I am going to build kitchen cabinets and plan to install undercabinet and inside cabinet lighting. Can someone advise me about the options? What's advantage of using low voltage over 120V lighting? If low voltage is a choice when a transformer is placed? Is transformer quite enough? What type of bulbs are the best? What's the usual spacing between bulbs? And finally where can I buy good quality undercabinet lighting hardware?
In previous kitchens (in apartments), I've just put in thin fluorescent fixtures under the cabinets. Better than nothing, but the light isn't very good.
When we bought a house, we decided to get high-intensity halogen lighting (IIRC,
The one thing we did wrong was not think about how bulbs would get changed. The fixtures we put in are a bit fussy to open up, and since we mounted them all the way against the back wall, you'll got to be a bit of a contortionist to change the bulbs. If I were to do it again, I think I'd mount them up against the front lip of the cabinet.
Our cabinets use face frames, and there's a little bit of frame sticking down to hide the lighting behind. With the frame-less eurostyle cabinets, the lights would be more visible, which might affect what you buy (if it's hidden, it doesn't matter if it's ugly).
Inside lighting? I could see that for a glass-front cabinet display cabinet, but for kitchen cabinets with solid doors hiding cans of green beans and boxes of pasta? Interior lighting for something like that seems like overkill. But definately go with the under-counter lights; they're great.
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One common, cost effective approach is Fluorescent fixtures, particularly for face frame cabinets. Bulbs last a long time, run cool, are readily available in many styles and lengths, and your cabinets can be designed to make the fixture basically invisible.
I installed thin fluorescent fixtures up under the cabinets. I leave one 13 watt unit on 24 hours a day. It works well IF you can find a pinkish bulb rather than the standard blue "cool white" bulb. The latter makes meat look black. (I won't go into what GF says about zits in cool white!)
Perhaps you should visit a number of furniture stores to see how they light up cabinets.
I've had both the fluorescent and the halogen undercabinet lights. As you might imagine, they both have advantages and disadvantages. The fluorescents are cheaper to run, and probably cheaper to buy (of course, you can probably find expensive versions of anything, if you want.) The halogens cost a little more to operate, but have the advantage of being usable with dimmer switches. You can get both types at the Depot & Lowes and your local hardware store. My personal preference is for the halogens, as I prefer their "color" which is warmer than fluorescents (more towards the red part of the spectrum than the blue).
Bruce
I have had success with these:
fluorescent = dim halogen = bright but VERY hot you'll melt chocolate if it's on the lower cabinet shelf xenon = a bit more expensive but good light and low heat.
I find halogen too harsh, and I don't care for the flickering of the fluorescents as they come on so I went with a xenon unit I discovered at my local lighting store, and I couldn't be happier.
They're not cheap but it was a one shot part of our "kitchen-for-life" package so we went with it. I'm thrilled. It's a much softer light than halogen.
Alexander:
The group here has hit on two main lighting options. In addition, if you're looking more for decorative lighting versus work lighting, you might consider "rope lighting" which is also available at Lowes & Home Depot. It requires a transformer as it's low voltage.
For cabinet/shelving lighting, I've used the xenon lights available at Rockler:
I *do* like the flourescent lighting for under cabinet "work" lighting. Halogen seems to get too hot, and the replacement bulbs are expensive. Flourescent lights last longer and run cool. Hope this helps.
~Mark.
Many of my dark deep cabinets would greatly benifit from lighting even though they do not have glass fronts. My wife has been complaining to me to install lighting of some kind. As many batteries she goes through using a falshlight I belevie would be more economical for her to get her wish.
Get her an LED flashlight. They cost a little more but they run for days on a set of batteries.
There are two lines of "T5" (5/8 inch diameter) fluorescent lamps.
The older one is 4, 6, 8 and 13 watts and mainly uses "old tech" phosphors with color rendering index in the 50's to 60's ("warm white" and "cool white"). The newer one comes in higher wattages 14 watts or more and usually has color rendering index 82-85 and the color is usually specified by color temperature or 1/100 of the color temperature. The usual color temperatures are 30/3000 ("warm white"), 35/3500 (in my words "semi warm white" and in my experience most pleasing), and 41/4100 ("cool white").
The newer ones are also more efficient than the older ones because they are longer and therefore have their electrode losses being a lower percentage of input power, and also unlike the older 4-13 watt ones are normally operated from electronic ballasts.
- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)
Beware the cheap puck lighting sold at home depot. When they get hot, the cheap plastic trim can fail and hot pieces of glass fall on the counter top. Or when you put dishes in the cabinet a little too vigorously, the hot glass falls out. I ripped all of mine out after about a week of this nonsense. I also seriously doubt the UL rating on the really cheap Hampton Bay brand lighting.
-- Paul
Most of the homes we work in have some type of under counter lighting. Most use the fluorescent, probably because of lower cost to the builder. Normally the electrician has pre-wired for the florescent lights and we bring the wires through the bottom of the cabinet back.
An electrician we worked for used what we call hockey puck lights. I'm not sure if they were halogen or xeon. He wired a switched box in each run for his transformers. In that installation we built a false bottom in the cabinets so that the lights did not come through the actual cabinet bottom and the wires going from light to light were also hidden in the void. Kind of a pain to do but the finished product was very clean, inside and out.
One of our builders uses rope lighting as an accent behind the bottom rail of the cabinet front, at the toe space. It's a nice soft look along the floor. I've also seen rope lighting used inside a vanity that had a clear lexan sink. It looked pretty cool when you walked in the room but when standing at the sink you could see the plumbing. I think that one was the decorator's idea.
Mike O.
Others describe other options, but I use Juno Trac-12 12volt undercabinet lighting. It looks like regular trac, but is only 3/8" x
3/4" and available in lengths to 8' For short runs you can use electronic transformers, but electronic dimmers are pretty expensive. For longer lengths (& more lamps) we use Federal "Buck 'n Boost" transformers to 500 watts, requiring less expensive magnetic dimmers Remember that wire guage for connection is based on amperage, so 500 watts at 12 volts = 42 amps. We hide the transformer in an unused cabinet space, or between kitchen floor joist accessable from the basement.In any case, it is the most flexible, site cutable and provides a nice warm and even glow on splashes and countertops. We've even used it vertically inside glass-doored cabinets.
I could give you much more info. E-mail off list if interested.
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