) protectors, very cheap. After reading about this here, next time at Home Depot, I bought 6 for approx $10.00.
 
I used to have Duel Halogen Work lights and they lit up the garage quite well. The problem was those lamps generated so much heat it was difficult to work in. Additionally, they sapped too much electric power. It actually triggered the breakers a few times. I am now using LED lights and am pretty happy with the set up I have. I was finally able to figure out what LED bulbs to use to have a somewhat comparable lighting like the Halogens.

My garage is significantly cooler and I am not triggering any breakers and my electricity bill has gone down. I can use more than one machine too.

The LED stands are lighter and less bulky than the halogen lamps too. You can move the LED lamps to areas of your vehicle for better lighting (about 2 feet behind you). With the Halogens it was too hot to have behind you because of the heat they generated. Additionally the Duel Lamps were bulkier and very hot to the touch.

The only drawback is that the LED Lights are more expensive but not enough to destroy your wallet. However, in the long run I can work with the garage closed and get better lighting in areas that were difficult to see because of the flexibility of the lights.

Get a couple of extension cords and a surge protector and about 2 LED Lights with stands and you will be set-up.

I know there is a thread about lighting here on AGO and I actually did what the OP said as well as product (get it on Amazon) and it was awesome for my set-up in my garage. The LED lighting is from a photo Studio Lighting system. Same concept of lighting except for your garage when detailing.
 
Kamakaz1961 said:
I used to have Duel Halogen Work lights and they lit up the garage quite well. The problem was those lamps generated so much heat it was difficult to work in. Additionally, they sapped too much electric power. It actually triggered the breakers a few times. I am now using LED lights and am pretty happy with the set up I have. I was finally able to figure out what LED bulbs to use to have a somewhat comparable lighting like the Halogens.

My garage is significantly cooler and I am not triggering any breakers and my electricity bill has gone down. I can use more than one machine too.

The LED stands are lighter and less bulky than the halogen lamps too. You can move the LED lamps to areas of your vehicle for better lighting (about 2 feet behind you). With the Halogens it was too hot to have behind you because of the heat they generated. Additionally the Duel Lamps were bulkier and very hot to the touch.

The only drawback is that the LED Lights are more expensive but not enough to destroy your wallet. However, in the long run I can work with the garage closed and get better lighting in areas that were difficult to see because of the flexibility of the lights.

Get a couple of extension cords and a surge protector and about 2 LED Lights with stands and you will be set-up.

I know there is a thread about lighting here on AGO and I actually did what the OP said as well as product (get it on Amazon) and it was awesome for my set-up in my garage. The LED lighting is from a photo Studio Lighting system. Same concept of lighting except for your garage when detailing.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I think I actually stumbled upon that thread while searching for LED lamps. I think the thread was called "DIY garage lighting." I'll definitely check that out later on today, thank you!
 
MarkD51 said:
Wow Danny, that's quite a collection of goodies you've amassed in short order! You've definitely been studying from some of the "Jedi Masters" here "young Luke"! :-)

When I lived in Chicago, I decked out my 2-car brick garage with a slew of 48" bright white Floro Lights.

I had gotten them fairly cheap at somewhere like Home Depot, the fixtures, and a whole box of Lamps. Got some adequate lamp cord, some plugs, hung them at strategic areas across the ceiling, and at the sides where the walls meet the ceiling angled towards the center of the garage.

If memory serves me correctly, I had a total of eight 48" fixtures. The garage was bright! And one thing about flourescents lamps, you see everything!

Every little swirl, sleek, fingerprint, smudge, speck of dust shows up.

Downside with Floro Lamps, is that in quite cold temps they take a while to warm up and settle down. Other than that, they run cool, won't give you sun tan lines like some of the high powered and high heat Halogens will. (Still, a halogen lamp or two on a stand do come in handy for close work, and inspection that you can then move around to an area you're working on)

I don't think the entire fixture installation cost me more than $100 total, if that. I think I remember buying an entire 12 box of 48" lamps for something like $9-$10. And the single 48" fixtures with ballasts were about the same price as well.

I wired all to an additional power strip, thus simple to walk into the garage, flick the switch, and light this optional lighting when I detailed.
Click to expand...

Wow that sounds pretty cheap for $10. I didn't think flouro lighting would be that great but I will give that a whirl. CHEAP lighting is always a plus!
 
padgett said:
Originally I had 10 dual bulb fluoescents in a two car garage plus several drop drowns. Pulls about 6.5A. Tube lights on the floor for working under a car (prefer tube or CFCs because they do not get hot).

How to run depends on your ceiling but is not difficult. Easiest way is to daisy chain the lights and run to a wall socket.

When I built the big garage I followed the old rule about lights and wall sockets: "If enough is good more is better." with four foot fluorescents on an 8 foot grid, a dual 20A wall socket every 8 feet around the perimeter 3 feet off the ground, and 220v sockets front and rear. A professional would probably add air lines around the perimeter but I just use hoses and a central compressor.

