Garage door spotlights

[eniacs]

Morning all.

I want to put 3 spotlights above the double garage doors on an astro timer. However... the garage has a lintel in it. A classic catnic lintel which is a box section steel.

Am I ok to drill the 56mm holes in this for the spotlights? As a guest I would say it's ok since its only a garage roof not a 3 story building on top of it. However would be good if someone else has done it already? Or any other solutions to this.

Edited by eniacs on Tuesday 16th June 09:23

[eniacs]

Bump. Anyone any ideas or experiences?

[Too Late]

eniacs said:

Bump. Anyone any ideas or experiences?

I would have thought by drilling into the lintel you would be weakening its strength, ?

Could you not box out underneath it to house some spots or run a length of a waterproof LED strip?

[r1flyguy1]

As above, box it out and use soffit board to match your existing upvc, you can then drill out the size hole you want.

You will only lose about the depth of your light in head height

[The_Gza]

You could also consider using aluminium profile with a frosted diffuser, and then run led strip lighting inside this.

[Salesy]

^^^^^^^ This

[Cyberprog]

A Lintel is a structural element. Drilling 56mm holes in it would not be advisable. I'd suggest using LED strip if you have a height issue.

[roofer]

It's out of the elements, kitchen down lighters, surface mounted.

[Salesy]

roofer said:

It's out of the elements, kitchen down lighters, surface mounted.

They will go rusty, and look a bit "council"

[eniacs]

Thanks all. This is what I expected I suppose.I'll look into some led strips!

[roofer]

Salesy said:

roofer said:

It's out of the elements, kitchen down lighters, surface mounted.

They will go rusty, and look a bit "council"

Just put some brushed stainless ones under units. About an inch deep .

[eniacs]

Again thanks for all the suggestions so far.

I've now had some time to look into this and have come up with only one real solution...

I tried the LED strip idea, I had some 72w 5m 5050 LED strips in the house i bought with the intention of doing the living room coving thing with them. So tried these at night on the garage. They work great and produce a good light. However at 72w they were far too bright and would use too much power.
I was intending to do 3 spotlights at 3w each which would provide ample light for the door and driveway and would use a pittance of £5.40 per year to be on for the 4000 hours of darkness we have.

So I scoured the internet and found these:
Ebay link


So I guess im asking if there is a better option. I like the spotlights as they will look nice and they look on paper to be efficient, has anyone seen better surface mount spots?
Is there another option for an LED strip? I want to keep power usage down and could probably use about half the light the 5050's produce, and would prefer to have a quarter of the power they use!

[E36GUY]

eniacs said:

So I scoured the internet and found these:
Ebay link

They're cheap so as long as you have no expectation of them lasting very long go for it. I'd put a tenner on it that they don't produce anything like the figures they claim when hot given the apparent complete lack of any decent heat sink....

[eniacs]

Guy; That's granted, although to be fair my LAP GU10's using 3W dont have heatsinks either (at least not on the outside, given the outside is plastic). The spotlights in the link are also an aluminium body, so its possible the body is thermally connected to the chip.

I feel my options are limited here, so Im grasping at straws. I wouldn't normally consider the cheap imported ebay junk usually...

[E36GUY]

and you can't cut into the soffit?

[eniacs]

Guy; Take a look at the photos in the first post, the soffit for the door is just the steel lintel. I think I can glue things to it and probably get a screw through it, but not cut holes into it really...

[E36GUY]

I can see the solid bit but I was referring to the rear section that has lots of holes in which looks to me like there might be a void behind....

[eniacs]

Yes that part of the lintel is hollow behind. Could easily be drilled for spots, but what damage will this do to the lintel? First thoughts are probably not much considering the low weight actually on the lintel, but theres a nagging feeling in my mind that says dont do it!

[AW10]

eniacs said:

However at 72w they were far too bright and would use too much power.

Can't help with the power consumption but do they need to on all the time? How about a motion sensor - there are some that look better than others such as https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/ST1402.html or https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/STIS180W.htm...

[eniacs]

Ok so a little bump as I've gone ahead and installed an LED strip above the door. After messing around with the chinese suppliers of the strips I've now got a few around the house! A couple sets of bright that are way too bright, one set of 3528 that are not warm white (although ebay seller told me I was wrong despite photo showing it next to a real warm white lol) and the installed strip which is seen below...

Although, I'm not convinced that it doesnt look a bit too "showy" or "council" or im not sure what. But Im not sure that I like it! Would have preferred a more classy looking finish maybe.

What do you all think?