Downlight positioning for worktop task lighting

[MJNewton]

I'm sure my wife ponders how best to make my already stressful DIY even more testing. For example, in our new 'family' room (kitchen, diner, lounge) declaring she doesn't want an extractor hood leading eventually to me spending over a grand and 8 months on a retrofit MVHR system. Anyway, I digress...

 

Latest on the list of challenges from the missus is that we are not going for any wall-hung cupboards in the kitchen area... Ordinarily that's where I'd be fitting worktop task lighting, which we're a big fan of, and so instead we're going for GU10 downlights in the ceiling to illuminate the worktops (an L-shape along two perpendicular walls).

 

My question is: how far from the walls should I be fitting them? I have made the assumption that we should be aiming to avoid/reduce shadows from us standing at the worktop, so for a standard 600mm worktop depth that'd presumably put the maximum limit to be 600mm. I'm thinking something less than this would be even better though - perhaps 450mm - 500mm just to be sure we make the most of the light available? What about even less eg slap bang in the middle at 300mm from the walls?

 

I am mindful that the closer the downlights are to the wall the more of a 'cone' shape illumination pattern on the walls, particularly with hard edge LED GU10s. However, I don't anticipate that necessarily being a problem - it might even add to the aesthetics? 

[ProDave]

We find 500mm out from the wall about right. That is also okay if you have wall cupboards.

[CC45]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

We find 500mm out from the wall about right. That is also okay if you have wall cupboards.

Same here, seems fine.  You could go a bit closer to the wall if no wall cupboards but def no further out.  Depends a bit on th espread you LED's have I guess.

[Rob99]

When we were doing our kitchen spots I rigged up a temporary arrangement with a couple of spots fitted into an old length of laminate flooring and then fitted it in a couple of places on the ceiling until we were happy with the light and positions. It wasn't perfect as the spots were about 4" off the ceiling but it was well worth doing and it's much easier to fill in a few screw holes than a whole bunch of 70mm spotlight holes.

 

 

[timsk]

11 hours ago, MJNewton said:

. . . My question is: how far from the walls should I be fitting them? . . .

Hi MJN,

Ours our 400mm off the wall.

We were nervous about this at the time and, to build in some leeway if we got it wrong, we fitted tilting lights. This has proved to be a very good move as we can direct the light to the exact spot where it's needed on the worktop or sink. Yes, they're more expensive that fixed lights - quite a bit more if I remember rightly - but well worth the extra for the flexibility they provide.

Tim.

[MJNewton]

Thanks everyone - really helpful.

 

I'll definitely try some temporary lash ups to better understand exactly what effect the positioning has. We'd already done this to an extent but didn't do it so accurately as to see what +/-100mm might do. I imagine that, 1.5m above a surface it won't make massive amounts of difference unless body/head shadows come into play due to having them too far out.

 

2 hours ago, timsk said:

Hi MJN,

Ours our 400mm off the wall.

We were nervous about this at the time and, to build in some leeway if we got it wrong, we fitted tilting lights. This has proved to be a very good move as we can direct the light to the exact spot where it's needed on the worktop or sink. Yes, they're more expensive that fixed lights - quite a bit more if I remember rightly - but well worth the extra for the flexibility they provide.

 

Yes, that's an idea. And seeing the ones linked to by @joth in my other thread did make me wonder if adjustable ones might prove worthwhile. That said, in a couple of positions we don't have much clearance due to an upstairs basin waste pipe run and so the Integral (the make, not as in built-in bulb type) Evofire downlights with minimal clearance requirements (basically just the bulb length plus a small connector) were looking appealing.