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I am building a 1,000 square ft. shop with a 3 in 12 gabled ceiling. Basically 28'x38'. It will be sheet rocked and painted a light color. The peak is 12', and it is 8' at the walls.
I was looking at some high bay LED fixtures at Home Despot but I am playing around with different ideas. I am looking into some low bay fixtures because from what I read high bays are for 20' and higher ceilings. At first thought I was going to use 3 high bay fixtures of 16x24" with a 11,200 lumen output right down the middle of the ridge but I am thinking it won't have enough dispersal, super bright in the middle of the shop and dark along the edges. I don't expect this to be the only light source. I want good general lighting and will have task lighting where needed. Anyway any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks,
L

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Link, congrats on such a huge new shop.... I'm sure most of us will be jealous! But then again, you get to pay for it too...

I recently did a full lighting upgrade in my shop, just bought the LED 4' "shop lights" from Costco, 4000 lumens each at cool white 4000K output. I have 9.5 foot ceiling in the middle with 8 foot at the walls. I put 6 on the ceiling and hung two on the walls in specific locations for task specific jobs. I still have 3 task spot lights for inlay and fine detail work.

Now, my shop is only 185 sft but with my eye sight starting to fail me quicker than I'd like, the 24,000 lumens is great! No extra strain on my eyes due to lack of lighting.

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I have a similar size shop. My ceiling is a little higher. !2' to 14' and the peak. I have 5 - 8' fixtures. 4 - t-8's per fixture. I don't know the lumens or spectrum of them but am 100% happy with the set up. That provides suitable lighting for my entire shop and only use one task light at my main bench.

My 10' x 16' spray room has 3 - 4' fixtures using the same bulbs. One directly over where I spray and one mounted on the wall diagonally, about a foot from the ceiling. It has an 8' ceiling. The 5 fixtures in my main shop are on 3 switches and rarely do I have them all on but it's nice to have them there when I need them.

Good Luck!

Enjoy the new shop!

You are correct that having 3 super bright fixtures for such a large space won't make you happy.

The high bay lamps rely on their height and the reflectors to disperse the light. They still have quite noticable light and dark areas even at 30' up even if they are a little too far apart. LED lamps are even worse in this regard than the older HID/MH or Fluorescent bulbs. Another disadvantage is that their light runs more towards blue than yellow. Your eyes are far less efficient in the blue spectrum than the yellow spectrum... So it takes a lot more light to see the "same" brightness..... It makes a room very shadowy even though a light meter may read the same.

Also - light disperses at the distance squared... So you see 2x as many lumens when the light is 25% closer... A little light fairly close does a better job than a huge amount way far off. Think of the lamp above the sink or stove in your kitchen... You don't need them for "general" lighting, but you always use them when you are working.

Here would be my plan.

Plan on some general lighting. I would put a little more in areas where you work than storage areas.

Concentrate your work lighting over your work areas.. And arrange them such that shadows are off your work areas... So put the lamp over your bench instead of 10 feet behind you in the walkway/open space.

Have less light in storage areas... And set those up on separate switches so you can turn off stuff you don't need.

Use dropped lights to your advantage also. You don't realy need one huge 400 watt LED lamp 20 feet above your workbench. You may really like one 4 bulb fluorescent fixture hung at 8' instead...

LED lights are the way to go now. I just redid my shop; it's 200 sq ft with 10 foot ceilings, and
I have 4x 4 foot double fixtures. So that's 16800 lumens. They're 5000k temperature, and I don't regret it for a second. The quality of light is way better than even the best fluorescents, and they're more efficient too. The lumen rating accounts for our eyes' sensitivity to the color spectrum, so same lumens=same perceived brightness. The color render index wasn't a very high number, I compared them with some fluorescents that were supposed to have a really good color render index, and the LED's were far superior to my eyes (and I have good eyes for color). Even so, I still have task lamps on my drill press and bandsaw. More light is more better.

Hey Link, I have 10' flat ceilings. One idea that really worked out for me is having the lighting hanging down on chains. I left a gap over the fixtures large enough to run my largest dust collection duct. Any air line or dust collection can run over the top of the fixtures, leaving the area below shadow free.

Crappy pictures but I think they illustrate.

Thanks all,
I have found the lights I want but they are freakin expensive. I am trying for a more economical solution. They have a 120° dispersal with options for different lenses. There is one lens with a 135°x85° dispersal. This wider dispersal helps solve the LED's more focused nature problem. I might get these if the budget allows. Might mean I will have to do my own insulating instead of hiring it out. I have done everything myself so far but I figured I would hire out the sheetrock and insulation.
Link

Dave, nice shop dude!

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

Well, I am switching to 6000K 4 foot, LED, 18 watt tubes. You can do almost anything with them. Real easy to redo 4 foot shop light fixtures (takes about 15 minutes). At $8 each, a real deal. You can even just hook wires to the pins on one end and stick them up (literally). Unbreakable, long lasting, and operate on anything from 90 volts to 260 volts.

Grant