How Many Lumens Do I Need for Garage Lighting?

It didn't take me long after I moved into my home before I desired a lighter garage. I bet you share my feelings.

But how can you determine how many lights are necessary to provide your garage the desired level of brightness? What type of lighting do you require, then?

Everything depends on how many lumens you require for your garage.

Lumens are used to rate LED lights. The general brightness of the lighting in the garage is determined by the lumens that your lights output.

50 lumens per square foot of area is the minimum recommended by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) recommendations. A two-car garage needs a minimum of 20,000 lumens, compared to the typical one-car garage's required for 13,200 lumens.

So how do you calculate how many lumens a garage needs to be adequately lit?

Let's first discuss what a lumen is and how it differs from a watt.

Lumens vs. Watts

Watts are the standard unit of measurement for light bulbs. Watts don't really measure how much light a light bulb emits; instead, they measure how much energy a light bulb needs.

Typically, but not always, a brighter bulb corresponds to a higher wattage.

The twisted fluorescent light bulbs known as CFLs generated a similar amount of light while using a small portion of the energy that our old incandescent bulbs did. Consumers were confused since the makers identified them in terms of how many watts of power they consumed.

LED lights are now measured in Lumens.

What, though, is a lumen?

Lumens are the actual amount of light that an object produces, not the amount of electricity that a lightbulb consumes.

There is no "one lamp fits all" option for how many lumens you need for your garage because it depends on what you want to accomplish there.

Thankfully, we can determine it for your particular garage using a straightforward computation.

Not to worry. I'll do as little math as possible.

How to Calculate Lumens for Garage Lighting

Let's now discuss how we get at the figures I first gave.

1. Recommended Lumens Per Square Foot

Based on the intended usage of the room, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) suggested lighting standards. Despite being developed for commercial structures, they provide some insightful advice that we'll employ in our situation. (source: pdf)

They advise 50 lumens per square foot for a service bay or showroom for automobiles.

We'll presume that your garage requires at least the same amount of light.

2. Measure Your Garage

The size of your garage is the other piece of information we want. This information will be used to calculate the amount of illumination your garage requires.

A typical one-car garage is 12 feet by 22 feet, or 264 square feet.

Similar to this, a two-car garage typically measures 20 feet by 20 feet, however there is a little more variation in size. That is equivalent to around 400 square feet of space.

3. Multiply Together

With those two figures in hand, we can multiply them to determine the overall lumen need for your garage.

One Car Garage

50 lumens/Sq. Ft.  x  264 Sq. Ft   =    13,200 lumens

Two Car Garage

50 lumens/Sq. Ft.  x  400 Sq. Ft   =    20,000 lumens

A two-car garage needs at least 20,000 lumens, whereas a one-car garage needs at least 13,200 lumens.

Recall that this is the bare minimum. Depending on how you utilize your garage, you could want more lumens.

In my situation, I chose a minimum of 100 lumens per square foot since I wanted my garage lights to be as bright as possible. My two-car garage needed about 48,000 lumens, according to this calculation.

How Do You Calculate Lumens for a Workbench? 

People who clean their automobiles or use their garage as their primary workshop require brighter illumination (higher lumens) than others who merely park their car.

300 lumens per square foot are what the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) advises for a workshop.

You must determine the size of your workshop space in order to determine how many lumens you require.

Example of a lumen calculation: If your workshop table is 6 feet by 2.5 feet, its square footage is 6 x 2.5, or 15 square feet. This works up to 4,500 lumens to effectively illuminate your workshop table space as you should install 300 lumens per square foot for workshop areas.

Although it seems like a lot, you only get roughly that much with a single four-foot LED light fixture.

Remember that these are only guiding principles.

Garages with dark walls or light fixtures that are shaded will require more lumens to make up for it. In contrast, garages with windows will have sufficient ambient lighting, reducing the number of light lights you require.

Types of lights: Incandescent vs. Fluorescent Lighting vs. LED

What you want to perform in the garage is not the only factor in determining how much illumination you need there.

