Conservatory Ridge Lighting

[bigbria]

My conservatory installation seems to be turning into the installation from hell. The current difficulty is with regard to the ridge lighting (4 downlighters).

The electrician, who's supposed to be coming to fit them on Monday, admits he's never fitted them into a conservatory before. The conservatory supplier may also never have fitted them before, but I can't get hold of anyone there. The lights are 50mm LV 20w halogen eyeball spots, and the instructions specify 160mm void depth. How do you fit spotlights into a conservatory ridge if they need that kind of depth? The mains voltage variant of the same light specifies a smaller void depth (140mm I believe), presumably because it doesn't need the space for the transformer, rather than because they produce less heat. (If I understand it right, 20w of heat is the same whether its LV or

240v?)

Does the heat dissipate through the aluminium? Is that a good idea? What happens to the uPVC if it gets too hot?

I'd like to be armed with some knowledge about this when the guy from the conservatory company calls me on Monday am to reassure me that they know what they're doing with regard to this. Should they be fitted outside the ridge, rather than cut out to fit into it, so that the heat can dissipate into the air of the conservatory itself. How do these usually work?

Thanks

Brian

[Set Square]

I just can't visualise fitting these in a conservatory! They are meant to fit into plasterboard ceilings with an airspace above.

Not sure why LV need more void depth than mains - if anything, they should produce *less* heat - because more of the electrical energy is converted into visible light, and less into heat. Having said that, they *do* run hotter.

[Owain]

"bigbrian" wrote | My conservatory installation seems to be turning into the | installation from hell. The current difficulty is with | regard to the ridge lighting (4 downlighters). ... | What happens to the uPVC if it gets too hot?

It melts?

I would be extremely wary about cutting into a structural member of the conservatory to fit this.

You could so something like suspend a length of trunking from the conservatory frame and mount the lights, transformer etc in that. Ventilation slots on the sides of the trunking. White plastic trunking readily available, or get galvanised metal and spray-paint. (Metal trunking

*must* be earthed.)

Owain

[Andy Hall]

For this application I wouldn't use halogen lights at all because there are too few to do much useful and they are going to get hot. The plastic may melt or discolour.

These small lights are quite effective near to a light coloured wall and where the wall intersects the cone of light and produces a parabola or part of a hyperbola on the wall.

How high are they? I guess at least 2.5m?

If you do want lights up in the apex, I think that they will need to be more powerful ones to be useful - say 50W - and spaced off in some way, or perhaps a different technology to halogen.

Another technique that I have used quite effectively is to have light coloured blinds in the roof and to use upward pointing lights reflecting from them

If you are not certain about this, I would delay the lighting installation, especially anything cutting into the structure, until you have put in the furniture that you will have and played around with that and how you will use the room. You can easily experiment with a cheap set of halogen lights temporarily fitted with tapes and cords near the ridge just to try them out. You'll get roughly the right lighting effect.

Then when you are sure, do something permanent.

.andy

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[Simon Stroud]

Dunno how they're meant to work in that position.

In our conservatory they put in 3xLV 50W halogens just as you describe with little plastic collars (probably only about an inch long) as extra spacers.

The (electronic I think) transformers are just slipped into the little space in the "ridge" extrusion with its plastic clip-on cover.

They were put in when the conservatory was built, ISTR about 4-5 years ago. Two of the bulbs lights within about 1-2 years and I STILL haven't got around to hauling myself up there to investigate. We have managed with the single working third light and some wall lights/table lights for a very long time. (not to self - must get up there one day soon - it's very high up!)

The other issue is that that area at the top of the conservatory seems to gather condensation so not a winning combination of dampness and transformers. I really must get up there some tome and fix them - I suspect it's not just the bulbs that are knacked.

Good luck.

Regards, Simon.

[bigbria]

Sounds like a similar thing. These have been supplied with what the electrician calls a "biscuit ring" which is a circular plastic ring shaped fitting, about 10mm deep, to make thelight fittings stand that much further out from the ridge than they would otherwise do. Still doesn't look like you're going to get anything like 160mm void depth though, even with them fitted.

I have to say, I hadn't given any thought to the logistics of changing failed bulbs . My experience of halogen lamps is that mains voltage ones fail more frequently that LV, especially in cold environments. They seem more prone to blowing when fired up from cold (ie in winter)...In my office, which is colder than the rest of the house, I get through a couple of bulbs a month in the winter, and none in the summer, whereas in the other fittings in the house, where its a little warmer, I hardly ever change them, winter or summer.

Back to the conservatory, is the aluminium structure a sound place to dissipate any heat from the fittings? I believe -although they havent actually said so yet - that this is what the conservatory supplier may claim.

Brian

[Andy Hall]

I don't think so.

The normal fitting position is in a plasterboard ceiling or similar with space above and to the sides by some way - at least 150mm, if not more. Cooling is going to therefore mainly be by air circulation and convection. Since board is a reasonably good insulator, there is no assumption of it conducting much heat.

If you consider and aluminium beam extrusion in the ridge, it probably doesn't have any of those properties - probably much less depth and much smaller space around the fitting. OK, it's aluminium and a reasonable conductor, but the fitting will not normally have any substantial amount of area in contact with it. Perhaps the surface mount types would be a bit better from the heat point of view, but 4 x 20W ones are not going to do much for you at all.

.andy

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[N. Thornton]

20w of heat is 20w of heat, no matter what it comes from. 60w of halogen downlighting is going to give a pretty dim light though, as well as a not very pleasant one. And downlighters arent energy efficient either, you need a lot of power for them to light reasonably.

if it only gets semi hot, plasticisers leach out and after a few years its discoloured, shrivelled, and very brittle. If it gets hot, it softens and bends down - hopefully not onto anything hot. Hotter still and it melts. If any of it could flop onto the light fitting you could have a fire.

I dont think I'd really be comfortable with what you propose to do.

NT

[bigbria]

They're more for addittional directional light than anything. They're certainly not the only lighting in the whole space..

It turns out the lights are apparently supplied by Ultraframe, specifically for use in their conservatories, of which this is one. They look to be the same lights you can see at the bottom of this page

I need to speak to Ultraframe on Monday to get the details. Does anyone have details of how to call them direct? The advertised phone number is an 01200 number, which only connects you to your nearest local Ultraframe distributor, which happens to be the company that are fitting the conservatory

Brian

[Andy Hall]

Ultraframe have a good reputation for roofs, so must have come up with a way to handle the issue. These look to be in some kind of frame, so perhaps with the low rating they are OK.

Poking around their PLC web site I found the recruitment page and the number of 01200 452215 for the HR department. You could try that.

.andy

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