I have been considering fitting downlighters in my kitchen.
The kitchen is roughly 7m by 4m. Reading other posts on this BB it looks as though I should go for around 15 downlighters + additional under cupboard lights for effect...
My calculation is:
15 lights
50W per light
7p/Kw Lights on 15 hours per day
15 * 50/1000 * 0.07 * 15 * 365 = approx £300 per year running cost. Any additional under-cupboard lights are extra on top of this, as are replacement bulbs, etc.
I assume that low voltage downlighters cost the same to run as mains voltage(?)
Seems a bit steep to light just one room in the house!
[At the moment I have a 60w strip light and a 20W low voltage pendant which gives adequate (but not sexy) lighting and only a tenth of the running costs.]
Should I be considering something other than downligters? Is this the cost of a modern-looking kitchen?
15 hours a day seems pretty steep....................in winter you would have to have the lights on for all the darkness hours (even when you are asleep!)...............and during the summer you would be using the lights in daylight!!!! I think you need to recalculate. I doubt my kitchen lights are on for more than 2-3 hours a day in winter and much less in summer.
My kitchen is 3.3m x 3m and we have 6 50W LV halogens lighting the main area, plus 2 more in a glazed cupboard. The amount of light they produce is more than adequate for my purposes.
Presumably you don't have a window in this room and you plan to leave the lights on all day?
Even if you really do need to have artificial lighting in your kitchen for 15 hours/day, do you need to have all 15 lamps burning all the time, or could you divide it into general illumination/tasks?
The calculations are OK, but the assumptions are probably unreasonable.
First of all, I doubt that you would need all 15 lights for 15 hours a day, the year round. You can divide the lights into groups and switch some on at a time. For example, I have some in the ceiling away from the walls and some closer to the walls to give reflected light. I probably have about a third of them on for many purposes and more when needed.
Approximately.
Don't you like sex? ;-)
I also used small high frequency fluorescent fittings underneath the cupboards for certain jobs.
Being able to mix and select different types of light at different times is quite appealing.
My kitchen has 2 semiflush light fittings. (15W yellow compact fluorescent bulbs). This give a nice soft warm glow to the room. For task lighting, I have 4x18W tubes under pelmets and 1x30W tube up the chimney for the range. This gives a total of 132W when it is all on. It is a LOT of light. The under pelmet lights only need to be on when cooking.
Why have 750W just for the main lighting? Do you have a one man vendetta against Bangladesh? Perhaps you like the sight of drowning Polynesians?
I found this quote rather amusing, "I think the wife/children would object to switching lights on/off all day long."
I like a place to be well lit but there is a limit surely!
Do they cope with flushing the toilet or have you arranged for that to continuously flush?
I suppose a PIR type of switch would be possible - we have them in the offices where I work. They dim the lights out after about 20 mins of no movement.
15w compact fluorescents in the corners above the cabinets work well, as they wash the ceiling with light which is diffused around the room. These could stay on for extended periods. The halogens provide excellent bright light, but 750w won't be needed all the time, as you seem to concur.
You could go for 3 independently switched lighting sources:
10w - 20w of under cabinet fluorescent strips, Hidden CF wall/ceiling washes to provide general illumination, LV halogens for detail lighting and making the missus go ooohH.
"Colin" wrote | > Don't you like sex? ;-) | It doesn't usually cost this much ;-)
Perhaps you should drop subtle hints to the missus that lots of overhead halogen lighting emphasises bags under the eyes, wrinkles, moustaches (hers) and encourages premature aging.
Of course if she wants her kitchen lit up like a pathologist's dissection table ...
To be fair, not if they're limited to taking lamps only available in
50W max - such as LV halogens. Haven't exhaustively scanned for any GU10-style mains halogens above 50W, but if they don't exist then 50W per lighting point is reasonable for them too. Not that I disagree with the notion that
15 * 50W of downlighting is likely to be a right PITA - too bright where the beams fall, too dim where they don't, i.e. not diffused enough.
I don't think you need to do that. You can split lighting into general, accent and task.
Most of the time we end up with three different combinations and I have the switches to achieve that with different sets hooked to each.
It does, you know. You just don't realise it...... :-)
Using switching as described above, I have 3 switches, each of which turns on a different scenario. One is for cooking, another for other work in the kitchen and the third is when nothing much is happening and I need light to walk through or raid the fridge so just some accent lights near the wall. It's then just a case of throwing an additional switch when needed.
You can mix technologies of course, although I prefer to keep fluorescents of all types to a minimum because I find them bilious in kitchen applications.
Stefek Zaba wrote | > | 15 lights | > | 50W per light | > That'll be 2 new lighting circuits then, as each point must | > be rated at 100W | To be fair, not if they're limited to taking lamps only available in | 50W max - such as LV halogens. Haven't exhaustively scanned for any | GU10-style mains halogens above 50W, but if they don't exist then | 50W per lighting point is reasonable for them too.
I take 100W per mains lighting point because the fittings could be replaced with 60W or even 100W spots, in another style if not GU10, but the transformer as one point at actual rating, because that is the end of the mains wiring.
Well lets add in bulb costs. 15 lights 15 hrs a day = 225 bulb hours /day = 0.1125 bulb life per day if using 2000 hr bulbs. So you will be replacing bulbs at the rate of 1 per 9 days - on average.
At say £2 a bulb (you can ignore delivery since youll be buying in bulk) that's
365 x 0.1125 = 41 bulbs per annum, or £82 pa, and some exercise :)
So its nearer £400 a year. For 1 room.
no. mains halogen cost more, mains cfl cost less, traditional mains filament cost more.
How many rooms have you got...
running
Fls are very efficient, and routinely badly installed and poorly used. They can be made to look fine, but few people seem to have any idea how to do that. I've been in places lit almost entirely by fls, and they looked good. Unfortunately widespread bad practice gives them a bad name.
consider
a) avoiding downlighters which are energy inefficient for 2 reasons
- theyre halogen not cfl
- they light up the floor which wastes a lot of light b) using cfl not halogen c) not leaving lights on all day long d) using a more sensible level of lighting than 750w e) having the lights on a bank of switches so you can put on what youre comfortable with at the time f) using small lights where theyre needed g) training your family to be responsible
and if you want to take things to extremes, use an external reflector to get more sun and skylight in through the window. It works well.
no, its the cost of what you propose to do. There are plenty of other ways to have a modern looking kitchen. There are even ways to have downlighters without the cost you are looking at here.
no it increases it. I can explain if needed.
Grunff wrote:
I think they just dont know what theyre doing. Anyone who imagines having a 500w halogen floodlight in the room, and then adding some more, will realise its not a bright idea.
I also wouldnt go for PIR, they simply dont make good choices, and are anoying and wasteful.
Good idea! I am forever flushing the toilets for the children.
The problem with the lights is that not all the children can reach the light switches. Also the kitchen is a thoroughfare between other rooms (it has 8 doors leading from it).
I was wondering about a PIR. Perhaps driving some small lights on the skirting and with a 10-20 minute timeout. (Oh no not more lights!)
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