How Do I Get Good Lighting in My Garage?
For a room as dark as a garage, getting project or work lighting is essential. After all, it’s nearly impossible to work without sufficient visibility provided by good lighting.
Whether it’s fixing your car, doing some carpentry or DIY projects, or working out in your home gym, the appropriate lighting makes a huge difference in your prospected outcome.
To get good lighting in your garage, you can install full room LED lighting systems that take full advantage of preexisting light fixtures making the upgrade easy and cost-effective. Two such systems are the MPI and the TriLight both created right here at STKR Concepts.
Before innovative solutions were produced and made available to the market, adding substantially more light to a garage was a huge project. It also meant that you had to know quite a bit about home electrical wiring or hire someone who did to achieve the lighting you wanted.
However, nowadays, you can easily install a powerful light fixture without needing any professional help or even breaking a sweat.
If you’re looking for the best ways to get good lighting in your garage with ease, check out the rest of this guide.
Why Should You Install Good Lighting In Your Garage?
The garage has always been thought of as a very single-use utility room designed mainly for a way to keep your vehicle out of the elements. Because of this, garages get very little finish qualities like paint or quality light fixtures.
But today, your garage is not simply for parking your car. Instead, it has become a flexible room in most houses where you can convert it into a home gym, a studio, a workshop, etc.
Therefore, the need for good lighting is more apparent than ever. Imagine working on your car or building home projects like small cabinets with little to no light. For starters, it is nearly impossible to finish any task without ample light. Then, there are the increased risks for accidents and injuries, especially when you add power tools into the mix.
Simply put, poor lighting causes a decrease in productivity, disorganization, and can create unforeseen hazards.
How Can I Make My Dark Garage Lighter?
As a rule of thumb, if you want to improve the light in your dark garage, you either have to renovate the area where natural light can come in or install artificial lighting. Between the two, the latter is less complicated and more budget-friendly.
Natural Light
Nothing beats natural light when it comes to lighting your garage or any room for that matter. This is why modern houses have many glass windows and partitions instead of concrete.
However, it is rare to find a garage made of glass panels for walls considering the main intention of the area.
A majority of houses block their garage with solid walls from side to side. Hence, you get the traditional dark ambiance.
Nonetheless, you can improve the entry of natural light in your garage in simple ways.
- Add more windows and place them strategically in your garage
Windows are the most common entryway for natural light apart from doors, of course. Most homeowners choose window styles that combine lighting and ventilation, such as double-hung, casement, gliding, awning, and picture windows.
- Install a skylight
Windows may not be enough to get the most of natural light. If that’s the case in your garage, you can consider adding a skylight or two.
Skylights are sometimes referred to as roof windows. Essentially, they are windows but placed on the roof instead of the walls. Skylights invite more light in as it is set directly under the sun.
Artificial Light
As it may not be in every homeowner’s scope to cut in windows into their garage, the next best option is to upgrade your artificial lighting.
Lighting designers and manufacturers like STKR Concepts have lighting products that mimic natural light.
As lighting technology has changed, these lighting options have become even easier to install and incredibly powerful while at the same time becoming more cost-efficient to light up. But, of course, all these decisions depend on the functions of your garage.
What Kind of Lighting Should I Use in My Garage?
When choosing the lighting for your garage, consider the size, energy efficiency, ease of installation, and the number of lumens to ensure that you are getting your money’s worth.
One of the most common lighting fixtures found in a light-upgraded workshop or garage is the 4-foot light ballast sometimes just referred to as a shoplight.
These long rectangular light fixtures used to be fitted with long fluorescent light tubes for bulbs that needed to be changed often, took a while to warm up, and weren’t very cost-efficient to run. They have since been surpassed by LED technology but many have kept the old-school long rectangular look.
While LED technology has fixed some of the downsides of the traditional 4-foot shoplight, there still remains one large downside which is the installation requirements. They almost always need to be directly hard wired to your house’s 110 rail.
What does this mean? Your household garage was probably fitted with one, maybe two, standard light bulb fixtures. This fixture is designed to house a single standard light bulb pointing straight downwards.
Because of this fixture limitation, a 4-foot shoplight couldn’t just be thrown up in the garage real quick as it wouldn’t just plug into a standard socket.
This is where we broke the mold here STKR Concepts and designed multiple whole room lighting options that used a standard twist-in light bulb fixture for their power source.
By using the standard fixture found in most garages, basements, and attics we are able to offer products that are a true DIY solution as you don’t need to call an electrician. One solution doesn’t even require tools of any kind, it literally twists right in by hand.
So What Is the Best Type of Light for a Garage?
Based on efficiency, power, reliability, and ease of install, the best types of lights you can install in your garage are the two full room lighting options we’ve created right here at STKR Concepts.
Multi-Point Illumination (MPI)
The multi-point illumination or MPI is an innovative lighting fixture that can illuminate an entire room through a single fixture.
The MPI has five-point points of light. The main hub that you screw into an existing fixture and then four satellite pods that you can strategically position across your garage ceiling.
Although these pods are interconnected through a cable wire, you don’t have to worry about the clutter as it comes with a system for effortless cable management for a clean professional look.
Another intriguing feature of the MPI is that you don’t have to manually turn it on as it has a motion sensor. Instead, just enter your garage, and voila, lights turn on immediately. Plus, the main light hub has a USB power port you can use to power up a security camera adding another layer of protection to your garage without further wiring.
In terms of brightness, the MPI is incredible. The light system produces 7500 True Lumens and spreading that across 5 points of light helps eliminate unwanted shadows.
