House Projects

[A//// Guy]

Anybody know a good electrician? Looking to get some can lights installed and need wire run via the attic.

[Speedfreak]

We have someone we use(electrician), I'll try to remember to.add his info when I get home.

On that note, we are looking for a general contractor/company to do some updates to our house (bathrooms and moving some non structural walls).

Anyone know anyone good with reasonable rates?

[Murlo26]

We have someone we use(electrician), I'll try to remember to.add his info when I get home.

On that note, we are looking for a general contractor/company to do some updates to our house (bathrooms and moving some non structural walls).

Anyone know anyone good with reasonable rates?

When you looking to have this done? My dad is a GC but he's a bit swamped right now. Depending on timing I am sure he would be happy to discuss this with you.

[A//// Guy]

Ended up getting a quote from a local electrician in the south metro, its about 150 per can light, and another 100 for the switch if needed. About what I expected, but I may try doing the kitchen myself and see how that goes since wiring and the switch are already there.

[Speedfreak]

When you looking to have this done? My dad is a GC but he's a bit swamped right now. Depending on timing I am sure he would be happy to discuss this with you.

Would like to get a quote and design rolling soon to get the ball rolling. We'll have some work to get rid of stuff and move stuff out of the way. Then would like to begin construction roughly February.

[Murlo26]

Would like to get a quote and design rolling soon to get the ball rolling. We'll have some work to get rid of stuff and move stuff out of the way. Then would like to begin construction roughly February.

I will ask him for you. If you want, shoot me a PM with some contact info and I can pass it on. He's building my house currently and has quite a few other jobs rolling right now but starting work in Feb would probably be a good timeline.

[Speedfreak]

I will ask him for you. If you want, shoot me a PM with some contact info and I can pass it on. He's building my house currently and has quite a few other jobs rolling right now but starting work in Feb would probably be a good timeline.

Contact info sent. Thanks

[Halon]

So I've gotten sick of the garage layout. Just kinda got shit done and didn't really think it thru very well. So I'm going to try and redo a lot, slowly but surely. We started by adding two windows which I'm in love with. Just lets in tons of natural light and you can open them to help get a breeze going thru the front of the garage. At some point once I clear the wall off in my back shop area, we will be adding a window back there too but not quite yet.

So next up now is the ceiling lighting. The garage came with 3 bulb sockets when it was built. So all I did originally is put in high wattage bulbs in two of them, and the one in my car shop area I put up an old shitty small ceiling fan that I painted black, and has 3 bulbs. The fan is so small and shitty that you don't feel any air movement even if you stand right under it, it's pointless. Then my father in law added some fluorescent lighting on the side walls a couple years back which is kinda nice, but I'd like to do something different I think as I just don't really like how it looks. I haven't completely decided if I'm keeping the fluorescent yet, but for now I am going to just focus on redoing the ceiling lighting.

Buddy with a Supra who lives a couple miles from me, his setup is so nice and sort of motivated me to do something. I did some researching and some shopping and went a lil overboard on the planning/layout lol. I ended up deciding I'm going to install 16 recessed cans in the ceiling. The old 3 bulb sockets will be removed and completely replaced with the can lights. Plus Menards is having a big lighting sale. 8 will go in my shop area as that's what I care most about being well lit. The other 8 will span the 3 stall garage to give it 'adequate' lighting.

So I picked up 4 packs of these:
https://www.menards.com/main/lighting-ceiling-fans/indoor-lighting/recessed-lighting/recessed-lights/patriot-lighting-6-remodel-ic-recessed-housing-with-white-baffle-4-pack/p-1444429265860-c-7499.htm?tid=1494377197922225715&ipos=9

The plan is to put them on two switches so basically half of them turn on with one switch, and half with the other, that way if I don't want the lighting completely blasting I can have just half on.

Then, I'm going to add 3 Industrial type ceiling fans (56") to hopefully help keep some air movement going on in the garage. I plan to put all 3 on a single adjustable speed control switch. These are also on sale at Menards:
https://www.menards.com/main/lighting-ceiling-fans/ceiling-fans/shop-all-ceiling-fans/turn-of-the-century-reg-56-white-industrial-remote-ceiling-fan/p-1444438412460-c-7486.htm?tid=2994399106250210352&ipos=2

I drew up a pretty accurate / to-scale drawing of the garage using SolidWorks. Some things may be an inch or two off here and there, but overall it's quite accurate. It shows the internal sheetrock dimensions, the 6" can placement, their overall beam width assuming 45* beam width and a roughly 11.5' ceiling height. It shows the 3 fan locations as well as stud locations, garage door openers, and garage doors at full up (wanted to make sure the last row of lights wouldn't be covered up even if garage was open).

The interesting thing is I did the math on wattage as I wanted to make sure I'm not overloading my current 15A lighting circuit. Assuming 15A @ 110VAC, I should be OK for roughly 1650W. So to be a little conservative I just said my limit is 1500W. I'll be using LED bulbs which are advertised as 9W (65W equivalent), so again conservative I just figured 10W x 16 bulbs = 160W total. Lol, not even hardly scratching the surface! Then the fans, I'm not completely sure but I believe they'll pull roughly 60W at full speed. Even if they pulled 100W, that puts me at 460W which still is only using barely 33% of the circuits rating. Comparing it to what I'm currently at, I calculate I'm currently somewhere around 700-800W. So overall I think it'll be quite the improvement, and still leaves me with plenty of room to either keep or add some extra fluorescent lighting or something.

So that's the plan, and planning to just do it slowly but surely over the course of winter.

[asshanson]

Very nice project, that'll be cool when its complete. Do you have any attic insulation above there? I'd love to do the same but I have a foot of cellulose type stuff on the ceiling that would make it impossible, or at least really suck. I have the standard three bulbs, and they're CFL so they take several minutes to warm up in the winter. Maybe I should just replace them with 100W equivalent LEDs.

Regarding circuits, they're rated at 80% of the amperage. So you could safely draw 12A on that circuit, or about 1300W.

[Halon]

Yes it's full of blown in insulation. So I made sure to use IC (insulated ceiling) rated cans. Yes there will be a mess, haha.