Garage Lighting.

Garage Lighting.

Any tips on how to get some light under the area that the open garage door covers?

With the door closed, I have some florescent lights and all is well. Now that it is warm out, I want to have the door open to get the breeze. I know- buy some fans or cut some windows in the door.

What got me thinking is this picture from jalopnik - the-amazing-diy-ikea-dream-garage

It looks like there are lights on the other side of the door hanging down. Is it an optical illusion? I am also thinking of looking for or making a light weight wall mounted davit that can be moved to where I need it under the open door.

Watch the Youtube video ON Youtube so you can see the larger version, he ran a bar under the door and hung the lights from it. If you had to have lighting on the underside with the doors open, this would be the way to do it...

I believe you could mount a couple of 4' fluorescent tube fixtures directly to the door, then the only issue would be routing and securing the power cable. my vision says a retractable extension cord reel with the latch mechanism defeated, mounted to the ceiling or trusses or whatever, probably pretty close to the garage door opener motor, with the cord passing through screw-in eyelets or over pulleys such that it is not in danger of being snagged when the door goes up and down. plug end of the cord must be secured to door for strain relief. bulb protection when the door is down must be considered, but they'd be in about the middle of the height of the door when it's down so perhaps just the normal tube sleeves plus a standard light-dispersing lens would be enough?

I got them running along side the tracks on both sides of both doors (4 foot double bulbs).

In reply to AngryCorvair:

you'd also probably want to mount a switch on the door for those lights, as having them turned on at that height with the door closed would probably be pretty obnoxious to your eyes.

i've got a poorly-lit garage and i've got a spare retractable extension cord reel. i feel a science project coming on. if wifey approves the spending, i'll start a build thread.

I've got the same issue as you do. With garage door open, the door covers exactly where I'd want to hang lights. Perhaps hang supports just to the outside of the garage door tracks, one on each side? Then run a horozontal mounting bar/heavy chain across, but have it dropped low enough so that when you open the door, it slides in neatly above the bar/chain. Would just have to make sure you don't hang it too low where the car roof bumps it when pulling out.

Install window glass in the grage door panels, then line up your shop lites to shine thru! ;)

Seriously, I like the 'mount lights to inside panels with retractable cords' idea. Flourescent strp lights are the de-facto solution, but I'd be concerned about the tubes shaking loose, so would fit restraints. But what about some of the new high brightness LED lights? Not the harsh bluish ones, the warm white ones. Higher initial cost, but you would never have to dick around with them again.

Used my cabinets to support the lights.

http://www.gt6.ca/photo/09/0530_Light/index.html

In reply to erohslc:

or LED rope lights either attached to the door or attached to the door tracks?

I really like your "position the ceiling lights to shine through the door windows" suggestion, but lighting position might not be optimum. overall, though, the curb appeal would be better than "positioning the windows to coincide with optimum lighting locations."

If you haven't seen Jack's garage before, his thread on GarageJournal is epic! Check it here: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55006

Also love his porche.. I stole his tiling idea and tiled a section of my shop - looks good and cleans up very well.

Thanks guys. The lights are held up by arms that come out from the side walls of the garage. The one over the home-made bench was the trickiest, because I knew it would sag a little under the weight of the lights (which are made from wedding cake pans I found cheap). I worked out how much droop there would be and pre-stressed that angle into the base when I welded it together.

The arm doesn't look very long in this picture, but it's over six feet.

Awesome. Thanks for joining and giving us the details.

My initial plan was to hinge it, so it could swing in on the occasion that I needed the full clearance to move something in or out of the door on that side. But then I put it together that I'd have to move the bench to do that, and that undoing four lag bolts to just take the lamp arm down would be not too time consuming -- considering I'd probably never need to move something through that side.

You thought that project out REALLY well. (BTW, you'll fit in well here...the use of cake pans is totally GRM.)

Welcome to GRM Jack. amazing work on the garage, I'm using yours as a benchmark now for my own (fairly hopeless) stab at organization.

Well done video too, and the aesthetic sense of the garage is great. It's got a real 1940's feel, kinda reminds me of the WW2 navy vessels I've toured.

You guys like Jack's garage... you should see his 911. Hey Jack, what issue of GRM did your Porsche appear in again? It was part of that pro-touring article, right?

man.. makes my place look like garbage.. I really need to get the dead saabs out and do some cleaning

darkbuddha wrote: You guys like Jack's garage... you should see his 911. Hey Jack, what issue of GRM did your Porsche appear in again? It was part of that pro-touring article, right?

Thanks. My 39-year-old 911 is pretty true to the spirit of GRM, in my opinion. There was a picture of it in the issue with the Pro Touring article, and then it was also in an article about tracking Porsche Carrera RS clones.

My favorite shade-tree engineering on the thing is the wing I use that bolts on for track days and then (along with the front chin splitter) goes into the trunk for the drive home. It's made of nothing but aluminum roofing flashing and 3M structural adhesive. I have ride height sensors I pulled from a junked 95 Lincoln Continental that show me repeatable (and meaningful) downforce changes (at speed) from as little as a 4° change in the wing setting. I used wool tufts in the development of it as well -- my wind tunnel was a lonely stretch of Mojave freeway where I could do 100mph runs in opposite directions while running data into my DL1 logger. My fabrication skills are, well, limited, but it was fun to work out the front lower chin/splitter stuff and the rear wing.

I'll grant you the Porsche is not generally seen as an economical car, but the early ones are bare-bones simple and tough as nails.

ultraclyde wrote: Welcome to GRM Jack. amazing work on the garage, I'm using yours as a benchmark now for my own (fairly hopeless) stab at organization. Well done video too, and the aesthetic sense of the garage is great. It's got a real 1940's feel, kinda reminds me of the WW2 navy vessels I've toured.

Thanks. The idea in my head when I picked out the colors was a Chicago machine shop in 1963.

Currently have the entire engine out of the car for a bottom end job and I'm getting the shocks rebuilt at the same time.

I am totally stealing that idea for the lights under the door. What kind of bulbs do you run in them? CFL?

They're circline fluorescents. It's one unit with the bulb and the male part of the threaded socket. I attached a female socket to the pan and was done.

Here's a look at the arms, from while I was making them:

Artsy view:

More pictures, if that helps:

These are brilliant ideas! (pardon the pun) I suffer from the door-with-no-windows problem, I'll definely be stealing ideas from this thread.

Bryce

GrantMLS wrote: I got them running along side the tracks on both sides of both doors (4 foot double bulbs).

This is what I have as well. Like Jack, I also have a scissor lift, but since all of my cars are front engine, I don't need much light directly over the rear of the car. I'll admit if I were to recess my lift like Jack did, I'd really look into in floor recessed lighting.

I've got some plans for a pair of gooseneck lights that will fit into the mechanism of the lift. But at this point it's just an idea.