Browse Forums Lighting + Lighting Design Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 182Jan 20, 2016 12:18 pm Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 184Jan 20, 2016 4:36 pm Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 185Feb 06, 2016 3:08 pm Hi 1960sModernistHome, Thanks so much for this thread, I've learnt so much reading it. But am still feeling totally overwhelmed haha So please, if you could have a quick look at my lighting plan I would be most appreciative. The lights in the main living areas will be down lights, pendants above the island bench, 3in1s in the bathrooms, fans with lights in the bedrooms (I'm thinking to upgrade to additional downlights as I can afford it), 3 way spotlights in the ensuite and pantry? maybe? Laundry and toilet just an oyster type fitting perhaps? Would love to hear what you think, if I have the right amount/spacing etc for lights or if there's anything else you would suggest. Many thanks Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 186Feb 07, 2016 6:14 pm Hi 1960sMH, First of all thanks so much for posting this topic! So much good advice and I have managed to get a draft lighting plan together. I was hoping you could take a quick look at it if you get a minute and see if you can suggest anything? Im on a fairly tight budget but trying to get the best lighting I can afford. I just have a couple of things I'm stuck on: 1. Can you suggest any way I could place downlights in the kitchen so that I can get lots of light on the work areas but not interfere with the pendants (cause shadows etc.) 2. Would you suggest 90deg downlights or LED oyster lights in the bathrooms and laundry? Thanks in advance! Draft Lighting Plan! http://imgur.com/utZT8Pu Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 187Feb 18, 2016 6:32 am Justalittlebithippy Hi 1960sModernistHome, Thanks so much for this thread, I've learnt so much reading it. But am still feeling totally overwhelmed haha So please, if you could have a quick look at my lighting plan I would be most appreciative. The lights in the main living areas will be down lights, pendants above the island bench, 3in1s in the bathrooms, fans with lights in the bedrooms (I'm thinking to upgrade to additional downlights as I can afford it), 3 way spotlights in the ensuite and pantry? maybe? Laundry and toilet just an oyster type fitting perhaps? Would love to hear what you think, if I have the right amount/spacing etc for lights or if there's anything else you would suggest. Many thanks What you've got should be okay, obviously the adequacy will depend on the actual luminaires that you select. I think your plan is good enough to take to a lighting store for a consultant to help you select appropriate lights. Happy to have another look for you once you've selected lights. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 188Feb 18, 2016 6:41 am A_M_C Hi 1960sMH, First of all thanks so much for posting this topic! So much good advice and I have managed to get a draft lighting plan together. I was hoping you could take a quick look at it if you get a minute and see if you can suggest anything? Im on a fairly tight budget but trying to get the best lighting I can afford. I just have a couple of things I'm stuck on: 1. Can you suggest any way I could place downlights in the kitchen so that I can get lots of light on the work areas but not interfere with the pendants (cause shadows etc.) 2. Would you suggest 90deg downlights or LED oyster lights in the bathrooms and laundry? Thanks in advance! Draft Lighting Plan! http://imgur.com/utZT8Pu This is the pragmatic, practical engineer within me - but would you consider different pendant lights over the bench? Those carbon filament lamps are genuinely useless in terms of light - they are just decoration/ambience. I might use these over a dining table or lounge or somewhere else, but personally I wouldn't have them in a kitchen - just because in my opinion you need lots of good quality light in a workspace like a kitchen. If you have your heart set on the filament globes, that's ok and I can see why you have put downlights next to them. You will get shadows from the pendants, not much you can do about it unfortunately. As a suggestion, what if you were to have just downlights in the kitchen (say, 6 of them) and put your pendants in a cluster over the dining table. Maybe a couple of downlights around the table to shine on wall hangings? I am a bit skeptical as to whether the 3x5 watt LED spotlights will be sufficient for the bedrooms. But if not they will be easy to change later. Other than that I think it's fine. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 189Feb 27, 2016 1:36 am 1960s here is a quick one. I have a foyer area that we intend to use a side wall to hang canvas artwork on. If I want to add feature lighting over the top on a 2700 ceiling height. My current plan has 3 evenly spaced LED downlights 10w 90deg 70mm cutouts. Can you offer any advice for a good effect lighting option for the 2500mm wall And possibly a distance apart and a distance away from the wall? