Spacing? Pole barn lights

[Zebrafive]

I plan to use 48" T-8 Flourescent lights, 2 bulbs per fixture, fixtures with reflector. Pole Barn is 30' x 54' with 10 foot ceiling height.
I plan to have three switches, dividing the the lights into three zones, front, center and rear. With front to rear going the 54' length. Front would be approx first 10'. Center next 24'. Rear last 20'.
Reason for front frist 10' is the rollup door would cover them when the door is open, so they would not be used most of the time.
Center is main open work area.
Rear is mainly storage.
How many light fixtures should I use? Parallel to the 30' or 54' wall?
So if lights are in row, how far apart should they be? How far apart for each row?

 

[KennyG]

Here is what I did and everyone seems pretty impressed with the lighting. I have a 40 x 48 pole barn with a 12' ceiling, covered with white liner panel on the ceiling. I have two overhead doors in the 40' side. My lights are lined up with long direction (perpendicular to the trusses). I have 5 rows of lights. Each row has a 4 foot fixture every 8 feet (4 feet of light, 4 feet of space, 4 more feet of light etc.) The row spacing is nominally 8 feet, but the East side is the work area and the west side is the storage area, so I have the East rows a little closer than the west rows. The first row on each side is about 4 feet from the wall I omitted a couple of lights and moved a couple to keep them from being over the doors.

I have three switched circuits. One runs the east two rows and the ones around the doors, the second runs the west 3 rows less the lights around the doors. The third circuit runs additional lights over the workbenches. I have 4 additional fixtures directly over the bench (and the capability to add even more as my eyes get older and older).

I will try to find some pictures to post if I have any. Running perpendicular to the joists worked really well for me because I have joists on 4 foot centers. I used the screw in eyes for suspended ceilings as the hooks and just used the chains that come with the light fixtures to hang the lights.

 

[bigtiller]

My shop is 30' x46' with 10' a ceiling. I ran 8' long T-8 fixtures end to end the long way and hard wired them. Two rows, one switch. One row is over the garage doors and it makes no difference, I have never had to open or close a door to have more light. I have plenty of light night and day. It looks nice, neat, dimensional and professional.

 

[Diamondpilot]

My barn is 44x52. I ran 6 rows of lights each on the 44 length. Each row has 7 lights and each row is on its own switch. Its enough but not the best.

Each light has 2 48" florescent lights. Its a bunch of bulbs and they all seem to ho out at once.

Chris

 

[KennyG]

Here are a couple of shots of my lights. It shows the extra lights over the bench. I couldn't put lights over my tall door because there's not enough clearance between the door and the ceiling. I didn't bother installing lights over the other one because I didn't expect to be working there, but I can add them later if I want. I ran wiring above the ceiling to a grid of outlet boxes. If I was doing it over, I would run conduit under the ceiling. All my lights are T-8 plug ins from Menards on sale.

 

[Zebrafive]

Thanks for all the replies.

KennyG, how many lights are in each of your five rows?

bigtiller, two rows of 8footers, how many lights per row? I assume your rows are approx 15' apart.

Diamondpilot, you said 6 rows of 7 lights per row and not enough. Your rows are parallel to the 44' side? So 6 rows in 54'? How far apart are your rows? Since you said not enough, how would you change it?

 

[Zebrafive]

Here are a couple of shots of my lights. It shows the extra lights over the bench. I couldn't put lights over my tall door because there's not enough clearance between the door and the ceiling. I didn't bother installing lights over the other one because I didn't expect to be working there, but I can add them later if I want. I ran wiring above the ceiling to a grid of outlet boxes. If I was doing it over, I would run conduit under the ceiling. All my lights are T-8 plug ins from Menards on sale.



View attachment 298133 View attachment 298132

I am going to get the same lights from Menards. Sale ends tomorrow, so I need to determine how many to buy!

I am also looking at their T8 34watt CRI78, 4100K bulbs.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Thanks for all the replies.

