Lighting design

[Kelvin]

As I fight my way through the foundation design my attention has turned to the electrics and specifically the lighting design. I went to a local lighting specialist for what I thought was going to be a cost effective lighting solution but the quote was £17k for all the controls and £14k for the lights plus fitting and cable on top! I could automate the whole house for that much This was an eDIN+ based system with scenes and dimming controllers etc. I've knocked up the attached lighting layout but I am bit lost on how best to control it. I would like some dimming control in the open plan room. I'm also speaking to a Loxone installer about home automation.

 

Any comments on this lighting layout?

 

 

lighting scheme v0.1.pdf

[jack]

All I'll say is that downlights are the devil, and large arrays of downlights are whatever's worse than the devil. My eyes are already bleeding looking at the array in the kitchen.

One thing I'll recommend (which we didn't do enough of) is to walk into each room, imagine specific scenarios about how it will be used, and think about what the lighting would ideally look like for each use.

For example, the kitchen is probably going to be the most complex, because it has lots of different uses across the day and night:

- Cooking on a weeknight: compare a bright summer's day with a dark winter evening

- Eating lunch/breakfast at the island

- Eating dinner at the table

- Coffee on a dark, overcast winter weekend morning

- After-dinner lighting for midweek where you might be wandering in and out from the living room, grabbing a cup of tea, etc

- A party where there are lots of people drinking and eating snacks

- A dinner party with 6-8 people at the table (does the lighting change over the course of the evening? Brighter when people get there and you're engaged in cooking and organising drinks, then changing focus to the table when you sit down to eat, and perhaps changing again if things continue after dinner)

 

Other things to consider:

- Will you have any art on the walls? If so, how will you light it (if at all). 

- How much of your lighting can be done with local task lights versus bright downlights? In the kitchen example, are you better having some good task lighting above the island where you'll be doing food prep, coupled with some more moody, lower level lighting over the island for when you still want to see what you're doing (e.g., eating), but brightness isn't so important.

- Consider lamps and wall lights that are controllable as part of scenes incorporating your main lighting.

 

Another thing to consider is to look at the lighting in bars and restaurants, and see what sort of lighting gives you the sort of mood you're after. It's amazing the impact a couple of lamps with orange or red shades can do to the feel of a space.

 

[Dave Jones]

all well and good but if not downlights what ? dangly shite pendants ?

 

you can get surface mounted/plastered in downlights that look a lot better.

[dnb]

I'm "auditioning" one of these http://www.whitewing.co.uk/acdim.html at the moment in my build. If it works out, I'll need two more (I have managed to require 46 channels somehow 🤪  But better than 49 I suppose...)

This solves providing dimmable power to the light fittings but not the switch elements themselves, however DMX is at least a well known open standard, and Loxone can control it if that's what I choose in the end. Will probably do something based on open software and COTS hardware because I have no faith that single source hardware will remain compatible with existing parts when repairs are needed in 10+ years. (e.g. It needs to be cheap enough I can do a "lifetime buy" and have 2 or 3 of the key parts)

 

I do have a lot of downlights in my plan (I don't have quite the same opinion as @Jack but he does raise some very good points) they are all dimmable and there are an excess of 2A lighting sockets at key points for task lighting in most rooms (all DMX controlled and placed to allow the scenarios Jack discusses to be fully developed as we live there) and of course built in task lighting for the kitchen - we know much of what we want here already.

[Wumpus]

25 minutes ago, jack said:

All I'll say is that downlights are the devil, and large arrays of downlights are whatever's worse than the devil. My eyes are already bleeding looking at the array in the kitchen.

Completely agree, I would say the proposal is unimaginative. When putting together our scheme we talked to a professional lighting designer (who we didn’t go with due to cost, but shamelessly took many of the ideas) and their single most helpful comment is to think about where you don’t want light and darker spaces are just as valuable as brightly lit spaces. A full matrix of LED downlights will certainly give even and bring coverage, but is that what you want? Even bathrooms can have a more subtle mood with lights in niches, and darker spots of the room where you don’t need to be dazzled. Light goes over basins and in showers, perhaps highlighting a picture with a narrow slot.

 

No, you don’t need pendants everywhere but they can definitely be helpful in specific locations to create impact, for example over a dining table, over stairs, in your entrance lobby if there’s enough height. Equally you can have light at different levels for a more subtle mood, and 5amp circuits can still give good control and dimming. Table lamps, lights that arc over a sofa, bedside lamps, desk lamps are all part of the scheme. Recessed LED strips can work well, but equally can be overdone if too many. Slot lights at floor level can light your was to the bathroom in the night with a low glow. Pictures can be picked out rather than lighting the whole floor. Reflected light is often softer and more appealing than direct light from a downlighter. So many options. We had a basic principle of not wanting to see the source of the light, just the effect. We didn’t always achieve that, but it’s a great starting point. A lot of that is by using flush plaster-in angled lights like wall-washers.

