# Auto Garage Lighting Layout



## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Any ideas about how to lay out the lighting in an auto repair garage? 

A friend asked me to look at doing an LED conversion. I am sure some brighter LEDs will save some money and shed some needed light on things, but the layout sucks and it will still suck if I just swap them out.


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## Bird dog (Oct 27, 2015)

IIRC a lighting guy at the supply house might be able to lay it out for you or at least give you some ideas.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Bird dog said:


> IIRC a lighting guy at the supply house might be able to lay it out for you or at least give you some ideas.



They used to have a decent lighting person at a couple of the local supply houses, no more. They still have lighting people, but they are mostly just fixture salespeople for high end residential.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

Funny you should post this now, earlier today I was driving by a popular mechanic shop and noticed that he had 4' fluorescents on the walls about 5' high. They were on the back and side walls. I guess they were there to light up the lower area when a car is up in the air.

Could be an upsell.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

HackWork said:


> Funny you should post this now, earlier today I was driving by a popular mechanic shop and noticed that he had 4' fluorescents on the walls about 5' high. They were on the back and side walls. I guess they were there to light up the lower area when a car is up in the air.
> 
> Could be an upsell.


Do that with dimming. They can fire it up when cars are in the air and dim them or shut them off if they need to work right in front of them.


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

HackWork said:


> Funny you should post this now, earlier today I was driving by a popular mechanic shop and noticed that he had 4' fluorescents on the walls about 5' high. They were on the back and side walls. I guess they were there to light up the lower area when a car is up in the air.
> 
> Could be an upsell.


As a former (and current but less and less) mechanic, too much light is like too much money or too pretty a wife, can’t happen, one mile from the sun is about ideal, and the sidewall lighting is a very popular item. Generally it’s a rigged up cobbled up affair, often a cocked gun in the safety department. A proper sidewall system with proper individual switches to save energy costs would be a good upsell. 
A light designer isn’t really necessary, talk to the guys that wrench there, they will tell you where and how many lights are needed.


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## Kevin (Feb 14, 2017)

splatz said:


> Any ideas about how to lay out the lighting in an auto repair garage?
> 
> A friend asked me to look at doing an LED conversion. I am sure some brighter LEDs will save some money and shed some needed light on things, but the layout sucks and it will still suck if I just swap them out.


What is the ceiling height? Do you have any photos of the current layout?

Sent from my Samsung using Tapatalk


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## rdevarona (Feb 23, 2010)

If the shop is a simple rectangle, you can play around with the Visual Interior Tool to come up with total number of fixtures, but you'll need to stay away from garage doors and the center of the bays unless you want to light up the top of the car when they are on the rack.

Check out https://www.visual-3d.com/tools/interior/

It may take a little getting used to, but it's great as a free tool.


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## joe-nwt (Mar 28, 2019)

Did one here last winter. Six hoist/bays on each side with a common entrance down the middle. I hung an LED highbay where it would shine into the engine compartment when the hood was open for each bay. Spaced a few down the middle for the common area. Owner and mechanics were pleased.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Kevin_Essiambre said:


> What is the ceiling height? Do you have any photos of the current layout?



Afraid I don't have pictures. The ceilings are about 13'. It's an older building, well over 50 years old, wood trusses / rafters so it's easy to hang anything. There's one room that's 5 bays side by side, each with an overhead door. The other room is square, it has one overhead door in one corner and three lifts.


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## Kevin (Feb 14, 2017)

splatz said:


> Afraid I don't have pictures. The ceilings are about 13'. It's an older building, well over 50 years old, wood trusses / rafters so it's easy to hang anything. There's one room that's 5 bays side by side, each with an overhead door. The other room is square, it has one overhead door in one corner and three lifts.


Here's a shop I asked for help with a couple years ago. 13' ceilings. Approx 35'×70'. We did 12 lights @ 12 000 lumens.

This should give you an idea of what you're looking at.









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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

I was at another garage this weekend and took a peek at their shop out of curiosity. They had fluorescent ceiling fixtures on the walls, kind of looked like hell. Gigantic old highbays as well. They also had skylights, looked to be 3' x 3', the original solar. It was a sunny day and the skylights were doing most of the lighting. I asked but they said the skylights were more trouble than they were worth. 



One thing I noticed - if I had a garage, I'd paint the walls something reflective and bright, both of these had plain concrete walls dirty and dingy from years of grime and that doesn't help.


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