New kitchen downlights - advice required

[ubdai]

I'm wanting to add some downlights to a kitchen refurb in my house and have attached two PDFs of layouts I have put together. One of 15 lights and one of 8 lights.

I will be just prepping the ceiling, get holes in the right place and making it easy for the electrician to feed new cables to the lights.

Above kitchen is front bedroom.

Ceiling is plasterboard.(Whole kitchen to be replastered)

Kitchen is 16sqm

Redline is kitchen outline

Blue line is lighting grid

Circles are light positions. This is dependant on what I find regards to joist spacing, so could change.

Whitelines are limits of low level cupboards that are going on three walls.

Distances have been dimensioned.

I am wanting to stay with mains voltage lights as I don't want to get into transformers and the like. Will probably go for a fire rated 50w halogen GU10 model downlighter, and then possibly switch bulb over to a 7.5w LED GU10 when I can afford the lamps at a later date. So far have only looked at those from screwfixx. Any other model suggestions appreciated.

If someone could advise if the number of lights in which layout is sufficient it would be appreciated.
Just noticed the colours seem to have vanished.

Thanks

ubdai
Pics are in my album No1. Hope everyone can see them.
Sorry if this is in the wrong part of the forum.

Untitled

• ubdai
• 21 Mar 2013
• 1

Untitled

• ubdai
• 21 Mar 2013
• 1

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[SaladFingers]

Number of lights will be more than enough.

Have you already got the lights? Which ones are you using?

There are some better ones out there for use in the kitchen, that don't let steam and cooking smells past them.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Circles are light positions.

Why doesn't the fact that you think you are going to need at least 8 and as many as 15 lights for a 16m² room tell you that you're trying to light it using lights which are useless for lighting up rooms?

 

[SaladFingers]

Circles are light positions.

Why doesn't the fact that you think you are going to need at least 8 and as many as 15 lights for a 16m² room tell you that you're trying to light it using lights which are useless for lighting up rooms?

They'll light the room just fine. Any flush mount light will have a narrower spread.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If they were any good at doing the job they're being asked to do then so many would not be needed.

 

[SaladFingers]

If they were any good at doing the job they're being asked to do then so many would not be needed.

That's interior design for you. Flat flush ceilings with nothing protruding.

Take a look at modern offices, a ton of lights all trying to do the same thing, as they're flush mounted.

 

[ubdai]

Number of lights will be more than enough.

Have you already got the lights? Which ones are you using?

There are some better ones out there for use in the kitchen, that don't let steam and cooking smells past them.

8 or 15?
I'm open to any suggestions for lights.

ubdai

 

[ubdai]

Circles are light positions.

Why doesn't the fact that you think you are going to need at least 8 and as many as 15 lights for a 16m² room tell you that you're trying to light it using lights which are useless for lighting up rooms?

Sorry, thought the whole point of the forum was to seek guidance.
I'm not a lighting engineer so I need some guidance on how many lights I would require. And what model would be adequate? What do you suggest?

ubdai

 

[SaladFingers]

Number of lights will be more than enough.

Have you already got the lights? Which ones are you using?

There are some better ones out there for use in the kitchen, that don't let steam and cooking smells past them.

8 or 15?
I'm open to any suggestions for lights.

ubdai

I take it those dimensions are millimeters, so 8 will do just fine.

 

[SaladFingers]

Circles are light positions.

Why doesn't the fact that you think you are going to need at least 8 and as many as 15 lights for a 16m² room tell you that you're trying to light it using lights which are useless for lighting up rooms?

Sorry, thought the whole point of the forum was to seek guidance.

Some don't like DIYers asking advice on a DIY forum. It upsets them.

 

[ericmark]

Lighting is far from easy. Bouncing light off walls and ceilings can work well but clearly ceiling, walls, or even floor must be white. The 60's idea of white doors on every cupboard would work but most people today go for wood coloured doors so very much depend on colours used in the kitchen when you use spot lights bouncing light.