 

if I had one suggestion it would be to break up the matrix of downlights and put the light where you need it rather than splashing light everywhere.

 

As to how you control it all, there are so many options from manual dimmers, DMX, KNX, Loxone, WiFi controllers, zigbee etc. I would suggest refining the lighting scheme before worrying about controls.

[billt]

1 hour ago, jack said:

All I'll say is that downlights are the devil, and large arrays of downlights are whatever's worse than the devil. My eyes are already bleeding looking at the array in the kitchen.

 

 

In the days of 50W halogens I'd agree, but with low energy bright and dimmable LEDs they have their place.

 

We have them in our kitchen and they are good for task lighting; 4 over one work surface , 4 over another work surface and an odd fitting over the island. They're switchable in groups so that you only have them on over the area that you are using. They give decent light where you are working and you don't shade it as you would with central lighting.

 

We also have a long narrow hallway which was lit with 4 pendant lights (with cfls) when we moved in. It gave a horrible dim, flat light. I've put in 8 downlights in 2 groups. The pools of light on the walls and the increased brightness make it a much more pleasant space.

 

No, I wouldn't choose them in a living area, preferring to have a mixture of freestanding lamps and uplighters to provide variation in lighting

[Carrerahill]

2 hours ago, Kelvin said:

As I fight my way through the foundation design my attention has turned to the electrics and specifically the lighting design. I went to a local lighting specialist for what I thought was going to be a cost effective lighting solution but the quote was £17k for all the controls and £14k for the lights plus fitting and cable on top! I could automate the whole house for that much This was an eDIN+ based system with scenes and dimming controllers etc. I've knocked up the attached lighting layout but I am bit lost on how best to control it. I would like some dimming control in the open plan room. I'm also speaking to a Loxone installer about home automation.

 

Any comments on this lighting layout?

 

 

lighting scheme v0.1.pdf 337.03 kB · 17 downloads

Where is local to you? Mode eDIN system is over the top for a house (just left a site snagging walk round and funnily enough had a look at the eDIN system I had specified to see if it was commissioned correctly. No.).

 

Can you post an example of some of the products and manufacturers.

 

Also, with all due respect, and I mean this in the friendliest way, that is not a "lighting design". Yes it shows lighting on a plan and constitutes a plan of lighting, but that is something that an architect would throw on a drawing for building warrant. Has any of the lighting been calculated and lumen outputs and beam angles etc. considered etc.

 

Regardless of the above, if you are happy with that and can pick some decent quality luminaires then go for it. For control, simple option is just light switches in the majority of spaces and a couple of dimmers for the living kitchen area. 

 

I would suggest, for the living room, depending on height of the LED strip (i.e. what it is built into) and the pendant tubes beam angle and output, your living room may be a bit under lit in some areas such as the couch, however, you may be like me and never really use the ceiling lights and rely on table lights, floor standers etc. 

 

I am not sure what the top 2, on plan, rooms are, downlights might not be best option depending on use.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Carrerahill

[Ferdinand]

2 hours ago, jack said:

All I'll say is that downlights are the devil, and large arrays of downlights are whatever's worse than the devil. My eyes are already bleeding looking at the array in the kitchen.

One thing I'll recommend (which we didn't do enough of) is to walk into each room, imagine specific scenarios about how it will be used, and think about what the lighting would ideally look like for each use.

For example, the kitchen is probably going to be the most complex, because it has lots of different uses across the day and night:

- Cooking on a weeknight: compare a bright summer's day with a dark winter evening

- Eating lunch/breakfast at the island

- Eating dinner at the table

- Coffee on a dark, overcast winter weekend morning

- After-dinner lighting for midweek where you might be wandering in and out from the living room, grabbing a cup of tea, etc

- A party where there are lots of people drinking and eating snacks

- A dinner party with 6-8 people at the table (does the lighting change over the course of the evening? Brighter when people get there and you're engaged in cooking and organising drinks, then changing focus to the table when you sit down to eat, and perhaps changing again if thing continue after dinner)

 

 

Yay. Scenario Analysis. Good tool whatever your views.

 

Agree on the arrays of downlights. I have 19 in my kitchen (installed by previous occupier), and another 40+ elsewhere, and they *are* the devil. Though I changed them all (except those that were stuck) to new iKea LEDs in 2013, and I think only a single one has gone pop since.

