Hello All,
I am trying to determine lighting and heating for a 24' x 32' garage. It will have 10' ceilings with an open floor plan. The only walls will be around the 9' x 8' bathroom, the rest of the garage is all open.
We plan to build this in the back of our property in a few months. We will then LIVE in it for 2 years or so while we prepare to have a custom home put on the front part of our property.
So I have to determine what kind of heat and lighting I want. Something that will be comfortable to live in, yet still be usable for a garage when our house is done later. I am avoiding baseboard heat since this will end up as a wood shop working area in the future and I don't want to have baseboards all around the walls covering areas where wood and/or equipment may end up. I also will be having a 2' stem wall around the garage, so if I had baseboard heat, and low to the ground, it would have to go through the concrete. I don't necessarily want to have my heaters 2' off the ground either. :-)
I first thought of getting 2 of those big wall mounted heaters and place one on each side of the garage facing down at an angle to heat the whole living area, but I wasn't sure those could have an external thermostat that I can adjust without climbing a ladder to change the temperature setting. I want to have an electronic thermostat so that the heater can run 24/7 but be adjustable on timed settings for when we are in, or out, or a weekend temperature.
Then I found these ceiling heaters by Qmark (Model #QCH1202) that mount in the ceiling and are fan forced air downward. So my thinking now is maybe buying 2 of those and space them appropriately in the garage. I have just written the company who makes those heaters to get suggestions from them if this heater is the correct heater for my application.
That leaves the bathroom. I could buy another ceiling mounted heater, or I can try and find an alternative heating source for the bathroom. With a concrete floor, taking a shower at 05:00 AM in the winter, that bathroom is going to need heat and a Heat Lamp is not going to cut it.:-)
I don't have room to put a cadet type heater in the bathroom, but if I had to, I could make the bathroom a bit larger so that I could accommodate one if that really is the best scenario for bathroom heat and not utilizing the ceiling heater type.
Any suggestions for heat in this kind of situation? Garage that will be utilized as a living quarters for a couple of years, thus requiring constant heat.
On the subject of finishing some of the details of this garage, I am tossed on ideas for lighting. My first thought was 4' fluorescent fixtures, probably about 4 of them spaced evenly in the living area. Then have regular bulb in the bathroom and a regular light fixture in the middle of the living area as to have a backup light and so that in the future I could come in from the house to the garage and just hit the one light to get something out real quick. As opposed to lighting 4 fluorescent fixtures to light the garage just to get a tool out from the tool box, a single light switch with a regular fixture would be more efficient.
Then after discussing this with my wife tonight, we thought maybe we should just go with regular incandescent fixtures throughout; no fluorescent. Have
1 fixture above the bed area, 1 for the bathroom, and then maybe 2 other fixtures for the rest of the space. Basically that would end up with;1) 60W fixture for the bathroom (Actually a fan/heat lamp/lamp fixture on the ceiling)
1) 60W fixture over the bed area 1) 60W fixture covering an area of about 12' x 20' 1) 60W fixture covering the other half of about 12' x 20'240W of lights for 768 Sq Ft? I know there can't really be a square foot per watt convergence, but if I break it down by area (as in rooms), each room/area would have a light fixture and a 60w bulb. If I purchase fixtures that can take up to 150 watt bulbs, or even a fixture that can accept 2) 60w bulbs, I could always have more light if I needed it yet still run 1 bulb if I ended up having enough light.
Not having done this before, I don't know how much light (or heat for that matter) would be needed.
As with the heat suggestions, does anyone have suggestions on lighting?
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Tim