You need decent lighting in your garage, whether you use it to park your car, as a workshop, a storage hub, or all of the above. However, garages are often dimly lit which makes them difficult to traverse, causing eyestrain during DIY projects and putting you at risk of falls and injuries. Here are some of the best lighting upgrades to improve your garage space.
Do Not Stop at Overhead Lighting
Ambient, task, and accent lighting are the three types of artificial lighting that your garage should have.
- Ambient lighting is a soft overhead light that illuminates the floors and walls so that you may walk around or park safely.
- Task lighting is used in work and storage areas to 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 and is brighter than ambient and task lighting.
Because the garage is often used for multiple purposes, it's important to layer lighting so that you have enough light for parking, work, storage, and display. When choosing and positioning all garage lighting fixtures, keep these categories in mind.
Measure Your Garage To Determine True Light Output Needs
In residential garages, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) Lighting Handbook recommends 50 lumens per square foot and 300 lumens per square foot in workshop spaces. 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 as a general rule of thumb.
Swap Out Incandescent Bulbs for LED 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. A 10-watt LED, for example, may produce roughly the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb.
Buy Bulbs With Appropriate Wattage
To determine how many light bulbs will meet your light output requirements, multiply the lumens recommendation by the square footage of the functional area. Assume you want 2,700 lumens of task lighting for a typical nine-square-foot workbench (300 times 9). To get the comparable bulb wattage, use the Federal Trade Commission's lumens-to-watts conversion calculator. Buying one 75-Watt (1,100-lumen) and one 100-Watt (1,600-lumen) incandescent bulb will provide the 2,700 lumens you require.
We hope this article has helped you learn about the best methods of improving your garage lighting. If you are considering switching to LED fixtures such as LED floodlights or LED flat panel lights, be sure to reach out to Eco LED Mart. We have a vast inventory of LED fixtures for you to browse.