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Damo's ******* boat building repair shop. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 190Feb 27, 2016 9:07 am Ok, here's my advice. Ditch the 10w 90 degree fownlights. Use either a tilt adjustable 30-45 degree downlight, or some lighting track with some track mount spotlights. This will give you the flexibility to shift the lights and adjust them to shine on to your art. Forget about lighting up the space, just concentrate on lighting the artwork. The reflected light from the feature lighting will illuminate the rest of the hallway sufficiently. It looks like your house is pretty high end, and the foyer is obviously the "first impression" and the first opportunity for wow factor. Spend a bit on the lighting in here and it will pay off. Happy to post links to some recommendations for light fittings if you wish! Good luck! Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 191Feb 27, 2016 11:41 am 1960sModernistHome A_M_C Hi 1960sMH, First of all thanks so much for posting this topic! So much good advice and I have managed to get a draft lighting plan together. I was hoping you could take a quick look at it if you get a minute and see if you can suggest anything? Im on a fairly tight budget but trying to get the best lighting I can afford. I just have a couple of things I'm stuck on: 1. Can you suggest any way I could place downlights in the kitchen so that I can get lots of light on the work areas but not interfere with the pendants (cause shadows etc.) 2. Would you suggest 90deg downlights or LED oyster lights in the bathrooms and laundry? Thanks in advance! Draft Lighting Plan! http://imgur.com/utZT8Pu This is the pragmatic, practical engineer within me - but would you consider different pendant lights over the bench? Those carbon filament lamps are genuinely useless in terms of light - they are just decoration/ambience. I might use these over a dining table or lounge or somewhere else, but personally I wouldn't have them in a kitchen - just because in my opinion you need lots of good quality light in a workspace like a kitchen. If you have your heart set on the filament globes, that's ok and I can see why you have put downlights next to them. You will get shadows from the pendants, not much you can do about it unfortunately. As a suggestion, what if you were to have just downlights in the kitchen (say, 6 of them) and put your pendants in a cluster over the dining table. Maybe a couple of downlights around the table to shine on wall hangings? I am a bit skeptical as to whether the 3x5 watt LED spotlights will be sufficient for the bedrooms. But if not they will be easy to change later. Other than that I think it's fine. Hi 1960s, Thanks so much for the advice! We went back to the lighting shop and found some other pendants we quite like which have bright 55 degree led globes in them so will probably go with them as the wiring for the pendants has already been installed. Thanks again for your advice! ? Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 192Feb 27, 2016 5:44 pm Hi 1960sModernistHome, You are doing such a great job in this thread and we are all very appreciative of your generous assistance. I have my electrical appointment coming soon and I'm scratching my head:I want to have downlights throughout the house and the electrical contractor is essentially charging $40 for the supply of a Clipsal 11w LED Downlight. I think the price of this particular downlight is expensive (in my opinion) and I'm looking for alternate options. I've looked at various stores online and instore and it is just confusing. I've even watched videos on youtube to try and understand the different types of downlights and from what I have read so far, LED downlights are the way to go! -Can you please suggest me a 10W (or above) LED downlight that is easy to be replaced without involving an electrician (putting my maintenance hat on)? -Will I require special down lights for shower areas (i.e, do they need to be weatherproof)? -I was at Masters this morning and I noticed that some LED downlights have an external "LED Driver" and some downlights don't? Does one offer an advantage over the other? Thanks in advance! Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 193Feb 27, 2016 6:19 pm Lazy bones. Check out these lights. http://www.nedlandsgroup.com.au/lightin ... 00_7%2C100 I have narrow my search down to these. And have the samples at home. I wanted a white light in the 6000K range for the whole house. (Personal preference). There is a IP65 waterproof rating. 