Shop Setup and Design

[rsexton17]

Soon, I will purchase and install lights for the garage wood shop that I'm setting up. I plan to use 4', 2 tube T-8 flourescent fixtures with 6500k tubes. My shop area is 20' wide in a 28' deep garage with a celing height of 10' 4". The walls will be 5/8" T-111 painted white with a white, drywalled celing. The shop has a dedicated depth of 10' and the vehicles will be backed out for additional worhing area.

What I'm not sure of is the spacing of the lamps. Any help/advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks,    Rick

[GeorgeK-NJ]

The more the better on lights, my initial thought is at least 12 fixtures, 6 on 2 separate circuits.

[71166]

 Like George said the more the better.   You may be able to look on the light manufactures site to find out about light distribution for that fixture.    Remember that when the garage door is up, all those fixtures above the door will be blocked and should have a switch of their own.   Roly

[DaveinOhio]

I would add a couple of other considerations.

 First would be to add more lighting over areas such as your workbench and your table saw, where better visibility increases your safety.

 Second would be to add a battery-powered emergency light on one of the light circuits, wired ahead of the switch(that is to say, the emergency light is always connected to hot power, regardless of switch position). It's easy to get hurt in the dark.

Dave

[jdamschroder]

As someone else has said, Google is your friend.  I found my info there.

[mathisonr1]

I'm with George, 12 should do it for the main lighting. Task lighting will depend on your usage of the shop space.

[Larry.Jenkins]

Grainger catalog has a wonderful Section on Shop lights in their catalog.

It shows you how many and where for your given square feet.

Larry