Led lights in the new garage

[knobless]

Makes a world of difference, when the old eyeballs are starting to go, 9 8 foot LEDs in a 24x32 shop/Garage, the only way

to go, plus the reflection off the insulation does wonders, 

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by knobless (see edit history)

[ILIKECARS53]

Put 8 ft LEDS in the new garage, best thing I ever did.   Jim

[HarryLime]

Yes , I agree too. No excuses now , "I can't find it anywhere."

[alsancle]

If you have old style screw in fixtures you can get a 200 watt equivalent LED bulb that is something like 20 watts.  It brightens things up quite a bit.

 

The best upgrade would be to the 8 footers,  I agree with that.

[Larry Schramm]

I put six 4 ft LED lights up in the house garage.  They are the best.  Plan on doing the same for my shop some day.

[28 Chrysler]

I put 40  4 ft LED lights up there is no flickering unless I run one of the ceiling fans that the blades go under a light.

My shop area is 42' X 30' X 12' with no windows, one more 4 footer above a work bench.

[TAKerry]

5 minutes ago, 28 Chrysler said:

I put 40  4 ft LED lights up there is no flickering unless I run one of the ceiling fans that the blades go under a light.

My shop area is 42' X 30' X 12' with no windows, one more 4 footer above a work bench.

Thats a lot of light. About the same size as my shop, I have 8 - 4 footers. Shameless plug but I got them from amazon in a bulk package of 10 I think. They were something like $15 a light buying that way.

[John348]

I am in the process of doing it now, what a difference! Ballast's and fluorescent lamps were getting pricy and harder and harder to find 

[28 Chrysler]

TAKerry

I got a deal on 5 boxes of 10 at about $8 each.

[TexRiv_63]

Before I had my cataracts removed my garage, with old fluorescent shoplights, had gotten very dim. I added one new 4 foot dual strip LED lamp and was amazed at the difference. It became less of an issue with the cataracts gone but I still plan to replace everything with LED's.

[kings32]

replaced have my lites does agreat job . Those pictures of your garages are to clean to be working in !  Howard

[Robert Street]

9 hours ago, John348 said:

I am in the process of doing it now, what a difference! Ballast's and fluorescent lamps were getting pricy and harder and harder to find 

What about ability to do car detailing work without a couple 500W quartz lights. Any thoughts if still need them

Robert

[Taylormade]

Love my LEDs, but I had my first set fail when the temperature went below zero.  The company replaced them, but I’m careful no to try them in very low temperatures.  If you turn them on and they flicker, kill the power immediately.

[nick8086]

I like them also..

 

I looked at this - never got them..

[nick8086]

Commercial Electric's 16 in. Integrated LED Flush Mount Ceiling Light . I put up 9 in one garage and Three in the other garage..

 

Just make sure you buy 6 more to replace them..

 

The stuff from over sea is not great.. The Drivers go bad..

 

In six years we replaced 3 of them..

 

I put 2 in my son garage. He love them..

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by nick8086 (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

Put in the LED's and paint areas of the floor white. Makes for that "Bathed in Light" look, waist deep anyway.

 

Nine 8 footers in a 26 X 40' and two more 4 footers to put up for when the overhead door is open.

 

[kuhner]

I replaced my fluorescent lights with LED.  Brighter but I think they cause more of a drastic shadow.  The light doesn’t seem to work it’s way under stuff like it used to. Make sense or am I just crazy. 

[TexRiv_63]

1 hour ago, Mark I said:

Changed both my garage and shop to LED in 2018/19. Garage is unheated and I live in MN. No issues with them at all so far. Replaced 5 four foot, four tube fluorescent fixtures. Good riddance to them.

 

Mark

Impressive Beers and Buicks!

[edinmass]

When building my last bay, I had it at 220 luminosity at six feet off the floor. A Ferrari dealership showroom is 160. Plus, I added in LED detail floodlights every three feet on top of the overhead lights. The electrical engineer asked if I was going to shoot porno in the bay, and if so it was twice as bright as a Hollywood set. The good news is I can work without drop lights.......... under the lift. It can give you a headache at full brightness, so we only turn it up to max when needed. AJ and a few others can attest to it being the best lit bay they have ever seen.

Edited July 18, 2021 by edinmass (see edit history)

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

1 hour ago, edinmass said:

When building my last bay, I had it at 220 luminosity at six feet off the floor. A Ferrari dealership showroom is 160. Plus, I added in LED detail floodlights every three feet on top of the overhead lights. The electrical engineer asked if I was going to shoot porno in the bay, and if so it was twice as bright as a Hollywood set. The good news is I can work without drop lights.......... under the lift. It can give you a headache at full brightness, so we only turn it up to max when needed. AJ and a few others can attest to it being the best lit bay they have ever seen.

 

And this consisted of?

 

  Ben

[edinmass]

Bruce, are you asking about fixtures?

[nick8086]

14 hours ago, kuhner said:

I replaced my fluorescent lights with LED.  Brighter but I think they cause more of a drastic shadow.  The light doesn’t seem to work it’s way under stuff like it used to. Make sense or am I just crazy. 

I put light dimmer switch on one  garage .. I can have bright or ???

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

16 hours ago, edinmass said:

Bruce, are you asking about fixtures?

 

 I think so!  As, did this require installing fixtures lower, or just brighter fixtures?  Or aiming?  Curious is all.

