A recipe for not getting what YOU want. Certainly listen to his advice, but get clued up before.
Kitchen Lighting How Many LED's
- Thread starter Martyn Bell
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It's a big, hard-to-reverse step to take if you are not really sure that you want and will like that sort of lighting
When we moved into this house there were downlights in every room including the office and workshop.
We spent 4 years avoiding shadows and moving around to get something in the right place to be illuminated.
In the last 2 years every single downlighter has gone and good bl**dy riddance to them.
A non illuminated ceiling is a poorly lit room.
A local hall replaced all their fluo fittings with downlighters in the suspended ceiling, when one walked in there it was like a horror movie. Tables and floors were lit but horrible shadows on peoples faces etc. Bookings dropped dramatically and they were on the verge of going bankrupt. Fluo panels replaced (still in place above ceiling grid - is this typical of lazy electricians?) gradually the bookings returned.
You definitely will not "enjoy" narrow beam down-lights,
Working under the shadow of a direct down-light is atrocious.
What you really need is a lighted ceiling with considerable overlap from several sources or "recessed rectangular LED panels", as specified by BAS.
The worst thing that you can do when illuminating work spaces in a kitchen is to have narrow beam illumination over each work area.
The best thing would be an evenly illuminated "glowing" ceiling, but that is not yet available.
I could not agree more!
"Tommyplug" says it.
Working under the shadow of a direct down-light is atrocious.
What you really need is a lighted ceiling with considerable overlap from several sources or "recessed rectangular LED panels", as specified by BAS.
The worst thing that you can do when illuminating work spaces in a kitchen is to have narrow beam illumination over each work area.
The best thing would be an evenly illuminated "glowing" ceiling, but that is not yet available.
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The best way of fairly uniformly illuminating a ceiling is (fairly obviously) by using 'uplights' of one sort or another - a technique I use in several rooms in my house. Even very small (wide angle) light sources can illuminate a lot of ceiling.
Kind Regards, John
True.
However, "up-lighting" is inefficient.
Needless to say, I understand all that, but these discussions about methods of lighting seem often to major on the desirability of indirect light (i.e. reflected off something).
I don't know the actual figures, but I would imagine that the efficiency of reflecting light off a white ceiling would be pretty high, and that however much 'reflective inefficiency' there was would probably be a price worth paying if one wanted fairly uniform illumination of the room - certainly better than trying to make the entire ceiling a 'light source'.
Kind Regards, John
A newish fashion is to have LED lighting strips on the top of kitchen cuboards for uplighting ceilings, as well as LED strips under the wall cuboards for worktop lighting.
I think there is nothing wrong with downlighters used in a room, it depends more on the design of a system overall than one type of light source over another.
Downlighters used correctly in a kitchen can create an even light density. A central fluorescent fitting may not -imagine a central batten in a kitchen, when standing at a worktop you will create your own shadow. Howver 2 downlighters above the sink will give crisp shadow free illumination.
I think there is nothing wrong with downlighters used in a room, it depends more on the design of a system overall than one type of light source over another.
Downlighters used correctly in a kitchen can create an even light density. A central fluorescent fitting may not -imagine a central batten in a kitchen, when standing at a worktop you will create your own shadow. Howver 2 downlighters above the sink will give crisp shadow free illumination.
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According to universal-lighting.co.uk Ambient lighting using down lights should be between 1.6m to 2m apart & 0.8m to 1m from the walls.
Using the 0.8m & 1.6m I can only get 8 lamps into my kitchen (5675mm X 3370mm). So I have no idea how or why I should need 12 lamps?
Using the 0.8m & 1.6m I can only get 8 lamps into my kitchen (5675mm X 3370mm). So I have no idea how or why I should need 12 lamps?
Seems pretty meaningless without quoting the output of the individual lamps or for that matter the beam angle.
Martyn - you seem to be almost being railroaded into having lighting you don't understand and aren't sure you want....
...and -
Wouldn't the ambient lighting be whatever you install - good or bad?
Wouldn't the ambient lighting be whatever you install - good or bad?
As has been said, it's ridiculous to talk about number and spacing of downlights without giving details of what sort of lights/lamps/bulbs one is talking about.
LED lamps/bulbs/downlights are available with beam angles with a range of at least 15° to 110°, and which of those one has obviously has a dramatic effect on the number/spacing one needs to have a similar lighting effect in a given room.
Kind Regards, John
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