 

I tend to use this kind of thing as an alternative to drilling 47 holes in a plaster ceiling, or variations thereupon such as a round one with 2-4 stalks:

 

 

I think that LED panel lights are a decent alternative for eg above your dining table, although a feature metallic fitting may work well there.

 

You also need to consider dimmability, colour temperature (eg cool or war, white), colour tunability if you want it, and point sources such as uplighters and wall lights.

 

You can some fabulous 70s style wall lights that will go with a patterned carpet and tartan golfer trousers to give you a wonderful Terry & June aesthetic 😉.

 

ATB

Ferdinand

 

 

[Kelvin]

Thanks all. Most helpful. I have a meeting with another lighting designer on Wednesday who I like the sound of. 

 

To answer some of the questions:

 

Local to me is Perthshire (the company I visited is called Terkan Lighting) Half the cost of the control side of the quote was two 18 circuit power packs @ £4166 each plus 8 programmable button keypads came to over £2000.  The lights themselves were quite nice to be honest from SLC and Lodes pendant tube lights among others. This was their cheaper end of the controller range! 

 

I have taken beam angles, colour temperature, lumen output into account so the downlights aren't all the same and some of them are tiltable to point at the cupboards and the back wall of the kitchen.  I also have more low level lighting in the bathrooms (under the sink and around the bath) that isn't shown on the layout. 

 

We have a number table lamps and standard lamps that I've not included which will light the living room. I am concerned about lighting around the sofas so was thinking of having either something on the walls pointing down (it's a double-height ceiling) or fit plugs in the floor for table lamps.  

 

Upstairs is a master bedroom suite the room on the right is a seating area/dressing room. Both rooms have big rooflights that come down to about knee height 

 

I've reduced the number of downlights in the kitchen area as the first lighting designer had more! lol

 

Be good to see some of the things you've done in your self-builds for ideas. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Kelvin

[jack]

2 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

all well and good but if not downlights what ? dangly shite pendants ?

 

you can get surface mounted/plastered in downlights that look a lot better.

 

The problem is less downlights per se and more the visual effect of a vast array of closely-mounted downlights as the primary, or even only, light source for a large area. It's particularly bad if the ceilings are low.

 

We have a small number of relatively high power, wide angle downlights in our kitchen and they're not actually that bad, although I prefer to have them on low in the evenings and use wall and accent lights unless I'm doing something that needs a ton of light.

 

As well as using not shite pendants, you can also use wall lights and lamps (and LED strips, but even when they're concealed I'm not a fan of the way these are usually used).

 

2 hours ago, dnb said:

I'm "auditioning" one of these http://www.whitewing.co.uk/acdim.html at the moment in my build. If it works out, I'll need two more (I have managed to require 46 channels somehow 🤪  But better than 49 I suppose...)

 

I've had the 16 channel version of this running via Loxone for a few months now. Rock solid so far. Dimming is excellent - better even than the 8-channel Theben KNX dimmer being used for the rest of the channels.

[SteamyTea]

I had my old frosty lenses changed to nice, shiny, acrylic ones about 14 years ago.

All I can say is that most places are over lit, harsh and painful.

Cataracts can affect everyone.

So I am happy with 

3 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

dangly shite pendants

With 3W warm LEDs in them.  Anything extra is just flash, literally and metaphorically.

 

[jonM]

I have downlights in the kitchen and bathrooms, pendant lighting over the breakfast bar and dining room table and wall lighting elsewhere on dimmer switches plus 5A switched sockets in each room if I want to plug in additional lighting. It works well. 

I put this together with some pointers from the architect after getting a similar quote from a lighting consultant and a plan which consisted of downlights in every room from a lighting shop. 

The wall lights were hand made but surprisingly cost effective. 

https://www.colinchetwood.co.uk/locklamps/s8jef1png19lgfflr6k58ry3nk4jsu

 

[Kelvin]

Cheers all. It’s hard work this house building lark 😂 

[Roundtuit]

Your proposed kitchen area downlight arrangement is similar to ours, and I'm happy with ours:  all bulb fittings, so you can change the colour temperature to suit, and two separate circuits (cool white over the 'business area' and daylight white over the eating area), both dimmable to suit the mood.  Also led strips under the island which provide a surprising amount of 'background' light.

 

I know I'm at odds with the prevailing view, but I really don't like yellowy lighting; I think it reminds me of the nicotine-stained 70's. 

[SteamyTea]

16 minutes ago, Roundtuit said:

two separate circuits (cool white over the 'business area' and daylight white over the eating area), both dimmable to suit the mood.  Also led strips under the island which provide a surprising amount of 'background' light.

