Garage Lighting - What does Santa generally recommend

New house, still trying to figure out what we need to buy for it. My parents keep asking what Santa is bringing for Christmas and since the bathrooms/kitchens are still in the planning phase I don't know what to tell them.

Until just now when the fluorescent lights in the garage were flickering on and off while I was trying to work on something (side note...should I just fix these? new ballast?)

I have one 4 foot fixture for a 20x22 (I think) garage. Ideally I would rock out like Corey Hart while I need to work on the car/bikes/boat/projects. What kind of fixtures and how many would you recommend?

LED. Lots.
Even more than you're thinking.

Modern thin bulb fixtures are like $10 a piece at walmart. Buy six, and a 12 pack of bulbs, and it will be so bright you'll never have an issue again.

17x27 basement shop. I have 13 4 foot fixtures so far, and it is still not enough. With white walls and a reflective floor.

As many 4ft T8 fixtures as the lighting circuit will handle. There isn't such a thing as too much light in a garage you work in until you hit a point of needing sunglasses.

I second the T8's. There is a school of thought to position them parallel to the cars, but I'm happy with mine across the garage. I've got 20 four foot fixtures in a 1200 square foot garage. It's enough.

Before you so anything, make sure your wiring is up to snuff. That flickering and slow starting could be a bad ground.

Go to garagejournal.com. There is a subforum dedicated to lighting and electrical in garages.

I could tan in our new barn, and with EVERYTHING running, including two 50 watt LED spotlights front and back, 12 LED strip fixtures, 4 LED counter sunk fixtures and 4 LED jelly jars, we draw 8.3 amps...

This is 6 fixtures

I switched from a bunch of T5 florescents to Feit LEDs from Costco and I wouldn't go back if you paid me to. It's literally like night and day, especially in cold weather. I'm a LED convert, 100%.

Garage Journal thread on the Costco lights: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=270879

Get a Costco membership, then get Feit LED fixtures.

I had several cheap 4' fluorescent lamps and swapped out the bulbs for led replacement ones and couldn't be happier.

I went with GE "ET14" fixtures, which are flush-mount LED panels originally intended for drop ceilings but with an available drywall mounting kit. They're definitely not cheap, but I'm very pleased with the results.

Heated? Floresent.

Unheated? LED.

Basil Exposition wrote: make sure your wiring is up to snuff. That flickering and slow starting could be a bad ground.

No way is it a bad ground. More likely weak ballast or cold temps. This isn't a car, the grounds in residential wiring carry no current unless there is a short circuit.

While overhead lights are important I find that task lights above work spaces matter more. Nothing worse than casting a shadow on your workbench.

Dietcoke wrote: Modern thin bulb fixtures are like $10 a piece at walmart. Buy six, and a 12 pack of bulbs, and it will be so bright you'll never have an issue again.

A high output compact fluorescent fixture puts out more light than a traditional 4' fixture with about half the wattage, so you can double up fixtures and get 3-4x the light. LED hasn't gotten cheap enough for my household yet, but they are the future.

At work, we swapped a good portion of the plant over to LED a few months ago and it's been awesome. Way brighter light in a more useful spectrum. Plus, the energy savings are expected to pay for the project within a few years. Go LED.

Over on the Garage Journal web board one of the members has been kind enough to create a number of lighting layouts with fixture recommendations for different size and shape garages. It's the sticky note at the top of this page: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=30

As for what kind of fixture to use, LEDs are rapidly coming down in price, but in my opinion two lamp x 48" T8 fluorescent fixtures are still the best bang for the buck and are available most anywhere.

I agree ^. I'm going with the James Industry LED lamps discussed on garagejournal, but fluorescent bulbs are cheaper by far, just not happy in the cold. You can always go LED in a few years when the tech is more mature. It looks like lumens/watt ratio will just keep improving.

I just picked up a couple of 4', two-strip LED shop light fixtures from Sam's Club. 40 watts, 4500 lumens. I tossed the receipt, so I don't remember exactly how much I paid, but I think it was $20 or $30 each. I hung one of them up and it's much nicer than the T8 fixture is replaced. Instant on, no ballast noise and doesn't make the garage radio hum. If there is one down-side, they could use a lens as the LED's are open, so if you inadvertently look up at them, it's a bit blinding compared to softer T8 bulbs. This could be a problem in a garage when you can often be under a car looking up and be staring at the glare of fixture above you.

Tom_Spangler wrote: I switched from a bunch of T5 florescents to Feit LEDs from Costco and I wouldn't go back if you paid me to. It's literally like night and day, especially in cold weather. I'm a LED convert, 100%.

I'll third this. I bought a couple to use in the garage. Garage is too small to work in so I just needed to see where stuff is and have something that worked in a cold, unheated garage.

They looked so good I went and got 10 more and redid all the lighting in the basement. Big improvement, especially in the workshop side.

I'm in a rental so I was kinda limited to what I could do, but I went from one center bulb in a single car garage to 4 of the FEIT LED fixtures from Costco - awesomely bright now, I can actually work on stuff after it gets dark outside. I think they're $40 a piece or so, but totally worth it.

If it were me I'd get the LED Feit from Costco. I hate florescents. I'm stuck in florescent light all day at work I don't want to be bathed in it at home too.

Plus these particular LED's are reported to be MUCH brighter than florescents.

So, something about Feit LEDs at CostCo...

Sounds like a no-brainer!

Also available from Amazon for $56 each, I just discovered.

These bad boys? I was looking on garage journal and it seems like in store they go for 20-35$. GJ also recommends some LED retrofit bulbs and fixtures which seem pretty cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/Feit-73991-4-Feet-Light-48-Inch/dp/B00MJUCU2A/ref=sr_1_3?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1450467812&sr=1-3&keywords=feit+led++light

These are what we have: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00W2BB98W/ref=s9_simh_gw_p60_d1_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-2&pf_rd_r=0T8GPTV8FDTGRC006S0G&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2105320602&pf_rd_i=desktop

9,000 lumen each. They make my T5HO lights in the shop look dim at a price premium of about $30 each.