10w LED downlight. There is a 8" round flat option too. Good for the alfresco area Damo's ******* boat building repair centre. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 194Feb 27, 2016 7:38 pm Rip it up Lazy bones. Check out these lights. http://www.nedlandsgroup.com.au/lightin ... 00_7%2C100 I have narrow my search down to these. And have the samples at home. Hi Rip it up. Thanks, these look interesting, didn't realize that you can get driver less led downlights. Do you have any pics of these in your house? I would love to see how it looks. Did you have any issues in getting these installed? Also, how would you go about replacing these? Thanks! Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 195Feb 27, 2016 9:01 pm My house is still being built. No installed pics. The downlights still have a small driver to run them. But they come supplied with a standard 2 pin flex plug on the driver and a plug for the light fitting. So the sparkles will cut the hole. And push the wire inside the ceiling. Connect the flex plug up a surface mount socket loosely in the ceiling space. Poke the wires up and clip in the light fitting. Yes you can change these units out yourself for maintenance. Most downlights are this way now days. Flex plug installed on a surface socket. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I tested them on he floor this morning. You can see the flex plug and driver in this photo. Damo's ******* boat building repair shop. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 196Feb 27, 2016 9:22 pm Rip it up My house is still being built. No installed pics. The downlights still have a small driver to run them. Thanks for the pic! The prices are very good on the site. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 197Feb 28, 2016 10:46 am lazybones1987 Hi 1960sModernistHome, You are doing such a great job in this thread and we are all very appreciative of your generous assistance. I have my electrical appointment coming soon and I'm scratching my head:I want to have downlights throughout the house and the electrical contractor is essentially charging $40 for the supply of a Clipsal 11w LED Downlight. I think the price of this particular downlight is expensive (in my opinion) and I'm looking for alternate options. I've looked at various stores online and instore and it is just confusing. I've even watched videos on youtube to try and understand the different types of downlights and from what I have read so far, LED downlights are the way to go! -Can you please suggest me a 10W (or above) LED downlight that is easy to be replaced without involving an electrician (putting my maintenance hat on)? -Will I require special down lights for shower areas (i.e, do they need to be weatherproof)? -I was at Masters this morning and I noticed that some LED downlights have an external "LED Driver" and some downlights don't? Does one offer an advantage over the other? Thanks in advance! My advice would be to select and buy your own lights. I've seen the Clipsal ones and they are pretty ordinary. As a general rule, as you've probably gathered from this thread, I HATE glare, and those opal diffused LED downlights are very high glare. If you go back to pages 3 and 4 of this thread I explain glare and also show some images that demonstrate it. Most LED downlights these days are plug-in, so you can replace them yourself (although take lots of care doing it, and it's easy to damage the ceiling pulling them out) In bathrooms you don't need special IP rated downlights, but it's not a bad idea for them to last longer. Downlights with an external driver offer the advantage of being able to replace the driver if they fail. Generally speaking, good quality LED chips rarely fail - if anything is going to fail it will be the driver. So I would usually go for something with a replaceable driver. Imagine if you have 6 downlights in a room, all with integral drivers that are not replaceable. In 5 years time, one of them fails. The particular downlights are not on the market anymore so you cannot buy one to replace it. So you either have to replace all 6 of them, or put up with 1 out of the 6 being slightly different looking... As for downlight suggestions, I have made quite a few throughout this thread so if you're able to take a few minutes to skim through the pages you'll find plenty. Good luck! Building Services Engineer Renovating our 1960's modernist home in Brisbane https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=82091 Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 198Feb 28, 2016 2:13 pm 1960sModernistHome Justalittlebithippy Hi 1960sModernistHome, Thanks so much for this thread, I've learnt so much reading it. But am still feeling totally overwhelmed haha So please, if you could have a quick look at my lighting plan I would be most appreciative. The lights in the main living areas will be down lights, pendants above the