 

  Thanks

   BEN

[zeke01]

I opted to modify my existing eight foot single fluorescent fixtures to accept LEDs. Not long afterwards one half of one of my tubes went dark. The seller replaced it and told me that an eight foot tube is actually two four foot tubes linked together and sometimes the link between them separates. The light is much improved with LEDs. Zeke

[60FlatTop]

22 hours ago, Mark I said:

Changed both my garage and shop to LED in 2018/19. Garage is unheated and I live in MN. No issues with them at all so far. Replaced 5 four foot, four tube fluorescent fixtures. Good riddance to them.

 

Mark

I am impressed at how few items on the flat surfaces were disturbed during the installation.

[SC38dls]

I keep one 4’ LED as a trouble light. I only have two on the ceiling. Works great for under the car lighting and under hoods that don’t open as far as I would like. Easy to move around to where I need it. Old eyes need more light! 
dave s 

Edited July 19, 2021 by SC38DLS (see edit history)

[JACK M]

2 hours ago, SC38DLS said:

Old eyes need more light! 

 

Yup !!

[knobless]

4 hours ago, JACK M said:

 

Yup !!

Love the signature👍👍

[erichill]

I did the same this past winter and difference is light and day! Best $200 i ever spent  9 8' strips in a 14'x 40' garage lights the place up.

[DavidMc]

After reading all this, I removed my 30 year old fluorescents today and replaced them with LED's.  The improvement is incredible, I think I will need to wear sunglasses in my garage!

[STEVE POLLARD]

Great subject.... I have a 24x24 detached and my original fluorescents are starting to fail ( structure was built in 2008 ) They are 4' in length, so do the LED's need an adaptor to fit in the current fixture ?

 

Steve  

[alsancle]

13 minutes ago, STEVE POLLARD said:

Great subject.... I have a 24x24 detached and my original fluorescents are starting to fail ( structure was built in 2008 ) They are 4' in length, so do the LED's need an adaptor to fit in the current fixture ?

 

Steve  

 

 

 

If you are replacing florescents you need to replace the entire fixture.   There is not a twist in LED replacement bulb.

 

There are LED bulbs for most incandescent applications.   The LED bulb requires a driver to convert the line voltage to low voltage and do some other stuff I don't understand.   With the replacement bulbs the driver is built in to the bottom of the bulb.

Edited July 22, 2021 by alsancle (see edit history)

[STEVE POLLARD]

30 minutes ago, alsancle said:

If you are replacing florescents you need to replace the entire fixture.

It figures.... I have 8 fixtures in the garage, well I'll just add it to my "to do" list around the house......Thanks for the info !

[TAKerry]

The new led fixtures are cheap enough, especially if you buy in bulk. Not worth the aggrevation of trying to convert.

[zeke01]

I converted my four foot fluorescent fixtures into LED by removing the ballast and wiring one tombstone hot and the other negative. I then installed a “plug and play” tube in and turned the switch back on. There are plenty of tutorials online.Not complicated. Zeke

[Bloo]

1 hour ago, TAKerry said:

The new led fixtures are cheap enough, especially if you buy in bulk. Not worth the aggrevation of trying to convert.

 

Having done both, I have to agree. Only do that if you need to keep the fixtures for appearance. Don't get the cheapest fixtures though, Pay attention to lumens so you don't wind up with something dimmer. You can probably increase light output while still drastically reducing power cost.

 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Bloo (see edit history)

[wws944]

I replaced almost all the incandescents in my house about 10 years ago and have not looked back.  Back then, the early LED bulbs were in the $20-$30/each range, compared to a $0.50 incandescent.  But once I calculated the 10x reduction in electric costs, especially in places like the kids bedrooms (lights on at 3 pm when they get home from school, not turned off until 10 pm to midnight) and the kitchen, I realized that the payback was two years or less.  Today costs have dropped so much, there is no reason to ever go back.  (Special purpose places like inside the oven excepted.)

 

Fluorescents not as clear cut.  Only maybe a 2x reduction in power going to LED.  But properly done, high CRI (>90) LED light quality is way better than typical fluorescents, and no 'warm up' or flickering.  So I've converted many of them as well.  Sad to say I'm not in the garage enough to swap my 4' garage fluorescents yet.  If/when I do, I will de-ballast the fixtures, and wire direct to the tombstones as suggested a couple posts ago.

[Dodgedude37]

 

There called high bay fixtures. Down right blinding don't look up.

[Jim Bollman]

My shop is roughly 28'X50' with half shop and half storage. I converted the shop end to LED when I stated converting the garage at our current place into a shop. I put ten 4' single strip LEDs around the outer parameter and 5 double 4' strips up, 4 down the middle and one over the bench. It is like daylight. I took down four 4' double fluorescence that were installed, I moved 3 to the storage end to supplement the 4 that was already there. I also added 2 screw in sockets bulbs on the storage end that currently has a really bright twisty fluorescence from my old shop and a rely bright screw in LED. This two are wired with the shop lights and 90% of the time that is all the light I need in that end. I went with what Lowe's was selling at the time and before I finished the project price dropped in half when they decided to change what they carried and closed out the old stock, so I added a bunch more lights then instead of waiting for later.

[keithb7]

I bought my first LED garage light today.  Is it 4 ft long but has 4 tubes of LED lamps. Looks like 4 fluorescent tubes, but are LED.  The entire fixture puts out 7,000 lumens. That was the highest output I could find at Home Depot here. I was shopping based mainly on lumen output.  The length and size of an LED light matters less to me, than the total lumen output. 
 

I am very happy with my purchase. I plan to buy 5 more. For a total to 6 lights, amassing 42,000 lumens.  I may need a welding mask on full time. Lol.