How often do you take advantage of that dimmability?

Is it a case of just using the strips under the counter when you don't want much and the others are on or off (or at best partly dimmed and off).

I worked at the RNIB and they had very fancy lighting, it ended up on or off.

[Kelvin]

Cheers thanks. Good to hear. 
 

For clarity the room to the left of the utility room is a cinema/Hi-Fi room. Of course that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be well lit 😂 
 

Our slight reticence about wall lights is that we had them around our previous house and we hated them. They compromised where we could place pictures etc plus they didn’t particularly help light the rooms due to the type of lights as they were boxed in up and down lights. They also highlighted all the bad paintwork and plaster work 😂 I loved them on the outside though as they highlighted the  character of the uneven brickwork of the 150 year old barn.  
 

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Kelvin

[Adsibob]

9 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

all well and good but if not downlights what ? dangly shite pendants ?

 

you can get surface mounted/plastered in downlights that look a lot better.

I’m with @jack on this. I hate downlights. We managed to get away with only 13 in the whole 5 bedroom/3 storey house:

one in the porch 

two in the ground hallway

one in first floor hallway

two at the top of the stairwell above second floor hallway

two in the kids bathroom

5 concealed in the kitchen -these are to illuminate the L worktop, I say concealed because you can only see them directly under them, there is a decorative ceiling that drops 20cm below the ceiling where they are installed. I will try and upload some pictures.

 

i find that lighting works much better with lots of layers, and only using downlights where you absolutely have to because there is no alternative. So we have a lot of wall lights, a pendant in the middle of most rooms, including in our master en-suite, which looks great, and a few floor standing lamps and table lamps. We wired many of the lamps into 5A lighting circuits so that you can still control at the wall.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Adsibob

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Roundtuit said:

cool white over the 'business area'

I just don’t understand this. Good quality high CRI bulbs in a 2700k colour will illuminate whatever you need to see as well as you could ever need to see it, without the harshness of cool lights. 3000k at a stretch, but anything higher than this is not appropriate for a residence. 

[JohnMo]

We have down-lights, but I am not a fan of loads of small ones.  We have 6 big ones in the kitchen about 150/200mm dia, fill the room with light little or no shadows.  They are flat and white, so disappear in to the ceiling.  Look more like a light tunnel. We have a ceiling that follows the roof line, and selected them as they are only about 20-30mm deep. 

 

Used slightly smaller ones the hall and most other rooms.

[jack]

Just now, Adsibob said:

I just don’t understand this. Good quality high CRI bulbs in a 2700k colour will illuminate whatever you need to see as well as you could ever need to see it, without the harshness of cool lights. 3000k at a stretch, but anything higher than this is not appropriate for a residence. 

 

I agree.

 

Most of our downlights are 2700 K or maybe 3000 K and the light is very pleasant.

 

I was talked into higher colour temperature for the bathrooms - 4000 or something like that - and it's too cold. 

 

We have some very warm white wall lights in our ensuite, and use only them during the dim/dark hours. Much easier on the eyes right before you head to bed or have just woken up.

 

1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

Our slight reticence about wall lights is that we had them around our previous house and we hated them. They compromised where we could place pictures etc plus they didn’t particularly help light the rooms due to the type of lights as they were boxed in up and down lights. 

 

Good point this.

 

We have a few in our hallway and kitchen which are very effective for looking nice at night, but they make it impossible to hang anything on the walls.

 

Directional spotlights or angled downlights can give a similar effect while allowing for pictures etc. 

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

Our slight reticence about wall lights is that we had them around our previous house and we hated them. They compromised where we could place pictures etc plus they didn’t particularly help light the rooms due to the type of lights as they were boxed in up and down lights.

Get better wall lights. E.g. stuff that isn’t boxed in at all:

 

[Kelvin]

Sure although neither of those are to my taste. We have picked a few wall lights for the entrance hallway by Wever & Ducre

[Adsibob]

23 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

Sure although neither of those are to my taste. We have picked a few wall lights for the entrance hallway by Wever & Ducre

If you like Weber & Ducre, have a look at One Light, they have a huge catalogue, but amongst all their stuff, you will find plenty of stuff that you like I think, and it is cheaper than Wever & Ducre and probably just as good quality, if not better:

 

https://toplightco.com/collections/one-light-products?page=6&grid_list

 

 

[Dave Jones]

13 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Get better wall lights. E.g. stuff that isn’t boxed in at all:

 

 

 

whoever plastered that needs sacking!

 

[Adsibob]

It's clay based plaster and looks amazing.