Frequently Asked Questions

Work from floor area rather than budget. Up to 15 square metres suits an 11 grid. Between 15 and 25 square metres suits a 14 grid. Between 25 and 35 square metres suits an 18 grid.

Add panels if your ceiling is above 3m, if your walls and floor are dark, or if you do inspection critical work such as detailing. If you are torn between two sizes, take the larger one. Undersizing is the most common mistake we see.

Full guide: How Many Hexagon Lights Do I Need

Panel count and coverage. The 11 grid suits compact spaces and first projects. The 14 grid is our best seller and suits a standard UK single garage. The 18 grid is for double garages, two bay units and commercial floors.

There is also a 14 grid with border, which pushes light toward the walls rather than concentrating it overhead. That suits rooms with benches or wall displays around the edge.

Cool white for work spaces. It shows surface defects clearly and photographs accurately, which is why detailing units, workshops and gyms use it.

Warm white for social spaces. It flatters skin, wood and darker finishes, which suits barbershops, salons, bars and garage conversions. If the room does both jobs, choose a kit with adjustable colour temperature.

Full guide: Cool White vs Warm White

Yes, provided the grid is sized correctly for the floor area. Light is spread across a large ceiling area rather than concentrated in lanes, so shadows soften considerably compared to a batten.

For final paint inspection, professionals still use a handheld inspection light. That is true of every ceiling system, not a limitation of hexagon lighting.

Yes. Our kits are installed in detailing studios, barbershops, gyms, salons, cafes and retail units. For commercial installations we can help specify the layout.

A light tunnel is a pair of continuous linear light sources positioned either side of a vehicle, running along its length, with the car sitting between them.

The purpose is to create a long clean reflection in the paint. Swirls, holograms and buffer trails then show up as interruptions in that band of light, so you read a whole flank at once rather than hunting panel by panel with a torch.

Full guide: What Is Detailing Tunnel Lighting

They do different jobs, so most professional bays run both. The ceiling grid is your working light, giving even shadow free coverage so you can move around a vehicle comfortably.

Tunnel lighting is your inspection layer. A broad diffused ceiling is actually one of the worst things for revealing holograms, because it floods the panel and flattens the reflection. You need a long source at a low angle for that.

Aim for the light source to sit roughly level with the widest part of the vehicle flank, which for most cars means somewhere between waist and chest height.

Go higher if you mainly work on vans and SUVs, lower if you specialise in low sports cars. Leave around a metre of working space between the light and the vehicle, which you need in order to work anyway.

In a narrower bay it effectively becomes one, because the walls are close enough to the vehicle to produce a strong reflection.

In a wide bay the car sits further from the walls, so a dedicated tunnel positioned closer to the vehicle gives a much better result. Tell us your bay width and we will advise which makes sense.

Between 5000K and 6500K, with a CRI of 90 or above.

CRI matters more than most buyers realise. Under low CRI light, reds look muddy, dark blues read as black, and the subtle gloss differences you use to judge a correction become very hard to see. Photographs taken under it need heavy correction and never fully recover.

Full guide: Why CRI 90 Plus Matters

It is excellent for holograms, buffer trails and machine marring, because those are directional patterns revealed by a long low angle reflection.

Fine circular swirl marks show best under a small concentrated point source, such as sunlight or a focused inspection torch. This is why a well equipped bay keeps both, and why being able to switch lighting layers independently is genuinely useful.

IP44 as a minimum for splash resistance, and higher if fittings sit within direct spray range. Do not fit indoor rated IP20 products anywhere water is being pressurised.

Be honest about where water actually goes rather than where you intend it to go. Overspray travels further than most people expect.

Yes, and it is the single biggest thing that makes detailing content look professional. The long clean band sliding down a flank as the camera moves is produced by a tunnel or a run of wall bars.

Two things to check when buying. High CRI so paint colour renders accurately, and flicker free operation, because poor drivers pulse fast enough to be invisible to you and very visible to a camera as rolling bands.

For a plug in kit connected to an existing socket, no. Most of our customers fit their own in an afternoon.

For a hardwired connection to a lighting circuit, or a new circuit in a garage, yes. In England and Wales that is notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations, and in a commercial premises you will want the certification for your insurance.

Around half a day for a standard kit in a domestic garage working alone. Allow 30 to 60 minutes of that for planning the layout, which is the part people rush and the part that determines how the finished ceiling looks.

Two people roughly halves the total, mostly because holding panels level while marking fixings is much easier with a second pair of hands.

Plasterboard, concrete, breeze block, timber and steel framed buildings are all fine with the right fixings.

In a steel framed unit, fix to the purlins or use beam clamps, never to the roof sheet itself, because that creates a leak that shows up months later.

Full guide: Fitting to a Steel Framed Building

Light weakens with distance, so a grid mounted tight to a 5m roof does far less at working height than the same grid at 2.4m.

Rather than buying more panels, drop the grid with a suspension kit to somewhere between 2.5m and 3.5m, subject to clearance for vehicles and any lift. It is the cheaper answer and it works better.

Do not measure from the walls, because garage walls are rarely square to each other.

