Shop lights

I am finally building a 30x30 garage at home. (And hobby shop). How many and what are the best lights to use in the ceiling? Factors are:

  1. Price
  2. Amount of light
  3. Energey useage.

I looked at 8 foot long ones at Lowes that were High output. They were

55 dollars per 2 bulb units. (Not counting the bulbs). I wondered if they would use a ton of electricity.

A regular 8 foot one with 2 bulbs was 33 I think.

I can get the standard 4 bulb 4 foot light for 37 dollars.

My shop will have one 16 foot door.

Also, This is a stick framed unit with studs 4 foot centers. Outside is metal roof and ceiling like a pole barn. Inside height is 10 feet. Thinking about using regular osb for the inside walls. The contractor said blown insulation would be cheaper. Is this true? (I will do the insulation and walls myself as well as lights and wiring.)

Thanks!

Reply to
stryped
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stryped fired this volley in news:2b190a65-3fca- snipped-for-privacy@n30g2000vba.googlegroups.com:

contractor

Aside from lighting (your choice), you ought to consider adding lateral stringers no more than 2'o.c. on the insides of the walls and on the ceiling before you sheath them with anything. 4'o.c. supports are going to result in a mess of sagging and bowing that will probably not remain pleasing with the weight of ceiling insulation on it. The walls would probably be OK, but without support over smaller distances you won't be able to safely hang heavy things like shelves on them.

Yes, blown-in cellulosic insulation is a LOT cheaper than 'glass batts. Some brands have the drawback of being fairly corrosive to fasteners and reinforcing plates in a high-humidity environment, so choose carefully.

Yes, 15/32" or 7/16" OSB makes a decent wall covering for a shop. It can take a knockin' without breaking through like drywall. Easier to hang heavy stuff on, too.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Will it hurt not having a vapor barier?

Also, I did not realize it would be corrosive. Since the outside wall will be metal siding, and I assume the insulation will touch it, should I not use the blown in type?

Maybe I should go back and add studdes in the middle of the 4 foot section to make the spacing two feet?

Reply to
stryped

Thus beginning a long string of posts requesting extensive handholding for the duration of the project....

Fluorescent lights win, on all three categories.

All bulbs burn out eventually. When you need to get replacements, you can buy four-foot tubes almost anywhere, and bring them home in the trunk of your car.

You'd better re-think that plan unless you want it to collapse in the first stiff breeze. In the unlikely event that you are able to get a building permit, it won't pass the structural inspection.

Or did you mean 4x4 *posts* on 4-foot centers?

Whatever you use for inside walls, paint it white. You'll need fewer lights.

Cheaper than what?

Oh. My. God.

*Please* hire a licensed electrician to do the wiring.
Reply to
Doug Miller

stryped fired this volley in news:34bc9ce5-bd25- snipped-for-privacy@l5g2000vbp.googlegroups.com:

Some state a permissible level of corrosiveness. Those that DON'T state it are probably the ones to watch out for.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

What the other guys said.

In addition: It surprises me that any contractor would be comfortable with OSB for inside walls. I would not use OSB for inside walls for safety reasons. The osb is combustable whereas drywall is a fire barrier, for a little while, at least. I'd certainly go with flourescent lighting, except: if you live in a cold climate and you intend to work in the shop when it is unheated. In this case, flourescents don't come on very well or very brightly when it's below zero. I suppose you could still go with mostly flourescents, but have at least one or two incandescent lights so you can see.

When you look at fixtures, note the wattage of the bulbs vs the lumen output. That will tell you the energy story.

I, too prefer 4 foot tubes. They are a lot easier to change.

If you are looking for ideas, check out my shop at:

formatting link
Pete Stanaitis

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stryped wrote:

Reply to
spaco

The 4 foot spacing is what the contractor came up with. I guess I could go in and install additional studs? I assume he knew what he was talkign about.

Cheaper than fiberglass batts.

What I wondered, although expensive, what about using white metal siding? (For the inside wall and ceiling?)

