Lighting for a residential basement with steel/concrete support?

Location
Missouri
Occupation
Electrician
See attached picture here.

Steel ceiling supports under a concrete ceiling.

I got called to do an estimate for this guy and he lives in a part of the city that is old and this was the style of construction at the time.

He has some existing can lights screwed to 2x4's that are just cut to length to sit on the edges of the steel ceiling supports. I don't nornally work with this type of ceiling but I can't imagine that's legit.

What would you use for lighting here? Is there a lighting solution tailored for this kind of situation, or am I going to have to expect to anchor a bunch of lights to the concrete ceilings with fixture chain?
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Lengths of shallow strut with fluorescent-shaped LED lights attached.

It looks like you have gaps between the bar-joists and the ceiling for maximum fixture height.

If not, you can still run the strut above the lower horizontal parts of the bar-joists.
 
Location
Missouri
Occupation
Electrician
I'm not sure I'm visualizing that correctly. The strut I get. I could certainly see using strut across the joists with an octagon box and a small puck light.

But how do you use unistrut to hold a light designed to lay into a drop ceiling?
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
But how do you use unistrut to hold a light designed to lay into a drop ceiling?
While you could hang troffers on strut with regular hardware (snug, not on chains), I was thinking surface-mount strip lights that you normally attach to a ceiling. See:

 
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