Lights Saga - FINAL

[Jeff Gaines]

I'm pretty sure it's final anyway!

Having taken on board all the advice from the group I decided that before crawling around the loft space I should just check the ceiling rose of the last light before the problem lights (the study light).

Eureka! Two loose screws - one on the live the other on the neutral - with the wire flapping around inside the connecting block. Tightened them both up, put a temporary light in the kitchen in a bayonet connector and voila, I have light!

I do have to re-fit the study light which is a brass chandelier but that just needs patience, I also need to re-fit the chandelier in the lounge but again patience.

Enormous thanks to everybody for the ideas/suggestions, it helped me take a much more logical and systematic approach to the problem - which I think has rubbed off as I managed to get a computer program I am writing working this morning after months of not being able to find the problem.

I think an LED strip light will be best in the kitchen (I don't want the silly spotlights back), what wattage to give me decent light in a 15' x

10' kitchen? As it's a kitchen do I need to get a qualified person to fit it?

Thanks again!

[nothanks]

Congratulations(!) but are you sure you want an LED "strip light" ... ? I've fitted LED panels in the kitchen, pantry and utility ... highly recommended.

[Jeff Gaines]

I think so - like a fluorescent tube but LED - may be called LED Batten Light.

[Robin]

Enjoy the warm glow :)

Much depends on your age and what the lighting is for. As a rough guide, for general lighting in a kitchen the HSE reckon an average of

100 lumen per square meter. But that's just for general safely. They reckon fine work needs 200 to 500. So much depends on whether you'll have other lights - eg under cabinet - for tasks that require detail: e.g. finely chopping veg without added finger or stripping motors without too many pingfuckit events.

No. Kitchen's are no longer special (unless they have a bath, shower or sauna).

[Tricky Dicky]

+1 for the LED panels great light, good spread of light and they look so much better than the tubes. Putting a new light fitting in the kitchen is not notifiable as the kitchen is no longer a special zone and you are not adding a new circuit.

Richard

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

..and here, they are very effective.

[John Rumm]

Well done!

The LED tubes are designed to be a similar light output to the fluorescent tubes they replace. So a dual 4 or 5' fitting would probbaly do. You might find you get a better light from a LED flat panel though.

You can get them in various shapes and sizes, and they give a good light which casts less shadow:

No, kitchens are no longer classed as special locations from a part P point of view.

(and even when they were, like for like replacement was permitted anyway

- so swapping a light fitting was fine even then)

[Robert]

Agree on the Age factor, at least 300 lumens per sq m for a working area !

[Robert]

Some of the LED Battens give out less light than the Fluorescents they are supposed to replace. I know light distribution is more efficient but be careful especially if trying to replace twin 5' fluoro units.

[John Rumm]

I replaced a 4' 36W tube with a 18W LED, and would say it is a fairly close match. I did note that some of the LED replacements were less powerful though, so it probably pays to look at the small print.

[John Rumm]

In fact, not quite, I just checked the order. It was :

Philips G13 T8 LED Tube 1600lm 16W 1200mm (4ft) (~£10 from screwfix). Some I looked at were only 11 or 12W

[Pancho]

The benefit of a long, 6 foot, strip is that it produces light over a longer area. Surely a panel is closer to a single point source. I have battens in my garage and prefer their light.

Do people mount panels on the surface of the ceiling, or cut out the plasterboard, so they sit flush with the rest of the ceiling?

[nothanks]

I can't recall the spec angle but my utility room is about 3mx5m and has one 40W (I think) 600x600 surface-mounted panel and the room is well lit. The kitchen is about 5mx5m and has one central 40W 600x600 and two

20W 300x600 panels ... normally we don't bother switching-on the 40W panel because the smaller ones near each end of the room give ample light. The great thing about them, apart from the diffuse light, is that they blend into the background. Although they're great for "work" rooms I wouldn't want one in a bedroom or sitting room. These things are so cheap now that it's worth buying one to experiment with.

[The Natural Philosopher]

...Took me nearly an hour to see that my problem was that I had typed "Z0NE" instead of "ZONE"...

[Jeff Gaines]

That's where a fixed font editor can help by emphasising the difference. The latest version of Visual Studio don't work with fixed fonts because MSFT concentrates on pretty rather than functional nowadays.

[SH]

I used to work in a petrol station at a time where cheques was very much more common than debit or credit cards.

Every now and then, I'd have a customer and I'd be given a cheque for the fuel...

I would then say to the customer, You program in Fortran, Cobol or Basic then?

They would look at me and ask how I knew they were a computer programmer

You wrote 0's in your cheque told me was my answer!

[Robert]

+1 , crossed 0's & Z's date you ! But so sensible, l and I or 1 can still cause problems

[Jeff Layman]

Are you sure it was a Philips tube? I couldn't see any on the TLC website (they list LEDLite). From what I could tell, most 4ft fluos are around 3300 lumen for 36W; a led "equivalent" is around 2200 lumen for

18W, but at about 2.5x the cost.

I do wonder about the apparent brightness of fluos and leds, as fluos spread their output evenly all round (but does the white or silver reflector in the fitting make a difference?), whereas leds have a directional beam down (120°?).

[Brian Gaff]

A lot of those strip type lights that glue on have a tendency to fall off after a while so I'm told. Brian

[Jeff Gaines]

Thanks Brian, I'll wear a crash helmet in the kitchen :-)