Let There Be Light!

[BrokenOlMarine]

One of the projects on my bucket list here at the new farm, was to upgrade the lighting in the (wood)shop.  The existing lighting was a haphazard mix of four and eight foot fluorescent fixtures, none of which matched in style or design.  The wiring running across the beams in the overhead followed no logical pattern.  It appeared a previous owner had added each fixture as he found them, tapping into the lighting circuit each time.  The resulting overhead was a maze of criss crossing, overlapping, and dangling wires, all connected with wire nuts, no junction boxes in sight.

I traced them all out to insure i knew what went where, cut the power, then cut the leading wire coming directly from the switch.  That I wired into a box in the overhead.  From that box, I ran a drop to a second box on the other side of the shop, then one more line into the storage room from the second box.  The two boxes were wired with plugs.  Tested with a plug in tester, they all checked good for power, polarity, and ground.

I then hung eight, four foot dual tube LED 5,000 lumen lights in the woodshop.  That baby is bright now.  The difference in the lights was amazing.  An old four foot assembly might weight twenty pounds.  The new assembly, less than two.

I ordered the two boxes of four lights from amazon.

[fredhargis]

The existing lighting was a haphazard mix of four and eight foot fluorescent fixtures, none of which matched in style or design.  The wiring running across the beams in the overhead followed no logical pattern. 

The resulting overhead was a maze of criss crossing, overlapping, and dangling wires, all connected with wire nuts, no junction boxes in sight.

Welcome to my world at my last house. Arrrgh!



I then hung eight, four foot dual tube LED 5,000 lumen lights in the woodshop.  That baby is bright now.  The difference in the lights was amazing.  An old four foot assembly might weight twenty pounds.  The new assembly, less than two.

I ordered the two boxes of four lights from amazon.

It is a big (welcome) difference! Congrats...

[Cdshakes]

no pics of the before or after?   

[BrokenOlMarine]

no pics of the before or after?   

I will get some pics when I get all the excess clutter out of the woodshop.  Right now a lot of the stuff for Tina's Studio and my boathouse are piled in the woodshop to make room for the work going on there.  

As for the new installs, they are all plug and play 4 foot assemblies.  The wiring I did was running the two boxes with four sockets each to the desired overhead locations. In the future, if one of the LED assemblies fail, I simply unhook the chains, unplug the bad LED, hang the new plug and play LED. Then we are back in bidness.  I planned ahead. 

[jppierson]

When going through the retrofit decision process, eledlights dot com has neat magnetic strip retrofit kits. You remove or disconnect the ballast then reuse the fixtures you have. They come in various lengths. Really easy to upgrade the lighting without buying new fixtures. I am not related to or have any financial connection to these guys, but just passing along another option. I used these to upgrade the lighting in my kitchen that had 3, 4ft, 4 tube fixtures that had dying ballast. They often have sales.

[Robert Adams]

When I wire a garage or shop for lighting I do all switched outlets in the ceiling, no traditional box mount lights. The way the lighting is now it is disposable and most all have a plug on the end so it just makes more sense to do it that way. 

    As for retrofit kits. The only kits available are for the 8' fixtures since there is no need for a kit on a 4' fixture. If you have 8' fixtures which I still have several of... Don't go the retrofit kit route. Two 4' LED fixtures is cheaper than a retrofit kit for an 8' and 4 LED bulbs. Switching to separate 4' fixtures makes it easier in the future as the entire fixture is often the same or less than what you can get 4' LED bulbs for.

        There are LED bulbs that will work with electronic ballasts in 4' fixtures but I would never use them. You are still relying on the ballast and when it fails you will still have to replace it. Always go direct wire T8 LED bulbs if you are just swapping to LED bulbs.

[TDKPE]

When I wire a garage or shop for lighting I do all switched outlets in the ceiling, no traditional box mount lights. The way the lighting is now it is disposable and most all have a plug on the end so it just makes more sense to do it that way. 

I wired my little basement shop that way.  I actually move lights once in a while, so having quad receptacles on the bottom of the joists is pretty convenient, and they’re all on a dedicated circuit with 3-way switches at the doors.  But they’re all still fluorescents, mostly 4 footers with a single 8 footer.  

As they die, I’ll replace with 4 foot LED units.  It’s not even worth the trouble to retrofit them for LED ‘tubes’ at this point, and being cheap ‘shop lights’, there’s nothing special about them.  The ability to chain them together would also help as I don’t have enough receptacles to plug what I have in without extensions.  And I use the ceiling receptacles for small tools sometimes, too.  Hard to resist that when there ‘s a receptacle right over my saw with big extension table that doubles as an assembly bench.  


Built-in or troffer luminaires would be another story perhaps.  I’ll let the next guy worry about them.

[BrokenOlMarine]

All the junk is still in the way in the shop, we are still cutting bead board for the studio... but I thought I would shoot a couple pics since it's supposed to hit 110 today and we won't be working outside.  Not the best shots, but you get a feel for the lighting and the installation.  The lights are spaced around the shop based on the overhead steel beams but cover the shop well.  I am pleased with the lighting.

[attachment=29273]

As I said, with the wiring of the boxes on the beams, if one of the lights should fail, I can unplug, unhook the chains, hang a new light and plug and play.  Done.  I had ONE of the eight foot fluorescent that was still working, and I mounted it over the tool board on the wall.  That board is well lit when the switch is thrown, you can see that in the left background of the pic.

[Snipe Hunter]

Is that spray foam insulation?
Just a heads up.... exposed foam is generally not permitted in an occupied space. It needs to be covered by something approved approved for an occupied space, even wood is ok. There are a couple of exceptions when it comes to "fire retardant" foams. If push comes to shove, you might have to provide documentation to prove the foam is fire retardant. For instance; you're insurance carrier might like to see it when you file a claim for the shop and contents after a fire.

[BrokenOlMarine]

Is that spray foam insulation?
Just a heads up.... exposed foam is generally not permitted in an occupied space. It needs to be covered by something approved approved for an occupied space, even wood is ok. There are a couple of exceptions when it comes to "fire retardant" foams. If push comes to shove, you might have to provide documentation to prove the foam is fire retardant. For instance; you're insurance carrier might like to see it when you file a claim for the shop and contents after a fire.

Yup, the foam is fire retardant, state farm was just out last month and loves the foam in the shop and the garage.  Says the stuff just won't burn. 
. He's cool with it.  I had the shop and the garage done the first month here.  Temps dropped at least 20 degrees.  I haven't put ac in my shop yet, but it's coming. Likely in the spring.