Finishing a pole barn, 24x32’ . Ceilings are 12’. Need advice on lighting. Looking at the 4’ LED strip lights from lowes. How many should I need for that area and what other lights would you recommend? General purpose shop, butchering, tinkering on projects. 22’ work bench on the one side. Thanks

Picture before I got the concrete finished

Awesome

2 4' LED lights would likely be plenty. 3 may be better. The box should say what distance the lights would cover based on height. The new LED lights are great!

The outside of your shop looks very nice.

Keith

I switched mine over to 2 strip led’s and they put out twice the light as the longer fluorescent ones I had.

I bought these for my basement, and they're amazing so I put them in my garage. 1 pack is plenty of light for my single car garage, 2 packs would do your barn. You can plug them into an outlet or wire them into a switch.


(Pack of 6) Barrina LED T5 Integrated Single Fixture, 4FT, 2200lm, 6500K (Super Bright White), 20W, Utility Shop Light, Ceiling and Under Cabinet Light, Corded Electric with Built-in ON/Off Switch https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HBT3BVM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_84F8FSEGT19DF7DSDMRP

I have 4 of these in a 24x30 with 14ft ceilings and it's daylight in there.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZXW83PP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have a 25' x 30' shop and have 4 of those same 4' lights from Lowes and its plenty of light

Econolight Ufo lights are usually what we install in pole barns, lithonia makes some that are similar too. They’re durable, bright, and bugs can’t get inside them. Also 4 or 8 foot strips over any work benches.

I have some of the 4 foot lights

the ones I have plug into an outlet and have a plug on the other end then have a pull chain to turn them off , when you pull the chain it turns off the light but not the plug at the other end

over work bench a light for every 6 feet or less 4 lights for the 22 feet should be about right

over other areas for more general illumination I would run outlets on the ceiling about every 8 feet having 2 duplex outlets making 2 switched and 2 hot , this way you have places to plug in drop lines as well as for the lights

with so many lights easily available with cords I don't see much point to hard wiring them in any more plug them in have some hooks they hang from have some hooks to hold the cords maybe zip tie cords to hooks , when a light fixture dies it is easy to replace

Thanks guys, great feedback! Good idea with the duplex outlets with 2 switched and 2 hot. I have a $200 Lowe’s gift card so I’ll run see what they have tomorrow to get started

John

For what its worth, I have started using 4 foot led lights from Prime Lights. I highly recommend them The ones I used are the "Patriot"model. They are pricey but worth it and this particular model is made in USA. They do sell models that are made over seas. Company has been great to work with.

A little back story on why I ended up with these lights. When I put a addition on my barn 6-7 years ago we installed led strip lights. I was impressed with them especially for the price. Within the first year we had a power outage and when it came back on it must have had a surge. It killed all but 1 of those original lights and because the leds were integrated into the fixture we had to replace everything. I found Prime Lights and the led strips are housed in a replaceable tube so if something like that happens again it will be as easy as changing the bulbs.

I have had multiple people tell me that a led light will never blow like that... They are wrong.

When I built my new woodshop I did some research on lighting. Most articles suggested a goal of 100 lumens per square foot. I ended up at about 92 lumens per square foot and it is very well lit in my opinion. I still use task lighting on several machines (bandsaw, drill press, etc.) but my eyes are getting old (which some articles mentioned as a concern.

LED lights list the lumens and color temperature range. I suggest a color temp no less than 4,500 Kelvin, mine are all 5,000K.

A shop your size I would start figuring at four evenly spaced rows of three lights across the 24' way.

There's a lot of good options- I would start by calculating the Lumen Level you desire based on the type of tasks you described. The site below helps determine that by simply putting in your ceiling height and sqaure footage. I added four of these 15" high bay daylight color Led's to a 40 x 60 I put up and it's super bright.


https://www.waveformlighting.com/lumen-calculator

I wired mine on two, three-way switches so the could be turned on or off at either entryway.

LED strip lights aren't cheap but they will last a very long time and save you money on electricity.

I ran all lighting on a dedicated circuit. That way if I kick a breaker with one of the machines I still have lights.

This is good advice and I wired the same way and actually wired separate circuit for specific banks of lights. - The inrush current of LED's can exponentially add up quick and trip a breaker aside from their low amp run rate consumption. Lights on a separate circuit or circuits is a good idea.

My uncle has one about your size. Half of it is a garage the other half is a shop. He has 3 4' shop lights in the shop and 3 in the garage and it's not enough as we still have to use other task lighting over various benches.

I can back this up. I've got some of these Barrina fixtures in my garage too. They're amazing! My garage is 28'x38', and I think I've got a total of 16 of these lights hung. You couldn't pay me to go back to the 4 incandescent bulbs that were there when I moved in.