Quick Tip: So what type of lights should you choose for your garage? From the practical point of view, white lights are the best but really, it depends on your preference. Which lights are much more practical as they are more condusive for work. Nevertheless warm or yellow tones are also very popular as they are much less glaring and creates a more pleasant and cozy feel. |
Every garage should have some lights, and when you first move in the garage will probably have a single light bulb on a string for at least some minimal lighting. If you're lucky or the place was pre-owned, the garage lights will be customized to match. Most of the time they're not what you want but what you should really be thinking about is what you need, especially when deciding on what lights to stick in
your garage. First off you need to ask yourself, what exactly are you going to be doing inside your garage? Will you be working on the car? Or will you have a working bench complete with woodworking tools and a whole pile of lumber on the side? Will you be leaving the garage lights on all night? If your needs are not that diverse, then the best lights for your garage would be the standard fluorescent tube kind as these will save you serious cash on electricity in the long run and provide clear lighting for you to check on your car and other stuff inside the garage. Setting up fluorescent tube lights are quite easy to do, while wiring them up is even easier.
If you need to work on your car you can still keep the fluorescent tube lights as your garage lights of choice mainly because regardless of what lights you're using, you're going to need something portable and focused when you've got the engine open. For this you'll probably need a slightly more powerful fluorescent light like the kind you see in auto shops. The ones that have a hook on them so you can hang them from the raised car front or something like that. Finding such garage lights is quite easy where most hardware stores stock up on them or you can always ask your mechanic what he uses.
If you're like me and you like to putter around with the band saw and make your own shelving or minor repairs, then you're going to need slightly more powerful lighting, especially the garage lights around your workbench. For this you can get the energy saving kind of light bulbs which may be a bit pricey compared to the standard ones but offer a bit more light than the aforementioned fluorescent tubes but save just as much energy.
The other garage lights you should consider are the ones that will be constantly on. Whether you're keeping it on so that your camera can pick up intruders or you just feel safer with a night light over the house, many people do it, so there's no shame in it. For this type of garage light you're going to need one that doesn't consume much energy, has a good spread of light and can last a long time. For that purpose its best to go for LED lights or LED light bulbs. While these bulbs will take some time to light up, they will use the least amount of energy, offer plenty of light and last a long time. If you get a lot of sunshine during the day, the other option is to go for solar lights that absorb solar energy during the day and light up at night.