Simple kitchen spotlight question

[skotl]

Sexy

Which fittings are they out of interest?

Cheers!

All I've got is the delivery note from the wholesalers, which reads;

"MA008 DLM356W
GU10 WHI CAST D/LIGHT
XN004 LX305-5WW
LED GU10 5W DIM 290LM"

These? http://www.discount-electrical.co.u...0mm---recess-depth---110mm---cut-out-----70mm

 

[flameport]

One way around this is to fit the downlighters with LED GU10 floods. As here:
http://www.allaboutelectrics.co.uk/vivedas-4w-gu10-led-flood.html
(they do them in 5w as but I find the 4w is more than adequate)

Adequate for what?

Those ones claim an output of 280 lumens, and also claim equivalence to a 40W halogen.

A 240V 40W halogen is about 600 lumens.
An old type 40W GLS is about 400 lumens.
A 12V 20W halogen capsule lamp is about 250 lumens.

Incorrect marketing comparisons aside, 8 of those is still only 2240 lumens if the stated output is to be believed. Assuming 100% of that reaches the working surface, in a room 2.1x3m that is only 350 lux - far too little for a working area.
In reality it will be considerably less than that, due to losses where light falls on the walls and other items.

Presumably lots of people are willing to work in poorly lit kitchens. Or these kitchens are for decorative purposes only.

 

[skotl]

Flameport - I'm not sure that's entirely fair.

In my kitchen we have the downlights for the general floor area, but the worktops under the units have their own lights (and a fluorescent light on the roof would not provide better lighting) and the hob on the island has its own overhead lights.

And, as flyingsparks says, the alternative of 6ft fluorescents is hardly an appealing prospect.

As an aside, I see B-A-S has gone awol on this discussion. That's not a bad thing.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

AWOL?

Or just busy doing other things?

OK - how many have you got in what size room?

Excellent question, my dear chap

As it happens, eight in a portion of the room that is 2.4m by 3m (so similar to the OP).

QED.

If those lights were designed to light up room spaces then you would not need 8 in a room as small as that.

Why do you need 8?

Because they are not designed to do the job you are forcing them into doing.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

(And no one, no matter how good they may be, will want to fit a 6ft fluorescents in there nice new kitchen will they? This is 2013 now not 1980.

The problem is that no one who looks nowhere except the sheds will find anything except downlighters and wh*res boudoir type chandeliers and frilly shades.

//www.diynot.com/forums/electrics/new-kitchen-downlights-advice-required.359261/#2714932

 

[viewer]

Important for kitchens is that there are two levels of lighting needed - a general room lighting and a higher worktop level of illumination. Avoiding the downlight argument, but assuming they are going to be used; the positioning of the lamps needs to be such that the work areas are well illuminated without being shaded by the user. This may mean that equally spaced units, whilst adequate for another room, would either be a problem or more lamps would be needed to overcome the shade effects. Luminaires may need to be close to the wall. The same is true of any lighting, but is more of a problem with spots than tubes.

 

[riveralt]

One way around this is to fit the downlighters with LED GU10 floods. As here:
http://www.allaboutelectrics.co.uk/vivedas-4w-gu10-led-flood.html
(they do them in 5w as but I find the 4w is more than adequate)

Adequate for what?
Those ones claim an output of 280 lumens, and also claim equivalence to a 40W halogen.
A 240V 40W halogen is about 600 lumens.
An old type 40W GLS is about 400 lumens.
A 12V 20W halogen capsule lamp is about 250 lumens.
Incorrect marketing comparisons aside, 8 of those is still only 2240 lumens if the stated output is to be believed. Assuming 100% of that reaches the working surface, in a room 2.1x3m that is only 350 lux - far too little for a working area.
In reality it will be considerably less than that, due to losses where light falls on the walls and other items.
Presumably lots of people are willing to work in poorly lit kitchens. Or these kitchens are for decorative purposes only.

It's a sad reflection (excuse the pun) that many misguided people (and I have to include myself here in the past) have fallen into the trap of assuming that one (lux) size fits all when it comes to kitchen lighting.
For example with kitchens I have seen 300 lux for general area and 750 lux for worktop in this country and 240 lux for worktops in others. Have you tried to work with 750 lux?

Each kitchen (a seemingly each country) is different and the lighting arrangement should reflect that.

Before I rebuilt/rewired my kitchen (3.5m * 3.8m) we had a double fluorescent lights 58w*2 and three 14w under cupboard lights. Total 158w.
I now have 4*4w ceiling surface mounted LED's and four 3.7w LED under cupboard lighting. Total 30.8w.

Works for me - still got all my fingers and thumbs - and looks pretty good.

 

[viewer]

This might help -http://www.arca53.dsl.pipex.com/index_files/lightlevel.htm
but really once you get over 500 lux then it is a job for specific task lights (eg anglepoise) and not solely ambient lighting. Riveralt is right; at 750 lux you wouldn't need the cooker.
One problem with having a big difference between worktop and floor level illumination is that of adjustment time for the eye when moving (say) hot dishes worktop to low level cooker and spotting low level children. Glare is less of a problem with properly shielded downlights than with long tubes even if the latter use diffusers and reflectors.

