On Jan 28, 11:07 am, ransley wrote:
On Jan 28, 1:55 am, "MiamiCuse" wrote:



"MiamiCuse" wrote in message

. ..

I am toying with the idea of building a light cove around the entire living
room (about 28'x22') then use recessed lights and other lights towards the
middle.

My idea is to attach a 2x6 horizontally to the concrete block wall, which
will make a "shelf" about 6" wide. I will route the top side on the
outside to put a small notch in which I will insert a thin strip of
frosted glass or fiber glass about 3 to 4" tall so this will form the
"lip" of the shelf.

Inside the shelf I will put 48" long florescent light fixture and chain
them up all around.

This seems simple to do I just need some suggestion on how I would secure
the 2x6 sideways to the concrete block wall. I don't want to use any
visible braces. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

MC

Just talked to someone that makes me think I may need to change my design.

He said that since a florescent light fixture box is say 48" long, and I
need to chain them one after another to create this continuous light effect,
the fixtures need to overlap about 4 inches. His reasoning is that the
actual tube is not 48" long, may be 42" long with the sockets on both ends,
so if I chain them together, the socket from the last one to the socket of
the next one will create a six inch gap without lighting, therefore when I
turn on these lights, I will see light for 42", then a six inch gap, then
light for 42" again...and so on.

That seems to make sense, so to solve this I need to overlap the fixtures,
which means my "shelve" needs to be even wider?

Or will the light "wash" into each other and still have the continuously
lite effect?

MC- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You need to calculate Lumens, Using single T8 around a room will be
plenty bright for a home, How big is the room. One double fixture T8
might be equal to 320 watts, for a 16x 16 room that is near equal to
5000 watts incandesant, or Daylight, and when you dimm them the color
goes kinda red.

Ransley thanks again for your reply.

The room is about 16'x32'. I plan to do this all around except at the
fireplace which is about 6' wide. So the total perimeter that would
be lit would be about 90 linear feet, or 22 fixtures of 48" in
length. I was thinking either single T8 or T12...I thought the T8 is
32W so if I have 22 of that would equate to 704W? I am not sure I am
doing this right. What is a decent total wattage, I don't think I
need it to be bright daylight.

I never seen florescent tubes dimmed, is this even possible?

Thanks again,

MC