Reply to
stryped

I love your shop! Is that drywall or somethign else?

Reply to
stryped

OSB for internal walls. I've seen it done, in a commercial truck repair shop. Because of the welding/cutting going on, the were required to use a fire resistant paint for a certain distance up the wall.

Lights. 4 ft double flourescents are the cheapest. In my 24x30 shop I hung 25 fixtures on the ceiling. 11 of them are general lighting, evenly distributed over the area. The other 15 are in 3 zones.

  1. The area the door covers when it is open.
  2. The front half of the shop
  3. The rear half

Also have seperate zone lighting just over the workbench, plus a few portable "spot" lights--and a couple of those have magnifiers built in.

Reply to
Bill Marrs

I love your shop! Is that drywall or somethign else?

I gotta agree with spaco. The 4' units are easier to handle, easier to transport the tubes. One light to avoid is: Shop Light by Lithonia Lighting. We bought 17 of these units and the ballast in everyone failed in a short time. I complained and the source sent me 17 more Free!!. Guess what? All 17 now have failed ballasts. Since my installation was sized around these units, I'm now replacing ballasts in all of them. Stu Fields

Reply to
Stu Fields

Why? If he knows what he is doing, wiring is simple. Follow code. have a qualified electrician double check it, and have it inspected. No problem doing it himself - if, as I said, he knows what he's doing.

Reply to
clare

Mercury vapour bulbs, steel lining ot drywall over OSB. OSB is flamable and looks ratty in a hurry. I'd go with metal - steel or aluminum barn siding painted white. Stud it out and insulate with rock wool. No vapour barier required, but tar paper is a good idea between the insulation and the metal siding.

Reply to
clare

Down the road, I bet you have to replace the ballasts. Cheap gets expensive.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

Stryped has a short history here -- and a much longer history in rec.woodworking -- of posts that display IMO a general lack of understanding of most things mechanical. This leads me to strongly suspect that he does

*not* know what he is doing when it comes to 240VAC wiring, either. I hope that I'm mistaken, or that he takes my advice and hires a pro.

What little discussion he and I have had already in this thread indicates that he does not know the Code.

I very much doubt that he does. It's clear that he did not know there were different requirements for connection of the ground and neutral bus bars in subpanels vs. main panels. Nor did he understand what I meant when I said that the two were required to be electrically isolated in a subpanel. Nor did he know whether he had wired his existing subpanel correctly.

None of this provides any basis for hoping that he can install a second subpanel correctly, and substantial basis for supposing that he cannot.

Reply to
Doug Miller

On Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:13:37 -0400, the infamous snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca scrawled the following:

Hey, it's stryped the troll. Need we say more?

-- Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil, and still more the man who is indifferent to everything. -- Johann K. Lavater

Reply to
Larry Jaques

There is another factor to consider in a shop. You ideally want electronic ballasts, as the flicker frequency is a lot higher than the persistence of the phosphor will let through, so you don't get strobing making certain speeds look as though the spindle or object is standing still. Especially a problem with variable speed spindles, since eventually you will hit a speed which does look to be standing still with the standard ballasts.

What is the wattage rating on the bulbs? That is what counts, after all.

A roll-up door? If so, will it have enough clearance so you can mount lamps above it, and simply let what is shining in the door make up for what you lose to the obstruction?

What about impact resistance? If the blown insulation, what would be holding it in place -- drywall?

I don't have real answers to your questions, but I do have a couple of thoughts above.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Fluorescent will be the most efficient energy wise.

Do you have any other fluorescent fixtures in your house? If so, stick with that lamp size. It makes stocking up on spares easier.

Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

Stryped

Get the lights with electronic ballasts. Many juristictions require this. We just had an addition at our church completed and the flourescent lighting with electronic ballasts is more than well worth it.

AND

4' OC walls? Make that at the most 24" and 12" thick walls. Insulate all you can. And please don't use wood for the framing. Us steel studs. Takes some more thought but the steel will be about 60% of the price of wood and no termites. And almost zero waste if the steel is properly ordered. Get a drill/screw gun to assemble.

