If you were designing your garage lighting and starting with nothing...

[garyo]

As per the title really - I currently have three rusty 5' strip lights in the garage with old phospher tubes, two of which are now blown.

I need much more light in there anyway, so would like to add the equivalent of two more strip lights, bringing the total to 5. If it was you, would you replace them with LED strip equivalents - it looks like 2200 lumen LED tubes are around £10 each.

Alternatively a 5-pack of 10w LED bayonet bulbs is only £8 and they're 800 lumen each, and probably only going to keep getting cheaper compared to phosphor tube form-factor lights.

It feels to me that switching over to an array of bayonet lights is the future-proof thing to do?

Thanks

 

[Lectrician]

Sounds like cost is your main criteria :-/

LED battens would be your best bet - ditch the existing fittings, replace with LED battens. Cooper do some excellent ones. You don't mention the size of the garage?

 

[garyo]

Cost isn't that important as such, but given that I'm starting from a clean sheet and will probably be at this house for a good ten years, I didn't want to hang on to an out of date form-factor for the sake of it. I think the Cooper ones look out of my price range at £50 per batten (albeit for 7000 lumens - still six times the price of LED bayonets in terms of £/lumen)

 

[garyo]

Oh - it's a standard sized double garage. Can I ask why you favour LED battens over LED 'bulbs'?

 

[Lectrician]

They're designed for the purpose, not an ad hoc add on designed to fit. The optics are better. You would notice a huge difference. Four twin equivs would give you ample light.

 

[JohnW2]

Can I ask why you favour LED battens over LED 'bulbs'?

I think the main point is that the battens are more analogous with fluorescent tubes, the light arising all along the length, hence probably best suited for providing 'shadow free' lighting in places like garages or workshops. "LED 'bulbs'" are just point sources of light, and hence result in much more shadows.

However, it all really depends upon what you do in the garage, and what sort of light, and how much light, you need for your purpose.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Tigercubrider]

Not really lighting but paint your garage white

It makes the heck of a difference

 

[davelx]

I'm using normal 5ft fluorescent fittings with LED tubes:

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LTTEC5CW.html

They're great - very bright, and full brightness at switch on, which in winter is an issue with normal fluorescents.