The type of lighting you install also matters.

There are several types of lights to choose from:

• These are your "traditional" light bulbs: incandescent illumination. One of the first types of electric illumination are incandescent bulbs, which have a tungsten filament inside a glass shell. Currently, LED and CFL lights are being phased in to take their place.

• Fluorescent lighting: A low-pressure mercury vapor gas discharge lamp, fluorescent lighting employs fluorescence to create visible light. Prior to achieving their maximum brightness, they must warm up, which can take anything between a few seconds and many minutes.

• Compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) lighting: CFL lighting is a type of fluorescent lamp made especially to replace incandescent lighting. It is frequently intended to fit into the same fixtures that once housed incandescent lights.

• LED lighting: LEDs (LED bulbs) are semiconducting light sources that produce light when current passes through them. They have an exceptionally extended lifespan and are exceedingly effective.

Although they are initially more expensive, most individuals replace their fluorescent and CFL lighting with LED lights.

In your garage, color temperature is also crucial. Cool-colored fluorescent, CFL, and LED lights are typically advised for usage in auxiliary workspaces like garages and shops.

Benefits of LED and CFL lighting: More Efficient Compared to incandescent lighting, LED and fluorescent lighting produce a lot more lumens per watt.

For instance, a 60-watt light bulb produces 800 lumens but an LED light of same brightness only consumes 6–8 watts!

Lower Heat

Because they produce relatively little heat as a byproduct of producing light, fluorescent and LED lights are less likely to burn someone or accidentally start a fire.

Additionally, you won't have to worry about finding ways to keep your garage cool, which is important in Florida.

LEDs and fluorescent lights emit less heat and are more efficient, in addition to their benefits in terms of fire and heat safety. You'll spend less on air conditioning if you use these lights in your garage.

Different Kinds of Garage Lighting

After discussing the various forms of lighting, it should be clear that I strongly advise LED lighting.

In comparison to incandescent bulbs, LED lights are more energy-efficient and durable. Although they are more expensive than fluorescent lights, they warm up quicker and reach their maximum brightness faster.

Let's now determine which lighting options are ideal for installation in a garage.

We already determined how many lumens are required to sufficiently illuminate your garage. We multiply that figure by the lumen output of each fixture.

See? I swore I'd keep the math straightforward.

Depending on your demands, these are the lighting options I suggest:

• Illumination for tubes: If you're using LED lighting, tubes are often the best option. T5, T8, or T12 are the several identifiers for this illumination. T5 or T8 type bulbs are preferable to T12 types since they are more energy-efficient.

• There are LED shop lights as well as the more typical fluorescent lighting. Numerous little garages might benefit from shop lighting. Installation doesn't need any wiring because they are affordable and frequently include plugs.

• Motion-activated lighting The light efficiency in your garage may be greatly increased by installing motion-activated lighting. Although they might cost a little bit more than certain other types of light fixtures, they ultimately pay for themselves in total energy savings.

How to tell how many lumens your light puts out

When changing a light, you typically want one that is at least as bright. It could be hard to recall how many lumens your present bulb produces.

Thankfully, it's simple to figure out.

Lighting labels from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can be seen on the packaging for light fixtures and bulbs. Along with these additional significant characteristics of a lighting source, it breaks down the brightness of the light in lumens:

• Approximate annual energy cost

• Bulb life expectancy (in years)

• Color temperature (whether it is a cool or warm colored light)

• Wattage 

• Whether or not the bulb contains mercury

Conclusion: Why Lumens Matter

We all desire a well-lit garage to make working there more convenient.

The garage is one of the darkest rooms in the average home, while being one of the spaces in the house where good lighting is most important.

Finding equipment and tools may be challenging in dark garages. More serious repercussions, such as falls or other injuries, may result from the pressure on your eyes. Never should you have to use a penlight or flashlight to discover something in your garage.

This should assist you in determining how many lumens you require to operate in a well-lit garage.