island bench, 3in1s in the bathrooms, fans with lights in the bedrooms (I'm thinking to upgrade to additional downlights as I can afford it), 3 way spotlights in the ensuite and pantry? maybe? Laundry and toilet just an oyster type fitting perhaps? Would love to hear what you think, if I have the right amount/spacing etc for lights or if there's anything else you would suggest. Many thanks What you've got should be okay, obviously the adequacy will depend on the actual luminaires that you select. I think your plan is good enough to take to a lighting store for a consultant to help you select appropriate lights. Happy to have another look for you once you've selected lights. Thanks heaps Now that I've decided on my builder I will have to confirm exactly what lights they use and see what I can do to improve on that.. Re: Ask a lighting design engineer - general Q&A 200Mar 04, 2016 12:48 pm Hi, This is an amazing thread thank you so much for donating so much time and knowledge We have our electrical appointment next wednesday and apologies but I have sooo many questions: 1. How much of a difference is there between different ceiling fan/lights, we will happily invest the money to get great ones too last us but reviews are all over the place and there no clear winner. These are the 3 types we are looking at: *** http://www.beaconlighting.com.au/fans/ceiling-fans/ceiling-fans-with-lights/altitude-eco-122cm-fan-with-led-light-in-brushed-aluminium.html *** http://www.bunnings.com.au/arlec-120cm-white-columbus-ceiling-fan-with-led-light-and-remote-control_p4370957 *** http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Fias-Rotor-52-inch-LED-Ceiling-Fan-with-Light-in-Brushed-Aluminium-/280964492061?hash=item416ac9eb1d:m:m0kRX1pBY8LlymKZfc-Vj3Q We don't need remotes, just want good quality, decent prices and nice bright LED light coverage from them as they will be in every bedroom, media and family rooms plus we are getting an outdoor one for the patio. The cheaper ones actually seem to have a slightly better blade angle/pitch and its a huge saving but if the quality is bad theres no point we are so lost lol. 2. Most of the lights that are not fan combos we just want to put in decent LED bulbs (I think we prefer cool light) and cover them with basic cheap dome fixtures such as these: https://www.masters.com.au/product/900045532/liteworks-swan-1-light-ceiling-fixture If our builder electrician provides the provisions/wiring are we being normal people with no electrical skill able to install the simple lights/covers like this on our own to save $ or we will need someone to do it for us? Also what wattage LED globes would you recommend to give good coverage for fixtures like these? as we will have these in our hallways ect, are the covers too cloudy/any better affordable options lol we are willing to invest a little more if it makes a huge difference otherwise just the cheapest. 3. We are being charged $440 each from builder electrician to supply and install the 2 lamp size 3 in one fan/light/heaters in our bathrooms this includes an extra circuit and extra safety switch. It seems very expensive, are they just expensive to install? 4. We are looking at putting in about 6 Led down lights (IP44 LED Downlight S9071WP) for spotlights/task areas so there would be one over each of the bathroom sinks (2 in ensuite and 1 in main) and 3 over the kitchen bench. My question is practicality wise are we best off using down lights for these or some other kind of LED spotlight fixtures. I was also considering a 3 way spotlight over the middle of the kitchen bench that we can angle how we would like or the 3 pendents over bench thing which is so trendy nowadays but I don't want anything hanging down too low or getting in the way I am totally stuck on what the most practical solution will be to give the best task lighting for the bench. My concern with LEDs is that not enough light will be focused on the area as it diffuses on the way down however we only have standard ceiling heights. 5. We both really prefer the look of cool white lighting to warm but we have a white kitchen bench and light grey walls ect can we get away with cool lighting throughout without the house coming across too sterile/stark? Thank you so much in advance for your time and help I am at my wits end here trying to make all the big decisions lol, sorry I couldn't figure out how to post my electrical plans image on here Thanks again, Alex You should check your detail drawings, it may show downpipe within brick pier. 14 14124 I work with owner, he/she is my man on the ground and I instruct them when to visit the site and take photos and I have other tools in the bag. 4 15284 Ardo That is so funny! I wonder how many people know who Larry Haun is these days. I have a couple of young guys we call Mo 1 & Mo 2 who run a crew of 6 boys and… 9 15538 |