DIYbanter - View Single Post - HELP: halogen vs energy-saving light bulb.... woes :S

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005, wrote:

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

lighting a room by indirect light reflected off the floor is horribly
inefficient. It's common to find a kitchen with 500W of halogen
downlighters that has a much lower level of illumination everywhere
that matters than you get from hanging a 60W lamp in the middle of the
room.

Hear hear. Halogen downlighter installs are horribly expensive to run.
If you want sane running costs, you need to change away from
downlighters.

In the '80s and '90s, it seemed *very* trendy to use PARs in plain
downlighter cans virtually everywhere. New home construction, old home
renovation, new offices, old offices, etc. I remember seeing a typical
kitchen rework going to 11x downlighter can, each with a 90w PAR38. Floor
was nice and hot, but counters were cold, so add about 10x F15T8s into the
mix, which gets the counters but not the cooktop, so add 2x 75w A-line
into the range hood...sheesh.

8x eyeball cans with HIR 54w PAR38 wide floods: MUCH BETTER overall
illumination (floor hot enough to see adequately; work surfaces and
cabinets well and evenly illuminated), undercounter F15s no longer needed,
1/3 the power.

The quick 'n' dirty means where installing eyeball cans isn't practicable
or affordable? Track lighting.