My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen downlighters
in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which no doubt helps
to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my electric bills and the
light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last house only had a single 60w
flourescent tube and you could actually see what you were doing.

Suggestions please.
--
Dave Baker

On Aug 9, 9:10*pm, "Dave Baker" wrote:
My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen downlighters
in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which no doubt helps
to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my electric bills and the
light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last house only had a single 60w
flourescent tube and you could actually see what you were doing.

Suggestions please.

With cfl uplighting it would be happy with 1/10th that much. I dont
mean those dreaded plaster things.


NT

On 09/08/2012 21:12, NT wrote:
On Aug 9, 9:10 pm, "Dave wrote:
My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen downlighters
in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which no doubt helps
to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my electric bills and the
light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last house only had a single 60w
flourescent tube and you could actually see what you were doing.

Suggestions please.

With cfl uplighting it would be happy with 1/10th that much. I dont
mean those dreaded plaster things.


NT

I had the same when I moved into this house 2 lots of 5 halogen. In the
short term I have replaced half of them with 30w (might even be 20w) The
top half of the kitchen I will keep with a mix of 30/60w but the bottom
half I will put in a flourescent tube when I carpet the bedroom above it
as this will give me access to the electrics.
The bottom half is the cooker/sink wife part of the kitchen and she
finds it too dull, the top half is dining plus it has a window for extra
light.

ss wrote:
The bottom half is the cooker/sink wife part of the kitchen

Got to love that phraseology. I'm going to steal that. Sorry.
--
Dave Baker

In article ,
Dave Baker wrote:
My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen
downlighters in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power
which no doubt helps to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for
my electric bills and the light output is terrible. The kitchen in my
last house only had a single 60w flourescent tube and you could
actually see what you were doing.

You can generally change them to 35 or even 20 watt versions with very
little apparent loss of light - usually because it isn't getting to where
it's needed anyway. Very common with spots. Your old fashioned florry gave
a near omni directional light output - which may not look as pretty but is
more efficient for a working area.

These types of fittings are very popular because they are cheap and look good.
That they are terrible for doing the actual job is neither here nor there to designers and builders.

But I like them too - but confine their use to where the decorative effect is more important than the illumination.

--
*You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , Dave Baker
writes
My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen downlighters
in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which no doubt helps
to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my electric bills and the
light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last house only had a single 60w
flourescent tube and you could actually see what you were doing.

Suggestions please.

How is your ceiling height?

I've a kitchen of similar dims with good high Georgian ceilings that I
light with 8 evenly spaced pendant lights with good sized white glass
tulip shades. I light half with 40W incandescents and the rest with 11W
energy savers.

The incandescents alternate in a zig zag with the energy savers to
ensure a reasonably even and instant bright light when you switch on,
with the energy savers coming up to speed in a few mins. They're
switchable in pairs to light either the whole area or just the
breakfasting end.

There are extra 300mm fluorescent strips under the upper cabs to fill in
light on the worksurfaces round the side but the main peninsular
workspace is well lit by the overheads.

Possibly a bit old school classroom like but I like it.

Total all on power 170W
--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .

In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:

These types of fittings are very popular because they are cheap and look good.

To me, they look cheap and tell me the kitchen was designed by
someone who is clueless.

(Of course, they aren't cheap to run, just dirt cheap to buy.)

That they are terrible for doing the actual job is neither here nor there to designers and builders.

But I like them too - but confine their use to where the decorative effect is more important than the illumination.

Downlighers do have their place, but that's never for providing general
lighting in a room.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Aug 9, 11:59*pm, (Andrew Gabriel)
wrote:
In article ,
* * * * "Dave Plowman (News)" writes:



These types of fittings are very popular because they are cheap and look good.

To me, they look cheap and tell me the kitchen was designed by
someone who is clueless.

(Of course, they aren't cheap to run, just dirt cheap to buy.)

That they are terrible for doing the actual job is neither here nor there to designers and *builders.

But I like them too - but confine their use to where the decorative effect is more important than the illumination.

Downlighers do have their place, but that's never for providing general
lighting in a room.

Quite. If you like the look of the halogens, they could perhaps be
changed for 5w, and concealed uplighting also added.


