Best Buying Guide of Work Lights for Painting Rooms, Walls , and Ceilings
How to Select the Best Work Light for Painting Rooms, Walls, and Ceilings.
The best painting work light provides 20 foot candles (fc) of uniform, even illumination in all directions and makes about 10,000 lumens of light. A work light for painting should be placed up off of the floor avoiding the use of a cumbersome, failure prone tripods. Battery operated painting lights are not recommended for painting because they are way too dim and their batteries are too weak to provide the light levels required to see transparent spots and flaws when painting. Finally flood lights should only be used for painting as a last resort or for specific applications.
Omnidirectional Lighting Best for Painting Rooms
The style of the shown light fixture, hung from the ceiling, provides even, shadow free illumination. Painting walls does not require intense light. So there is no need to concentrate light. Therefore a single light fixture that effectively scatters light all over can do a really good job of lighting a whole room at once. This minimizes the need to move light fixtures and ensures that dark corners, nooks, and crannies are illuminated.
A painting light can be brought up off the floor in many novel ways using hooks, magnets, straps, and other fasteners. Cheap tripods are not recommended. But other stands including ordinary floor lamps work great. (Details & Photos are shared later)
A Work Light for Painting Should Provide 20 fc of Illumination
Based upon IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) standards*, the minimal recommended light level for ordinary interior room painting is 20 fc (foot-candles). The ceiling light fixtures in a typical house only produce one or two foot candles. A table lamp will just produce 10 fc right underneath the lamp shade. This is woefully inadequate. With out a good painting work light, you can’t see transparent spots where the old paint job bleeds through. If you can’t actually see what you are doing, it’s like painting in the dark.
Transparent spots are commonly caused by brush strokes as shown in the first photograph above. A common mistake homeowners make is not laying on enough paint when "cutting in" with a brush where the wall and ceiling meet. Only after the paint has dried do they see a stripe all the way around the top of a room that is off-color.
When rolling on paint, it's easy to roll too far. Because wet paint looks different that dry, you can overlook blotches where the under coat bleeds through.
Good lighting is imperative when trying to detect thin spots in a paint job. It’s especially important to have excellent lighting if you are painting at night. Otherwise, once the curtains are drawn and daylight comes in, only then you will then see what a crummy paint job you did!
*Since 1906, the Illuminating Engineering Society's mission is to benefit the public through lighting knowledge that includes the studying of recommended light levels.
10,000 lumens is a Good Lumen Output for a Painting Work Light
A 10,000 lumen work light source will illuminate a typical lightly colored 12’x 15’ room to an average of 20fc, which is what you want for painting walls and ceilings. For bigger rooms you will want to move the work light closer to where your are painting, or put in a higher wattage bulb. Alternatively, you will need more than one work light.
Battery Powered Lights Useless for Painting
A battery powered (2000 lm) work light will only illuminate a 4’ x 5’ closet to 20 average fc. In other words, they are worthless for painting rooms!
Now there there are manufacturers that say their work lights will make 5,000 or even 7,000 lumens and run for 11 hours straight. But you have to read the very fine print. To get the exaggerated run times, the work light has to be run at reduced output. Some only produce as little as 700 lumens, less than an old fashion 60 watt light bulb.
As a practical matter, a Painting Work Light Needs a Cord
You can’t violate the laws of physics. It takes energy to produce light. The batteries used by portable work lights just aren’t big enough to produce 10,000 lumens for any reasonable amount of time. The basic math is that common 20v, 6aH batteries on a 10,000 lumen LED work light would have to be changed every 50* minutes all day long.
* Math: {A 100 watt painting lights uses 1/10th of a Kwhr every hour. A 6 amp hour, 20 volt battery can store at maximum .129 Kwhr of energy. But you should only discharge a lithium battery by 70% or so , because if you don’t, the battery will loose 25% of it’s capacity in short order. See the article: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
A Painting Work Light Should Be Kept up off of the Floor
The best work light for painting is up off of the floor. The higher a light fixture is up off of the ground, the better the illumination on walls and ceilings will be. This is why lights in the home are put on the ceiling in the first place.
Here above you see a painting work light I used on a real job site. It’s hanging from a (turned on) ceiling light fixture that was just to dim too paint with alone. (The painting work light itself is turned off to allow photography) The shown painting work light has LEDs all the way around it’s lateral sides to spray light on the walls and LED’s on one end to shine light on the ceiling.
Light easily bounces off of a white ceiling to indirectly shoot where it needs to go. This “indirect” light helps even out the illumination and soften or eliminate shadows. If a light is up off the floor and the walls and ceiling of a room are light colored, ½ to 2/3rds of the light you see has actually bounced around the room two or more times. That is, the amount of indirect illumination randomly scattering in a room is much more important than the direct illumination coming straight from a light fixture.
On the other hand, right below is photo of a lantern type work light that shows what happens when you put a painting work light on the floor.
A light fixture close to the ground will spread light on the floor as shown in the above photo. Floors tend to be darker. So the floor soak up light from the work light. Normal flooring materials absorb 80% of the light striking them. So light striking the floor never gets a chance to bounce around the room multiple times
Light coming off of the sides of this painting work light stays low, close to the ground. By the shadows in the above photo, you can see that the up light is minimal. It’s like painting in a cave.
Perhaps the only time you would use a "lantern" type fixture on the floor would be if you were painting mop boards or cutting an edge on trim.
