Building a New Shop

If the shop itself is one of the most important woodworking tools, lighting for the shop is a pretty high priority. I am no lighting expert, I'm sure there are formulas for determining the amount of light needed for a given environment but I don't know what they are. To compensate, I am using a formula derived from my previous shop lighting conditions.

My previous shop was about 19 x 20 and had eight 48" fluorescent tubes and seven 100w incandescent fixtures. I have found this to be a pretty suitable lighting level so my first pass at a lighting design is to provide a similar lighting ratio per square foot. This plan does not account for the four windows in the shop which should only make things better in daylight hours.

So, 19 x 20 = 380'
380 / 8 = 47.5 (for fluorescents)
380 / 7 = 54.3 (for incandescent)

The main floor is 26 x 64 or 1664'
To provide the same illumination I would need:
1664 / 47.5 = 35x 48" fluorescent tubes
1664 / 54.3 = 30.6x 100w incandescent bulbs (or equivalents).

The plan presented here has 36 fluorescent tubes and 30 incandescent fixtures. The track lights are counted as two, some fixtures near the stairs are not counted. All of this seems fairly straightforward and logical to me. After all, if it works okay in my previous shop it ought to work out at least as good in the new one. The only issue I see is basically related to the large numbers generated by the formula above. Seventy or so fixtures is going to cost quite a bit to purchase and operate. It will also take a lot of time to install. This is the down side of building a large shop. Because the ceiling is not all that high, only ten feet, some alternate lighting options are off the table.