NT

On 09/08/2012 21:10, Dave Baker wrote:
My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen downlighters
in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which no doubt helps
to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my electric bills and the
light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last house only had a single 60w
flourescent tube and you could actually see what you were doing.

Suggestions please.


Some might be useful as work area lighting if you replace them with
lower wattage eyeball directional downlighters. If you can get access to
fit a permanent live, you could also replace one with an emergency light
- the kitchen and above the stairs are two places I always have them.
The rest could be replaced with surface mount fittings that take low
wattage CFLs. Last time I was in there, my local electrical wholesaler
had some quite attractive surface mount fittings at under £10 each. If
you can get access to the wiring, another option would be to re-wire the
lights into banks, so that you don't need to have all 12 on at once.

Colin Bignell

In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:

These types of fittings are very popular because they are cheap and
look good.

To me, they look cheap and tell me the kitchen was designed by
someone who is clueless.

Indeed in a kitchen. It is the house workshop and needs decent
illumination. If it is somewhere you eat too, no harm in having them as an
alternative to give 'mood' lighting for that.

(Of course, they aren't cheap to run, just dirt cheap to buy.)

That they are terrible for doing the actual job is neither here nor
there to designers and builders.

But I like them too - but confine their use to where the decorative
effect is more important than the illumination.

Downlighers do have their place, but that's never for providing general
lighting in a room.

Indeed. Again.

--
*If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 21:10:40 +0100, "Dave Baker" wrote:

My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen downlighters
in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which no doubt helps
to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my electric bills and the
light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last house only had a single 60w
flourescent tube and you could actually see what you were doing.

Suggestions please.

Faced with a similar problem I am currently looking at these two
potential solutions; 2 of these somewhat industrial surface HF
fluorescent units
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/TNPUZ418ML.html

or 4 of these PL units
http://www.electricsandlighting.co.u...le-flush-.html
(picked one up from CEF for ukp 98 this week).

--
rbel

"Dave Baker" wrote in message
...
My new house has a 20' x 12' kitchen with 12 x 50w MR16 halogen
downlighters in the ceiling. That's a staggering 600 watts of power which
no doubt helps to keep it warm in winter but does bugger all for my
electric bills and the light output is terrible. The kitchen in my last
house only had a single 60w flourescent tube and you could actually see
what you were doing.

Suggestions please.
--
Dave Baker


Change the lamps over to LED's?

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...Led/index.html

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message ...

In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:

These types of fittings are very popular because they are cheap and look
good.

To me, they look cheap and tell me the kitchen was designed by
someone who is clueless.

(Of course, they aren't cheap to run, just dirt cheap to buy.)

That they are terrible for doing the actual job is neither here nor there
to designers and builders.

But I like them too - but confine their use to where the decorative effect
is more important than the illumination.

Downlighers do have their place, but that's never for providing general
lighting in a room.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I watched on of these make-over progs where the developer had replaced the
lighting in the property (IIRC it was a flat) with some obscene number of
down-lighters.

I was thinking, what a moron, that will be horrid to live in. But of course
the presenter gushed over the wonderful lighting design

tim

In article ,
rbel writes:

Faced with a similar problem I am currently looking at these two
potential solutions; 2 of these somewhat industrial surface HF
fluorescent units
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/TNPUZ418ML.html

If you look at the light distribution diagram in the datasheet,
it's still basically a 60° spotlight, which given it's really
designed for large office use with no glare, is exactly what I'd
expect.

That's not what I'd want in a kitchen though. It will light the
floor extremely well. Probably good enough for seeing into the
under worktop cupboards too. It will be cutting off by the
time you get to the worktops, and nothing into the top cupboards.
In a kitchen (if it's really used for cooking), the high efficiency
polished reflector will get dirty, and will be virtually impossible
to clean.

or 4 of these PL units
http://www.electricsandlighting.co.u...le-flush-.html

That would probably work much better.
The diffuser will give a much wider light spread, and use of
multiple fittings will increase the effective light source
area, both of which will help reduce shadows.

(picked one up from CEF for ukp 98 this week).

That sounds expensive, but I'm not very familiar with the
normal pricing of these.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]