Hi all. We've been viewing houses recently and I've noticed that nearly all have recessed downlighters somewhere or other - in some cases just one room but in others they're throughout most of the house. Some are in downstairs ceilings with a room above, others in upstairs ceilings with loft above, but quite a few are in extensions or loft conversions where it's just the roof above.
When we moved into our old house, there were halogen downlights/spotlights upstairs and we found that they'd had loft insulation placed over the top, which had been scorched from the heat of the lights. We were advised to fit fire hoods or at the very least just to put something like a plant pot over to give some clearance, although we ended up swapping the halogens for LEDs anyway, which of course ran a lot cooler.
Now I'm wondering how concerned we should be when viewing houses to buy, especially bearing in mind that we would swap any halogens for LED (and most are already LED anyway). Clearly we can't see how well these lights have been fitted or whether they have a fire hood or similar, and on the few occasions I've asked the estate agent or householder, they generally look blank and say they don't know. Does anyone know if this is something a building survey would usually assess?
Maybe I'm worrying too much about it, but I'm just conscious that in some cases there would be no access to the cavity above the light where there's no floor/loft above, just the roof itself. So potentially a maintenance headache at some point down the line? I also wondered if there's an extra risk with flat roofs which are known to be more prone to leak, as presumably that could present an electrical safety issue where there are lights fitted within the roof structure.
Can anyone share expertise/experience of this please? Thanks in advance.
When we moved into our old house, there were halogen downlights/spotlights upstairs and we found that they'd had loft insulation placed over the top, which had been scorched from the heat of the lights. We were advised to fit fire hoods or at the very least just to put something like a plant pot over to give some clearance, although we ended up swapping the halogens for LEDs anyway, which of course ran a lot cooler.
Now I'm wondering how concerned we should be when viewing houses to buy, especially bearing in mind that we would swap any halogens for LED (and most are already LED anyway). Clearly we can't see how well these lights have been fitted or whether they have a fire hood or similar, and on the few occasions I've asked the estate agent or householder, they generally look blank and say they don't know. Does anyone know if this is something a building survey would usually assess?
Maybe I'm worrying too much about it, but I'm just conscious that in some cases there would be no access to the cavity above the light where there's no floor/loft above, just the roof itself. So potentially a maintenance headache at some point down the line? I also wondered if there's an extra risk with flat roofs which are known to be more prone to leak, as presumably that could present an electrical safety issue where there are lights fitted within the roof structure.
Can anyone share expertise/experience of this please? Thanks in advance.
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