On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 22:51:20 GMT, "Charles Jackson"
wrote:

|I'm having a house built and am planning to use the garage as my workshop
|until we can build a detached workshop down the road. I'm thinking of using
|recessed can lights to illuminate the space. My garage will be 26-1/2' x
|23'. I would prefer not to have a lot of hanging fixtures or tube lights
|mounted on the ceiling but don't know whether recessed lights would be a
|good choice. Has anyone here used recessed (can) lights in a workshop? How
|did they perform? Any other suggestions are appreciated!

Personally I would avoid them. I have a lot of them in my house and
with the 13' to 15' ceiling height there's just not enough light even
though I've maxed out the permissible wattage with halogen bulbs.

If you use enough of them to get decent lighting level in a shop I
think it would serve as a pretty good paint curing booth too, although
I speak from the desert of southern Arizona.

You can get fluorescent fixtures that are recessed and hence flush
with a finished ceiling. I have installed some four tube, four-foot
Lithonia fixtures from Home Depot in my garage/shop. Even though the
shop is unfinished, with exposed stud/OSB walls and I-joist/plywood
ceiling, I get ample (but not excessive) light levels at bench height
with a row of these mounted on eight foot centers about 11' above the
floor.

A lot of folks here don't like Lithonia and I will offer one big
caveat. And I mean BIG CAVEAT!

While these are available at *Home* Depot they are *industrial* lights
and DO NOT belong in a residential setting because they generate
prodigious amounts of radio-frequency interference. I learned this
after installing them so I got HD to order, and provide to me at no
cost, *resident* replacement ballasts, but I had to install them.

If you go to fluorescent fixtures, make sure they are rated for
residential service, especially if you want to listen to AM radio,
receive off-the-air TV, or your neighbor is a ham radio operator.

If he is and you live in S. Florida, you should be thanking him for
being there.

Wes