Using more general lighting like 2D you are not so restricted in what colours are used in the kitchen.

The problem today is CFL and LED are not very bright so we need a bigger spread of the light units. 9 arranged in group of 3 and 6 works very well giving three levels of lighting.

I use the GU10 lamps a lot to light pictures on the wall but for general lighting it can so easy look like a planetarium. The small 50 mm lamp has so many different lamps. Both light output and angle of light.

I have a GU10 as a bedside lamp. The first LED at 5W was a failure. I could not read with it. But now have a 0.58W which works well. It is the angle of light with the 0.58W giving a very narrow beam. However useless for finding my shoes.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Sorry, thought the whole point of the forum was to seek guidance.

Sorry - I thought you'd already decided that a large number of torches recessed into your ceiling was the way to go.

I'm not a lighting engineer so I need some guidance on how many lights I would require. And what model would be adequate? What do you suggest?

Recessed lighting can be OK, but only in large sizes.

The little 2" diameter ones came out of the retail display market, where they were originally appropriated from semi-professional film projectors designed to throw a narrow beam of light onto a screen and were used to throw small pools of light onto individual items. Ever noticed how a common term for them is spotlights?

They are actually specifically designed to not be any good for providing general room illumination.

I referred to them as torches, and if you look at the business end of a Maglite you'll see a marked similarity to an MR16 lamp. Fiddling with the lamp technology does nothing to address the problems of the format.

In places like kitchens, bathrooms, WCs, possibly hallways and landings where you just want unobtrusive efficient lighting that just gets on and does the job, something like this is ideal:

Or, for kitchens in particular, there's a lot to recommend good old tried and trusted fluorescent strip lights.

They don't have to look like this:

For example the top right one here:




or these:

And these are all from one maker.

[EDIT] Possibly discontinued now, but if you look at the products from commercial/architectural lighting makers you'll probably find all sorts of interesting fittings. [/EDIT]


Fluourescent lights can be dimmed. If you find one you like which isn't dimmable, look to see how easy it would be to replace the ballast with a dimmable one (which you can often find on fleaBay).



But you wouldn't want any of the above in living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms. Back to looking in lighting shops and websites - cast your net wider than the limited range of cr*p they have in the sheds. As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And if all you do is look in DIY sheds everything that isn't hideous looks like a downlighter.


In terms of basic technology, as well as fluorescent and LED, look into magnetic induction lamps, dielectric barrier discharge lighting (Osram have been sitting on their Planon technology for b****y years, which is a shame), and Electron stimulated luminescence.




If you want LED, again go for larger sizes, e.g. the Thorn BaseLED.

http://www.thornlighting.co.uk/download/Base_LED_Brochure.pdf

http://www.thornlighting.co.uk/PDB/Ressource/teaser/E2/TLG_BaseLED.pdf

http://www.thornlighting.co.uk/object/PDF/datasheet.aspx?CompanyID=7&GroupID=12650&CL=E2&CC=GB





Think if you could use cold cathode neons:



here's an example of that in a domestic kitchen showing that it isn't only suitable for nightclubs and hotel foyers:

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• slup
• 31 Jan 2009
• 16

(Ignore the fact that there are also recessed torches in there )

 

[ericmark]

We could do with a sticky on that reply the question is asked so many times about fitting touches in kitchens.

To use spot lights aimed at counter tops to give some extra light on those areas where under cupboard lighting can't be used does make some sense. But they are no good for general lighting.

I noted the "up lighting" in the examples which if you visit Turkey for example is very common but seems rare in UK.

I would also add kitchens tend to get too hot. Anything that reduces the energy used in a kitchen must be a plus. Some items really do help. An induction hob for example will put far less heat into the kitchen than a gas hob. But no point in paying a fortune for and economic hob then replace all that heat with heat from lights.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

To use spot lights aimed at counter tops to give some extra light on those areas where under cupboard lighting can't be used does make some sense.

LED strips would seem ideal for that.