Shop Lighting.

[Beaverslayer]

One other solution is to replace the ballast in each of your fixtures with a high-efficiency electronic ballast, and replace the lamps with T8 high-CRI florescent tubes. This will give you a much better light as well as energy efficiency comparable to LED lighting.

You should be able to get them at Home Depot or any industrial lighting supply store.

[Northmount]

Light intensity decreases by the square of the distance. Place a light 1 foot from a surface. Then move the light to 2 feet from the same surface. The light falling on the surface has decreased to 1/4. (1/2x2). So as you have found, task lighting is more efficient. And yes, repainting your ceiling will make a big difference. The cost of electricity for high ambient overall lighting is high too. So the overall lighting needs to be bright enough for safe navigation and work. If you switch your lighting in banks, you can have light where needed, plus task lighting at your work stations. Unless you are using LEDs for task lighting, I would shut them off when not needed.

2 ea 8' fluorescent tubes are about 150 or more Watts depending on your particular model. So each pair uses 150 Watts x 8 hours divide by 1000 kWh per 8 hour period. 1.2 kWh. Multiply that by 30 days x your electric rate of say $0.20/kWh and you will have the cost per month. $7.20 per month. 4' are about half that. So total it up and see what it is costing you. Adjust days, hours, and your local rate accordingly. Then review what you really need.

Tom

My simple numbers didn't include the ballast, up to about 40 Watts for twin 8'. So get efficient ballasts to decrease your energy costs. Also consider that all adds to your air conditioning load if you have air conditioned work area.

Edited December 27, 2012 by northmount

[billymac814]

Tom,

Thank you for your reply, that is very informative. I'll look into the high efficiency fixtures and maybe look into ways to shut down areas that are not used very often. That would be good enough for me. I'll also work on getting the ceiling painted too. I just hate seeing all the cords and chains hanging down but that's pretty much in avoidable.

[dirtclod]

billymac painting the celeing will help a lot. You could make some reflectors for you lights. Fluorescent light used to come with or the one that hung down did. I have plugs in the celeing in my shop just so i can move light around if i want to move a work station. Another thing you can try is day light bulbs they are brighter than the regular ones and cost the same or not much more.

[billymac814]

The last time I bought bulbs I almost went with the daylight bulbs, the only reason I didn't get them was because I was unsure if it would look funny with different types of bulbs and I didn't want to replace them all at the time. I may try them though, I think they were only a few bucks more.

My ceiling is pretty much the same, its a drop ceiling so I use the hooks that slide on the rails to hang the lights and I have a track running down the center that has outlets that slide so its not hard to move lighting around. There's a few old not used fixtures all the way up there, I have no idea if they work but I doubt it.

It really looks kinda bad though with 12 or so fixtures that each have two chains and a cord and some kinda go on a diagonal to get where they need to be and I have no outlets in the center of my shop so I have to run cords down from the ceiling for a couple sewing machines and their lights that are in the center of the shop. The rest of the machines I try to keep along the wall but I'm pretty much out of walls now.

I would love to completely re-do this place and do things better but time and money won't allow for all that any time soon. A lot of this stuff was done by the previous owner. I'd almost prefer lower ceilings however I have shelves along the walls and I can put less important stuff up high so that is kind of nice however I could get a storage container put out back to do the same thing. I think when I do the painting Ill get some cords that are long enough to at least run the wires neatly down the chains and try to make it look somewhat presentable. In most cases customers can't see it but sometimes they walk back here, I can see it though, I may figure some type is switch in with the cord so I can shut down certain stations when not in use without going to the breaker boxes.

[groovytech]

I have 3 benches of varying heights. One for dyeing/finishing, one for tooling, and one for cutting. I have found that placing 4' dual lamp shop lights at 4' above the working suface, with daylight lamps, illuminates the working surface perfectly. I also have a 24" lamp under the shelf on my tooling bench facing forward so as to minimize shadows when tooling. An 18" over the dyeing bench serves the same purpose. I use daylight((5000`K) lamps to avoid the dreaded 'dull,dumb' lighting associated with 'drone cubicles' in offices.

Hope this helps ya.

[billymac814]

I'm going to give the daylight bulbs a shot and add a few more fixtures to where I moved the machines too and then at some point this summer ill do some painting. That'll be as good as it gets for a while. I may start replacing fixtures with those high efficiency ones as I go along too.

[joe59]

I have high/vaulted ceilings in my shop and as with most shops, lighting and storage are always a problem. I solved both by building a 36"x 96" re enforced plywood shelf. It is anchored to the wall on one side and hung by chains from the ceiling on the front side. I store full sides on the shelf and mounted two four foot shop lights on the under side. I put 3 inch spacers between the lights and the bottom of the shelf to limit any heat from the lights. The shelf is 7' from the floor and my sewing machines are underneath the shelf. Just a thought.

JOE

[sinpac]

I use a Ott Lite bench model for concentrated light in one area.

Just my two cents

http://www.ottlite.com/

Chris

[billymac814]

I have high/vaulted ceilings in my shop and as with most shops, lighting and storage are always a problem. I solved both by building a 36"x 96" re enforced plywood shelf. It is anchored to the wall on one side and hung by chains from the ceiling on the front side. I store full sides on the shelf and mounted two four foot shop lights on the under side. I put 3 inch spacers between the lights and the bottom of the shelf to limit any heat from the lights. The shelf is 7' from the floor and my sewing machines are underneath the shelf. Just a thought.

JOE

In my old shop I did something similar except I didn't hang them by the ceilings, I basically made a ceiling from my workbench by running 2x4s up, everything was white as well, including my workbench so it made a nice bright work area and gave me extra storage. I could probably do that now but now I have a lot more room and more work stations so I would need to do it at each station.