Flood Lights Set on Floor are not the Best Painting Work Lights
An old stand-by painting work light has been flood lights setting on the floor. But they aren't the best for painting.
Let’s say you are “cutting in” the line where the ceiling and wall meet with a brush. This is detailed, precise work where you have to accurately draw a line while ensuring good paint coverage.
But a flood light sitting on the floor will do a terrible job of putting light on the wall where it meets the ceiling. First, a light on the floor is far away from where the wall and ceiling meet. The further a light fixture is from it's target, the more the light attenuates. Second, light from a fixture down on the floor strikes the upper wall at a shallow, oblique, glancing angle. (A light fixture makes the most illumination when it's aimed directly at a surface at a 90 degree angle) Finally, a light sitting on the floor gets in the way where it's easy to block and cause shadows.
Spot lights Are Bad for Most Painting, Good for Enormous Rooms or Outdoors
Spot Lights generate a hot spot of light that can be projected over a longer distance. But as you can see from the photo' below, that they make a bright hot spot that you that must be moved around the room as you paint. Furthermore, when your eye sees a hot spot, the pupil of the eye automatically constricts. While this sharpens vision within the hot spot, you lose visual acuity else where. enormous
Unfortunately, it may be hard to tell the difference between a spot light and a flood light, because they often look alike and promoters call "spot lights" flood lights. Spot lights have special reflectors or lens to concentrate light.
How are Spot Lights Used for Painting?
Spot lights are good for painting outdoors or very large rooms.
If you are painting outside, you have to directly focus light exactly where you are painting because you only have one chance to illuminate what you are painting. Light that "misses the target" will bounce away and get lost to the atmosphere.
Another place where it makes sense to use a spot light is when you are painting in a truly enormous room. Pretend you are painting a door in a warehouse. If you shine light on the door with a spot light, some light will bounce back and enter your eye to let you see the door. The rest of this light scatters in random directions all over the warehouse. The chance that ray of light will bounce off of a wall, far, far away, and then shine back on the door and then bounce into your eye is next to nothing.
What's the Best Way to Get a Light Fixture Up Off the Floor for painting?
Tripods are Troublesome, there are much better light stands including an ordinary floor lamp or a ladder.
On my own painting jobs, I use my 11-way all purpose work light without any sort of stand. Instead I use it's many accessories to put the light where I need it. It will hang from a shower curtain rod, the top of a door, a closet rod, a door knob. a ceiling vent or a light fixture.
When painting a closet, just place the 11-way all purpose work light on a closet shelf. This works great with the WireMaid brand wire shelves that are ubiquitous now days. It will let you see in awkward areas, like behind your head in a washing machine cubby. If your closet shelves are solid, just hand the light using a hook from the closet rod.
If you have to paint around beds, tables, or other furniture, just place the light on a handy piece of furniture.
Tripod Painting Work Lights are Junk
Tripod painting lights fall apart and are big, clunky, and get in the way on the job site. When painting inside the home, there often isn't enough floor space because you may have to work around a bed or other furniture as they are moved away from walls.
I've found the cheap tripod work lights to be notoriously unreliable. Cheap tripod work lights just don’t last. Their friction fittings wear out. Light fixture heads droop and point straight down. If you carry the tripod light by the top, soon the whole top of the light fixture separates, leaving the base sitting on the floor.
The death blow to a tripod work light comes when someone finally steps on one of the legs. The supporting struts get bent and ruined so that the tripod work light now naturally topples over. I’ve seen it happen time after time.
Tripod lights fall over a lot too. They have power cords that are attached to the top of the tripod. All it takes is one good yank on the cord to tip the whole tripod light over. As you move the light around the cord stretches out high above the ground where it’s easy to snag. You can tip a tripod light over just by stepping on a cord and pulling it taut.
There are Better Light Stands for Painting than Tripods.
An ordinary floor lamp or a step ladder is a great light stand. Small foot print rolling stands are an option. But the best light stands may be no light stand at all. Light fixtures like my 11-Way All Purpose Work Light don't require a stand.
Painting with a Floor Lamp and High Output LED Bulb
A very low cost DIY painting light is a typical 5' high floor lamp with a compact base that is mated with a high output screw-in LED bulb. You may already own the floor lamp you need. All you have to do is remove the lamp shade and the shade support (i.e. the harp) and then screw-in a high lumen LED bulb. ( 10,000 or more lumens suggested) You can buy a stand alone bulb LED bulb or you can temporally remove and use the bulb from a work light like our 11-Way All Purpose Work Light.
This jumbo LED/ floor lamp combo has 3 advantages over tripod lights: (1) Low cost (~$20-$30), (2)
Ladder Lights- Attaching a light to a ladder makes a great light for painting.
If you are doing new construction, you are likely to have a step ladder on site. This is a perfect structure to attach a work light to. Since you ordinarily will be moving a step ladder around the perimeter of a room when "cutting in" where the ceiling and wall meet, why not take a light with you?
Below is our 11-way all purpose work light is shown attached to the side of ladder using the Velcro (tm) like hook & loop straps that come with the light. Alternatively, you can strap a work light to the top of a ladder set in the middle of the room.
Either way, you will avoid the expense of buying a light fixture with a base so there is one less thing to bring to the job site.
Unique ways to use a Work Light for Painting
I designed our 11-way all purpose work light to be used in a multiplicity of ways. It has a big metal hook on it that you can use to hang it over a door, from a ceiling vent grill, a shower curtain rod, or light fixture