Establish a reference line instead, usually aligned to the garage door opening since that is the line your eye reads as you walk in. Then work outward from a carefully positioned first panel, checking for drift every few panels.

Very little. A typical domestic grid used three hours a day costs roughly £4 a month at current UK electricity rates, or around £51 a year. At one hour a day it is nearer £17 a year.

Full breakdown with the maths shown: UK Running Costs

The LEDs themselves are rated for tens of thousands of hours, which at three hours a day is decades. They fade very gradually rather than failing suddenly.

In practice the driver is the component most likely to need replacing eventually. Because the system is modular, a single panel or the driver can be replaced without touching the rest of the grid.

Most often inrush current at the moment of switch on, or cumulative earth leakage across several drivers sharing one RCD. Moisture is the other common cause, particularly in a detached garage in winter.

Do not keep resetting it. A device that trips repeatedly is telling you something is wrong.

Full guide: Why Garage Lights Trip the Breaker

Yes, within the capacity of your driver. Tell us at the point of your first order if you plan to expand and we will specify the power supply with headroom.

It also helps to sketch the finished layout before fitting the first stage, so the completed grid ends up centred.

Yes. Fill significant cracks, grind off high spots and ridges, and sweep and wash thoroughly, because anything left underneath stays there.

The slab does not need to be perfect, since interlocking tiles follow the contour of the floor, but it does need to be sound and clean.

For most garages, no. Interlocking tiles are a floating floor, they are unaffected by moisture, and air movement underneath lets damp evaporate.

A membrane is only worth it in specific cases, and on a damp slab it can push moisture sideways into the walls, which is a more expensive problem. Test your floor first with the plastic sheet method.

Full guide: Do You Need a Damp Proof Membrane

Yes, when specified for vehicle use. Spread vehicle weight is not the issue.

What needs care is concentrated point loads, such as a jack saddle or an axle stand foot, which put a lot of weight on a very small area.

Use a spreader plate under both the jack and every axle stand, or lift the tiles at that spot and work directly on the slab. A steel plate or 18mm plywood, sized generously larger than the stand base, is enough.

Never work under a vehicle supported only by a jack. Always use axle stands rated for the weight, at the manufacturer specified lifting points, and chock the remaining wheels.

A sharp utility knife handles most straight cuts. Score deeply along a straight edge, repeat the pass two or three times, then snap along the score. Change blades often, because a blunt blade tears rather than cuts.

Use a fine tooth jigsaw blade for curves and notches, run at a moderate speed so friction does not melt the plastic. Always cut from the finished face so any rough edge ends up underneath.

Full guide: How to Cut Garage Floor Tiles

Around ten percent for a straight layout, and fifteen percent for a diagonal one or a room with several obstacles.

Keep two or three spare tiles afterwards. Colours can vary slightly between production batches, so a spare from your original order will match better than one bought two years later.

Strongly recommended, and the item most often forgotten.

Trim covers your cut edges and the expansion gap, protects the perimeter from being caught by a tyre or a broom, and is the main thing that makes an installation look properly finished rather than almost finished.

Interlocking tiles expand and contract with temperature, and a British garage swings through a wide range across a year.

Leave a gap at every wall, typically between 10mm and 20mm depending on the product and floor size, hidden under edge trim. A floor laid tight to the walls in January will buckle in July.

Yes to both. Tiles are a floating floor, so a consistent fall is a non event and they simply follow the contour of the slab. Do not level the fall out unless you have a specific reason, because it is usually there to move water out of the building.

Around a drain, cut the surrounding tiles so the cover can still be lifted, and leave a couple of millimetres clearance. For wash bays, open grid tiles let water drain straight through.

Fresh oil lifts easily with a degreaser and warm water, which is the main advantage over bare concrete. Absorb the bulk with granules first rather than spreading it about. Old dried oil usually comes out with repeated treatment.

Battery acid, brake fluid and strong solvents can mark permanently, because they attack the surface rather than sitting on it.

No. Plastic tiles melt on contact with welding spatter and grinding sparks, and they can ignite. This applies to every garage floor tile on the market, including ours.

Keep a bare concrete or fire resistant hot work zone, sized to your longest spark throw rather than to your bench, and tile the rest of the workshop.

Full guide: Flooring for a Welding Workshop

Mid grey is the most popular because it balances brightness against showing dirt. Light floors reflect more light back into the room and can make a garage feel noticeably brighter with the same lighting, which helps most on the lower halves of a vehicle.

Dark floors look excellent and hide everything, but they absorb a large share of your lighting, so size the grid up to compensate.

Orders before 2pm are shipped the same day. We offer next day delivery on all orders above £100. For futher information please see our shipping and returns.

Photograph it, keep the packaging and contact us. Reporting promptly makes the resolution straightforward.

It is worth opening the boxes and counting the panels before install day rather than on it.

Please take a look at our Warranty Information

Yes. That is one of the main practical benefits of a modular system. A damaged floor tile lifts out and a new one drops in, and a failed light panel can be swapped without touching the rest of the grid.

We keep our range consistent so parts bought today can still be matched later.

Yes, and we would rather you asked than guessed. Send us your room dimensions, ceiling height and a photo showing any obstructions such as beams, ducting or the garage door mechanism, and we will suggest a layout.

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