Key point is to plot where vehicles will be that you will be working on and spot two dual tube lights on each side about three feet fron the car, one about three feet in front and another about three feet in back. A light over a car does very little good for work.

Just a minor part but a flat ceiling over stored cars allows for overhead storage when strengthened but a cathedral ceiling using scissors trusses over the work area makes it easy to pull an engine.
Click to expand...

My garage is only a 1-car but I'd like to see how many I can fit for optimal lighting. I hate leaving the garage open because dust tends to fly my way so hopefully it all works out. I'm not knowledgeable in hard-wiring so I might just daisy chain everything and run them to a socket.
 
emmjaygti said:
I had the exact same issue. I went down to my local hardware store (ace hardware) and picked up two kinds of lights.

1. Standing Dual Halogen on pedestal with variable height.
2. 1 extra large LED on mini pedestal with fixed height.

These two lights cover almost all bases well for me and also provide two types of lights to inspect work.

I personally used the LED a lot more as it does not give off any heat and lasts for hours.
Click to expand...

How many lumens is that LED light on the pedestal?
 
Anyone use the long tube LEDs from Costco? They are very affordable.
 
Hey guys, just bought two Lithonia shoplights and I ran into another problem...

The fixture trips my GFCI breaker when I use more than 1 bulb (uses 2 bulbs per fixture) and I've ran out of ideas to have them not trip.

What should I do?
 
Danny9447537 said:
Hey guys, just bought two Lithonia shoplights and I ran into another problem...

The fixture trips my GFCI breaker when I use more than 1 bulb (uses 2 bulbs per fixture) and I've ran out of ideas to have them not trip.

What should I do?
Click to expand...

I suspect the problem is that some Floro fixtures with a capacitor can trip a GFCI Breaker, or outlet. Any outlets that are non-GFCI available in the garage?
 
Can you possibly tap in somewhere, into a junction box, hardwiring the the light(s), and bypassing any GFCI Outlet(s)?
 
MarkD51 said:
Can you possibly tap in somewhere, into a junction box, hardwiring the the light(s), and bypassing any GFCI Outlet(s)?
Click to expand...

I don't know how to do that, but if I could I would. All the outlets (non GFCI) in the garage are controlled by that one GFCI outlet. It also controls the garage door.
 
Danny9447537 said:
I don't know how to do that, but if I could I would. All the outlets (non GFCI) in the garage are controlled by that one GFCI outlet. It also controls the garage door.
Click to expand...

Do you possibly mean to say that all outlets in the garage, and the garage door also are on the same GFCI Breaker in the Electrical Panel?

Where there's a will, there's a way somehow probably, without tearing into walls, or running a legit new line, conduit, boxes, the whole nine yards.

Such as, is there any way you could then possibly run an extension cord from somewhere else (house-etc?)

That at least a couple-few lights could be added, plugged to a Power strip, and the power strip then gets its electricity from another source?

I did something very similar, and simple here, attaching a Halogen Lamp to the underside of my carport canopy. That I have AC in my tool sheds, and then simply run an extension cord to it when I need it for detailing horizontal panels hood-roof-trunk on the vehicles.

Here you can see it in this pic.
 
I was at Costco the other day and they had a really nice Snap On L E D light , looked like a halogen stand light . Price was right under $40 if I remember correctly.
 
Danny9447537 said:
How many lumens is that LED light on the pedestal?
Click to expand...

Not so sure about Lumens as I threw the box away but it says "30W LED" at the back.

Edit: According to Ace hardware website:
30 watt
2400 Lumens
Compact design
Steel
12 ft. 18'3 SJTW cord
Rainproof rated (IP545 rated)
Premium Bridgelux COB LED
No replacement bulb needed - rated at 100,000 hours of continuous use
LED lamp remains cool to the touch

View attachment 38231
 
Suspect in the future the 20th century's greatest invention will be "cold light".
 
MarkD51 said:
Do you possibly mean to say that all outlets in the garage, and the garage door also are on the same GFCI Breaker in the Electrical Panel?

Where there's a will, there's a way somehow probably, without tearing into walls, or running a legit new line, conduit, boxes, the whole nine yards.

Such as, is there any way you could then possibly run an extension cord from somewhere else (house-etc?)

That at least a couple-few lights could be added, plugged to a Power strip, and the power strip then gets its electricity from another source?

I did something very similar, and simple here, attaching a Halogen Lamp to the underside of my carport canopy. That I have AC in my tool sheds, and then simply run an extension cord to it when I need it for detailing horizontal panels hood-roof-trunk on the vehicles.

Here you can see it in this pic.
Click to expand...

Love the wheels on that truck! Yeah, all the outlets in the garage and the door are all controlled by that GFCI breaker/outlet. Kind of weird. I ended up going back to the hardware store for an LED lamp. I wish I would've thought about the extension cord idea a lot sooner but I'll keep that in mind.
 
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