If you’re wondering what lumens are and why they matter so much on any lighting system, check out our guide on lumens.
TriLight Motion Activated Ceiling Light
TriLight is another innovative lighting solution created by STKR Concepts. In fact, we created an entirely new form of lighting with this design called deformable lighting which was then widely copied by everyone else.
The idea behind this lighting solution is that you simply twist it into an open socket, similar to how you screw in a bulb. But unlike a standard bulb, illumination from the TriLight comes from three aluminum adjustable heads.
These three panels of light can be adjusted to spread the light out in a 360° area light or all pointed straight down to give a focused spotlight.
The TriLight is not just stylish but durable and energy-efficient as well.
With 4000 lumens at just 24 watts, you will be impressed with how bright the TriLight can get. If you’re doing a major repair or project that requires a broader illumination scope, then you’ll definitely benefit from this deformable light bulb.
Additional features of the TriLight include a motion sensor and automatic timer.
TriLight Shoplight V2
Here’s a garage lighting solution to replace that old droplight/trouble light you’ve seen auto mechanics hang under the hood of a car.
The TriLight Shoplight is a smart lighting solution that combines the lighting capacity of a shop light and the convenience of a drop light, among other qualities.
Its robust design allows you to convert the Omni-directional shop light into a focused spot light. Like having a lantern and flashlight in the same device.
Also, despite producing light at 5000 True Lumens, it does not produce heat as the aluminum heads act as heat sinks making it much safer than the traditional drop lights.
The TriLight Shoplight can be hung upside down from its built-in hook, handheld by its cylindrical handle, or propped up on the ground or a bench from three points like a tripod.
Can I Light My Garage Without Electricity?
Yes, you can light your garage without electricity using rechargeable lights capable of illuminating your project or work area. For example, the TriMobile with Tripod is an impressive lighting device you can just charge and use in your garage with the convenience of a wireless device.
Most traditional lighting systems are fixtures that need an electrical connection. But if you’re not using your garage regularly, you can opt for a portable or movable lighting system. Place them in a permanent spot or simply move them around when necessary.
Here at STKR Concepts, you can choose between the TriMobile and Mobile Task Light to illuminate your garage projects without needing direct electricity.
Check out more information about these two lighting devices.
TriMobile w/Tripod
You will be surprised how a portable, rechargeable lighting system can illuminate a large room or open area. That’s essentially the purpose of the TriMobile.
The TriMobile has three individual LED panels that you can rotate and pivot in multiple directions. In addition, you can position the panels downward altogether, turning them to a droplight, or spread them to mimic the illumination of lanterns.
As the lighting system comes with a tripod, you can simply mount the head and adjust the height of the aluminum frame. On the other hand, you can also take the three pivotal heads and hang them through the nested hang hook.
You can make it permanent in one spot inside your garage or place it somewhere accessible for mobile use.
Mobile Task Light
The Mobile Task Light is a portable but powerful device with a compact design and adjustable head.
When working on specific tasks in your garage, the mobile task light is beneficial, especially if you need different light modes depending on the work type.
Like the TriMobile, this device is also rechargeable and movable. But you can choose to have it fixed in a single spot using its built-in hang frame. It also has the ability to be screwed onto a tripod.
The Mobile task light uses LED lights which makes it cooler to touch despite producing 1200 lumens of brightness.
How Bright Should Garage Lights Be?
The brightness of your lighting fixture or mobile device depends on the type of work or activity you do in your garage.
For example, if you only need ambient lighting, then the minimum brightness you need is 50 lumens per square foot. On the other hand, if you are working on a task, you will need to secure at least 300 lumens per square foot.
These lumens per square foot suggestions really start to break down when you factor in the size, shape, and color of your garage and just how much stuff you have in there cluttering it up. Again, for a detailed explanation please see our lumens article.
Nevertheless, you can go for 4000 to 8000 lumens of total lightning for your garage or workspace to achieve maximum production output. If your garage is larger than the average dimension, opt for more lumens.
What Color Temperature Is Best for Garage Lighting?
A slightly warmer color than daylight at 5000 Kelvin is considered the best garage lighting color temperature. In most cases, this color temperature helps you become more alert and productive as it contains sufficient warmth and clarity.
However, this standard may not be true for everybody. After all, it will still boil down to your lighting preference. Likewise, it also depends on how you use your garage.
Nevertheless, everyone could agree that bulbs and lighting sources that produce less heat are more ideal than bulbs that get hot with the length of use.
How Do I Install LED Lights in My Garage?
Installing LED lights in your garage can be just as easy as changing out a standard light bulb for a new one.
The TriLight is basically a super bulb and can be installed in seconds as you just twist it into an empty socket by hand instantly giving you 5 times more light.
If you opt for the MPI, the main hub twists in by hand much like the TriLight. Then the four satellite LED pods can be mounted to the ceiling within 9.5 feet of the hub using two small screws per pod.
After the pods are secured to the ceiling and plugged into the hub, a few turns of the pod itself and any cord slack disappears.
The MPI is not quite as fast of an install as the TriLight, but still much faster and easier than hardwiring in those 4-foot light ballasts.
Summary
Lighting your garage should be a task anyone can accomplish with professional results.
Whether you use your garage regularly or not, ensuring that it has ample lighting is not just a matter of convenience but of safety as well. After all, the garage is often obscured and hidden making it an ideal hideout for burglars.
While natural light is a great choice, installing artificial lights is usually the go-to method. With that, choose the best lighting system based on criteria that promote high efficiency.
Go for garage lighting with sufficient lumens, convenient installation, durability, and wide scope illumination. Go with a full room lighting system from STKR Concepts.