Extra lights

[Jim]

As part of my kitchen overhaul I want to upgrade the lighting. Currently have a single strip light in centre of the ceiling but what I'm hoping to do, is to have 2 low voltage spotlight tracks on the ceiling and supplement this with a strip light hidden on top of the wall cabinets on either side of the kitchen. Idea being I get the nice look of modern spots but the flourescents will stop the top half of the kitchen being dark. (there will also be under cabinet lighting for the worksurface)

My main question is can I just extend the wiring from the current light fitting to run the further 3 light sources (ie another track and the flourescent either side) Is there any problem mixing flourescent tubes with LV lights on the same circuit. (being a kitchen I assume this should be done by an electrician but is my idea good in theory)

Cheers

Jim

[John Rumm]

As long as there is capacity on the circuit. If its protected at 6A then you have about 1200W to play with. To assess what you actually have count up the wattage of all the lights on the circuit currently. If any are less than 100W then count them as 100W.

If you use triphosphor tubes they ought to be a reasonable colour match. No technical reason not to mix them.

[neverwas]

Do you/others happen to know if there is any chance of this "minimum of 100W per lampholder" rule being changed to take account of the increased use of fluorescents and other low wattage fittings, and of Part L? (I can see the sense of the rule when there is a risk of 100W bulbs being put in every fitting. But it is a bit of a pain to have to put in a separate circuit to cope with a total of 8 x 30W triphosphors and 6 x 20W CFLs - or possibly Part L fittings if I can get them cheap enough.)

[Frank Erskine]

The perceived problem is when a subsequent owner delves into his stash of tungsten bulbs to get rid of the sickly glow of your low-energy stuff. However, if the wiring is properly done, all that should happen is that a breaker might trip.

Remember - Nanny rules... :-(

[Andy Wade]

It's not a rule as such and doesn't appear in BS 7671 per se. It's merely guidance applicable to general purpose lampholders.

For fixed fluorescent fittings and other luminaires that can only use CFLs it's quite in order to use the actual load current for design. However John's figure of 1200 W max. (6 A circuit) should really be 1200 VA, as you must allow for the non-unity power factor of fluorescent lighting.

The normal guidance is to use a multiplier of 1.8 to calculate the current (i.e. amps = 1.8 * watts/230) if more specific information is not available.

[neverwas]

Thanks for that. Makes life much easier. (And may reveal I don't know the proper meaning of "lampholder" in the context of the OSG.)

[neverwas]

Nanny? I should be so lucky!