 

[RF Lighting]

AWOL?

Or just busy doing other things?

OK - how many have you got in what size room?

Excellent question, my dear chap

As it happens, eight in a portion of the room that is 2.4m by 3m (so similar to the OP).

QED.

If those lights were designed to light up room spaces then you would not need 8 in a room as small as that.

8 lights are designed to light up the room. The design was done by skotl's electrician, and like he says, they do light up the room.

Why do you need 8?

Because 1 big naff off light wouldn't look very nice.

Because they are not designed to do the job you are forcing them into doing.

Yes they are. Skotl's electrician designed them to light up the kitchen, and that's exactly what they're doing. No one is forcing anything.


We get you don't like downlighters, but other people do, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't like tomatoes, but I don't go on a crusade against everyone who in my opinion is wrong to do so.

You used to harp on about how energy ineficcient they were, and now that LED has come along, they are MORE efficient than many alternative styles of lighting, so you've had to invent this crackpot idea that any lighting scheme involving more than one light source is "engineeringly offensive" and that a single fitting isn't designed to light a room, so there's no way that more than one ever could.

What a load of old tosh.

Ever seen more than one wall light in the same room? That must be offensive too?

If that were the case, all these lighting types should be dispensed with too, as they all use more than one lamp to provide the desired illumination.

The last one especially. Fancy using lots of recessed fittings to light a room, when apparently one massive light in the middle of the room would be much better.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Same old blah blah blah b*ll*cks from you.

This is not an office - it's a room of a few sq m.

A light designed to light up a room that small would not need to be installed 8 times over before it actually did light up the room.

It is not analogous to a luminaire with more than 1 lamp in it.

 

[RF Lighting]

Why do you have to resort to swearing? Is it because you don't actually have a logical and reasoned argument against recessed lighting?

A kitchen is not an office, but scale everything down until the office becomes kitchen sized, and the lights reduce in size too. Perhaps even to the size of a 60mm recessed LED down lighter. It works with high bay lights in a warehouse too.

If a single light source in a kitchen is so great, why isn't a huge single light source in the middle of a room used in offices and warehouses?

Have you never seen a room in a domestic house with more than one wall light? Is that bad design too?

 

[Gutterball]

you are missing the point of the discussion, its not the number of lights its the design. spot lights are designed to shine a spot of light to highlight an area, even with wider beam angles that is all they will do. whereas fluorescents and tungsten lights provide a more overall light.

 

[JohnW2]

you are missing the point of the discussion, its not the number of lights its the design. spot lights are designed to shine a spot of light to highlight an area, even with wider beam angles that is all they will do. whereas fluorescents and tungsten lights provide a more overall light.

I don't often comment about lighting, but I think the real underlying problem is that some people have very generic/fixed 'black and white' views about a subject which is complicated and full of factors which vary from situation to situation - and also, as has been said, some whose views are based on (or biased by) historical products which have now been 'bettered'.

The 'specific factors' are at a high level in kitchens, since worktops, cookers etc are usually around the edge, with people working at them standing in front of them. The ideal requirement is for good, shadow-free, lighting at worktop level, without such a high general level of lighting that all the vertical surfaces are unnecessarily (and undesirably) glaringly brightly illuminated. A single, 'compact', central, ceiling light fitting (of any type) will not achieve good shadow-free lighting in that situation, unless it is ridiculously bright. The traditional solution of one or more long fluorescent tubes is no longer regarded as aesthetically acceptably by many. A single extremely bright central dangling pendant lamp might achieve reasonable shadow-free lighting, but at a price of having a very brightly illuminated ceiling and vertical surfaces (which reflect light onto work surfaces).

The most obvious way of achieving good, shadow-free, ceiling-based illumination of work surfaces without unnecessary/excessive illumination of ceiling and vertical surfaces would, IMO, seem to be to have multiple ('spread out') light sources at ceiling level, supplemented, if necessary, by 'local' under-cabinet lighting. Indeed, ceiling-based lighting is probably not the ideal at all - under-cabinet (and cooker hood) lighting is probably the best for working, supplemented by a relatively modest level of 'general room lighting' from the ceiling.

A 50° ceiling mounted 'flood' (not narrow-beam 'spot') light (like the GU10 floods being discussed) will result in an even area of illumination of around 1.5m diameter at worktop height and around 2.5m diameter at floor level - that's hardly a 'spot light' situation.

Regardless of details, my main thought is that people probably should think far more about the requirements of the particular location (and the range and characteristics of currently available lighting products), and to try to avoid wheeling out generic/blanket "one size fits all" (or, more commonly, "one size doesn't fit anything"!) comments whenever the issue of lighting arises.

Kind Regards, John