How To Choose the Best Lighting for Your Garage
You need decent lighting in your garage whether you use it to park your car, do repair work, store belonging, or all of the above. However, garages are often dim, making them difficult to traverse, causing eye strain during DIY projects, and putting you at risk of injuries. Here are some great ways to choose the best lighting for your garage!
Don’t Just Stop at Overhead Lighting
Ambient, task, and accent lighting are the three types of artificial lighting, and your garage should have all three.
- Ambient lighting is a soft overhead light that illuminates the floors and walls so that you may walk or park safely.
- Task lighting is bright and useful for work and illuminating storage areas. It can improve vision during detail-oriented projects and organizational duties.
- Accent lighting shines on showpieces you wish to highlight, whether it’s a foosball table or an old trophy collection. It’s brighter than ambient and task lighting.
Measure Your Garage To Determine Your True Light Output Needs
The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) Lighting Handbook recommends 50 lumens per square foot and 300 lumens per square foot in workshop spaces within residential garages. Aim for 50 lumens per square foot for ambient lighting, 300 lumens per square foot for job lighting, and a modest 75 lumens per square foot for accent lighting in general.
Buy Bulbs With the Appropriate Wattage
To calculate how many light bulbs will meet your light output requirements, you should multiply the lumens recommendation by the square footage of the functional area. Assume you require 2,700 lumens to light a 9-square-foot workbench (300 times 9). You can find incandescent bulbs to meet this standard. Use the US Department of Energy’s rule of thumb to determine the general bulb wattage for incandescent lights of particular wattages. According to this rule of thumb, one 75-watt incandescent bulb generally produces 1,100 lumens, and one 100-watt bulb produces 1,600 lumens. Together, these can provide the 2,700 lumens you require.
Swap Out Incandescent Bulbs For LED Or Fluorescent Equivalents
Light your garage with energy-efficient LED or fluorescent bulbs that give the same light output as incandescent bulbs at a lower wattage for lower electric bills. Take note of the lumens a particular incandescent bulb gives off according to the US Department of Energy’s rule of thumb and find a more energy-efficient replacement that produces the same lumens. A 10-watt LED or 14-watt fluorescent bulb, for example, may produce roughly the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb.
We hope you have enjoyed our overview of how to choose the best lighting for your garage. While it can be hard to adequately light your garage, LED lighting will always be the best solution. There are many environmental benefits that LED lighting provides, after all!