Diamondpilot, you said 6 rows of 7 lights per row and not enough. Your rows are parallel to the 44' side? So 6 rows in 54'? How far apart are your rows? Since you said not enough, how would you change it?

I set the first row in about 6' from the outer walls on each side then spaced evenly. So 2x6'=12' Take that 54'-12' and that leaves about 42' for the other 4 rows. So they are aprox 10' apart each.

My barn is a pole barn but it its covered in 7/16" osb then vinyl siding to match the house. The back side of the osb is very dark and dampening so even though I have nearly 100 4' bulbs it seems kind of dark to me.
Chris

 

[bigtiller]

Thanks for all the replies.

KennyG, how many lights are in each of your five rows?

bigtiller, two rows of 8footers, how many lights per row? I assume your rows are approx 15' apart.

Diamondpilot, you said 6 rows of 7 lights per row and not enough. Your rows are parallel to the 44' side? So 6 rows in 54'? How far apart are your rows? Since you said not enough, how would you change it?

5 lights per row. Each row is about 7 feet from the wall leaving about 15 feet in the center.

 

[idaho2]

I set the first row in about 6' from the outer walls on each side then spaced evenly. So 2x6'=12' Take that 54'-12' and that leaves about 42' for the other 4 rows. So they are aprox 10' apart each.

My barn is a pole barn but it its covered in 7/16" osb then vinyl siding to match the house. The back side of the osb is very dark and dampening so even though I have nearly 100 4' bulbs it seems kind of dark to me.
Chris

I always use "Daylight" tubes in any size to give a more natural light than "Cool Light" which gives off a yellow dull light. Put one of each in sytem and you'll see what i'm speaking of. If it's in a painted room you'll make people think you just painted the room when you use "Day Light" tubes. Made a big difference in my CT room and the other area's of the diagnostic imaging dept here at the hospital.

idaho2

 

[KennyG]

I've got 5 or 6 lights, depending on the row. I offset the lights so each row is staggered from the adjacent rows. I have an average of almost 1 watt of lighting per square foot and, with the additional lights over the bench, I've got closer to 2 watts/ft2 on the benches. I think the white ceiling helps. The unfinished OSB probably isn't optimum, but I will have white pegboard on the walls in the areas I work in most.

 

[stub]

I've got 2/3 of a 36x48 barn lit. One 12x48 bay is horse stalls. The middle 12x48 bay is open. The other 12x48 is open but no light above, storage, hay, etc. I'm just using ceiling light sockets with 60w or 100w CFL bulbs and reflectors. I've got 2 on every truss, 1 above the middle and and 1 above the stall bays. Total of 8 lights, one switch. There's plenty of light for horse barn activity. I'd want more if it was a shop. I was worried about the CFLs lighting in cold, but they work good so far. But it's only been down to 10F or so.

 

[Diamondpilot]

I always use "Daylight" tubes in any size to give a more natural light than "Cool Light" which gives off a yellow dull light. Put one of each in sytem and you'll see what i'm speaking of. If it's in a painted room you'll make people think you just painted the room when you use "Day Light" tubes. Made a big difference in my CT room and the other area's of the diagnostic imaging dept here at the hospital.

idaho2

I will check into that. Thanks

Chris

 

[crbr]

Thanks for the pictures

 

[RickB]

30x36 building with 3 rows of 4 two bulb fixtures running the long way. Obviously, the rows are almost end-to-end and wall to wall. Each row is on its own switch. Never regretted adding to the "expert" opinion I got from the supply house I bought the fixtures from.

 

[George2615]

I added an 18' x 32' pole barn addition to the back of my 24' x 24' main garage. In the addition I used 2 rows of 4' 2 tube T8 fixtures (4 fixtures in each row). My lights are spaced about 4' between the lights. The end lights are each about 2' from the end walls. The rows are 8' apart from each other. Each row has its own switch. I have plenty of light for any jobs I need to do.
This coming summer I'm going to replace the old T12 fixtures in the main garage with T8's and change the location of each for more light where I need it.