Bob AZ

Reply to
Bob AZ

You do not want the 8' long F96T12 Slimline (single big pin on each end) fixtures - they aren't that efficient, and they are on their way to being phased out. Same thing with F40T12 bipin lamps.

The best efficiency you're going to get at a good price (and be able to easily buy lamps in the forseeable future) is F32T8 strips - and if you want to make installation easier with 8' long units they do make a

4-lamp tandem strip - 2 x 2.

The absolute best efficiency is F32T5 lamps, but they are still expensive. Found a lot on the 4 - 6 - 8 lamp "High Bay Replacement" fixtures for warehouses, haven't really made it to the inexpensive strip fixture market yet.

If you want finished lensed "Wrap" fixtures, you pay a bit more for the convenience - but they are worth it if you have a hard ceiling.

Otherwise you need to buy the polycarbonate "tube guards" for the exposed lamps - amazing how those lamps attract flying tools and parts and the other ends of broom handles and long bar stock...

And when you buy the fixture look at the quality level of the ballast as well as the sales price - a cheap chinese no-name ballast might last a year, a properly engineered one will go 20 - 35 years. And use less energy for the same light.

The cheap electronic ballasts will noticeably flicker and can drive you nuts, the good ones are operating up around 20 KHZ and you shouldn't see any strobing artifacts.

"You can pay me now, or you can pay me later..."

If you are in the snow belt, spend a bit more for an insulated and weatherstripped sectional door. It's harder to add it after the fact.

Shop wisely, and you can find R-13 or R-19 foil faced fiberglass batt insulation on sale for cheap. One of the advantages of being the most popular size and form factor in the market. It's usually set for studs 16" On Center, and you want to build the walls and ceiling that way anyways for stability.

Attic unfaced batts will show up for 16" OC and 24" OC. You'll have to pick - but if you plan on doing any storage in the attic I'd go with 16" OC joists and heavy plywood floor to make sure it stays.

Blown insulation has no moisture barrier, and it tends to settle. In attics you can blow in another layer, but in walls it's a big job to fix settling.

You could use spray foam or solid block foam insulation if you can get it at a good price, but that is rare. And it HAS TO HAVE a layer of drywall on the inside, because it burns.

I hope that those 4' on center "studs" are 4X4 or better to make a "Pole Barn" style structure - then you can interset the 2X4's on 16" centers in between to hang the insulation and drywall.

For the ceiling joists (and attic floor) I"d stick with tried and true 2X8 or 2X10 on 16" centers, and a layer of 3/4" plywood for the attic floor.

You can make the roof and attic insulated, but that's a LOT of work leaving airspace over the insulation batts and making ridge ventilation - far simpler to insulate the ceiling and make the attic unheated.

OSB alone will work for the walls, but even if you paint it OSB will be far too easy to light on fire with welding or grinding operations, and the local rodents might take it as a challenge to chew a hole and get inside the walls to nest. This is bad.

I would consider a layer of 1/2" OSB and then 3/8" or 1/2" Drywall on top, then prime and paint it to stop moisture - when you attach things to the wall you use screws long enough to go through the drywall and grab the OSB - problem solved. Drywall for the ceiling.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Yep! I'm not sure about the designations, but I think you'll find that T-12 fluorescent lights are being phased out. Ballasts that used to cost about $20 are now well over $40. They're trying to discourage users from keeping the old systems. Upgrade kits for the T-8 (I think) lights are priced competitively with the cost of the old ballasts, so the only incentive to keep the old lights is if you have a supply of new tubes on hand. I have

49 of the two tube 8' fixtures, so I recently bought two cases of new tubes as spares (cheap, too. Under $2.00 per tube). As ballasts fail, I'll have to buy the conversions, but that would cost a small fortune to replace for no reason.

Harold

Reply to
Harold and Susan Vordos

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