What do you recommend as the best undercounter light style. All I seem to find are the little hocky puck disks and rope lights. Anything else out there? Thanks. BTW these are going to be for new cabinets so I can build the upper bottoms around the light.
The hockey pucks are actually quite good. They're compact and they can be controlled by a dimmer. The downside is that they're not as efficient as fluorescents.
You probably mean undercabinet as undercounter wouldn't be very effective.
I popped some fairly big bucks and went with Kichler xenon bulb fixtures from my local lighting store. Later I saw the Kichlers with halogen bulbs at the local Lowes, but now a year later, when my daughter needs undercabinet lighting, Lowes only has hockey pucks. And we've had previous zero success with hockey pucks.
I love the Kichler xenons. The light is very warm, much like a regular incandescant lamp--not harsh white like the halogens.
I put in one 4-bulb, two 3-bulb, three 2-bulb, and one 1-bulb fixtures. They totalled about $500, installed myself. There are two brightness positions on the switches on the units, and of course I have them all wired to 3-way switches by the doors. There are no transformers or any other special wiring--they run off regular 120V feeds.
They are also quite low profile, so they wouldnt be horrible under a stock cabinet, but my cabinets had a trim molding so they are completely invisible unless you duck your head and look up under the cabinet.
That's the third or fourth time you've completely agreed with me recently. People aren't going to take you seriously anymore if they find out you think the way I do...
About a year ago, I installed new kitchen cabinets and used xenon task lights from National Speciality Lighting. They have been great. They are dimmable, bright and give off much less heat then halogen. They are supposed to have a much greater life than the halogen also. I do not have any relation to National Speciality Lighting or any lighting retailer or wholesaler at all. I am just very happy with.the lights
I found a number of different lighting types, strip and puck types at American Lighting. Just Google the name and check the manufacturer's site. They make fluorescent, halogen and xenon types. The reason I stumbled on them, is because most of my cabinets are of a size 1/2" too small for other manufacturer's strip lights, AL makes them a little shorter and fit into the cabinet bottoms.
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 00:11:39 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Mike Patterson quickly quoth:
The bulbs get really hot. If there's any oil from your skin which gets on them, they'll blow quickly. Make sure you wear gloves when handling them and wipe them off before installation, just in case someone else wasn't as thorough, Mike.
Great! Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Lot more options than I could find at my local borg. And it does appear there are many more 'under cabinet' lights than there are 'under counter' lights listed on google. Of course if crime among your pots and pans is an issue you might just want under counter lights. Looks like I'm going in search of xenon. Hope to find a good price locally or online. Mike... who is feeling overwhelmed by the kitchen project ahead.
I presume thins is for a kitchen. One thing to consider that most people seem to forget is color temperature. Your undercabinet lighting decision should follow you general area lighting decision. If you use halogen lighting anywhere in the kitchen, all lighting in the kitchen should be halogen. Same for fluorescent all tubes should be the same color temperature spec. If you don't match the color temperatures even if the amount of light and distribution are good things will never look quite right due to the mismatch.
Good point Pete. In my younger years I had a friend who always said "Never mix, never worry". Of course he was talking about liquor but I see that it applies to lighting also.
A few people have mentioned small 120v pot lights and some of the heat and burnouts associated with them. No one has yet mentioned 12v pot lights which do not experience the same problems near as much, as well as being quite a bit safer. Don't let the idea of 12v pot lights not supplying you near enough light. The better quality ones are very capable in the light department.
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