LED downlights

Hey guys,

I've just finish prestart and I'm suppose to give them back the draft so we can finalise it.
My question is. LED lighting!

I wanted to put in led lights in the master, theatre, hallway, living and dining and kitchen. The master, theatre living and dining will have dimmers. But they've quoted me $3266 all together. To me thats quite expensive?!?!

I went to beacon lighting and I've been quoted $800-1000 depending on sales etc. And I've quoted an electrician and they've quoted me $700-1000 with no call out fee. So potentially I can save about $1000-1200 right?

When I told my prestart lady that we'll get someone else to do it, she said that we can't do it whilst the house is being built, and that we have to do it after handover, and that we'll have to arrange for different switch plates after handover (because of the dimmers). Can't the builder provide the right switch plates before handover as they know that we want dimmers now?

I'm building with New Gen and I'm getting LED downlights installed after handover. They are placing plug bases in the roof space where the lights would go. They are also installing the dimmer switches and 2 way switches. I asked the electrician if plug bases were ok and he said they were fine.

If your going to do downlights make sure you take out the standard light fittings and have the builder put in junction boxes. Otherwise you end up with hole's in the ceiling that have to be patched.

If your build includes one light per room, get them to install their one light in the position you want one of your future LED down lights and you don't need to worry about patching ceiling. Beacon wouldn't do a "lighting plan" with exact positions for me, so I've found a different provider who have been fantastic. That way you can at least move in with lights in case you take longer to get lighting sorted etc. Don't forget outside lights or at least conduit to allow for them although I understand that they can't leave them just tied off so you can't get them to whack a bayonet in there and change it later.

Thank you everyone for your replies!

The turleys.. We're building with them too.. So you're getting them done after handover yes? And they are providing the switch covers with dimmers? Because that's all
I wanted know lol.. The junction box have plug in bases yes?

Elemist.. Thanks I'll just get the credit for the standard lights thou and get the electrician to do it all.. Just sounds simpler.. Well just have candles at night time or torches for a week or so haha..

Beasley77.. I reAlly wanted to get the outside lights (the ones in between the garage done) but it'll be $488 bucks and money is tight at the moment.. So will I need conduits for them?

OOT - ask about dimmers flickering - some LEDs do this with dimmers. Unlike Halogen and the old style globes.

There is a gadget that can modify the flicker.

A junction box is just a plastic box that encloses the hard-wired connection between the light fitting and the wiring. A plug base (commonly known as a 413, which is the Clipsal part number) terminates the wire onto a standard, unswitched power point - you can then buy plug-in LED downlights for about $30 each and install them yourself (or get someone to do it if you aren't handy) as there is no wiring required.

If you can get the builders electrician to install the right number of 413s (6 In a room that needs 6 downlights and so on) then the actual light installation is straight-forward, but they may want to charge extra for more than 1 per room.

The price of a junction box and a 413 is about the same, so they shouldn't charge much extra to install one.

When we signed our contracts we had no lighting package as the new energy efficiency stuff was coming in and the choice of lighting affected it somehow. So we had junction boxes put in where we were going to have our downlights etc . We then had beacon do a lighting plan for us and bought our lights as they came on sale over the build. We have three chandeliers and pendants all matching that we saved several thousand on when they were on sale. Then we waited for our LEDs to come on sale and we bought them in two lots in different sales. That saved a lot too. We got three quotes from electricians and in the end we have chosen the one Beacon recommended as the price was good and the quote super professional. All of our lights go in after handover except our bathroom and powder room wall lights. We had to have them put in by the builder, cant remember why. And they ended up being the same as the display as we liked them and could not find anything similar anywhere else. They were crazy $$$. Storing the lights is a pain though as it is a lot of boxes!! Hopefully they can go in ASAP after handover.

Can anyone tell me what is the approximate $$$ that your builder is charging for extra downlights? I have been quoted $160 per additional downlight installed. Is this ok or astronomical?

I've been told that the cost include $60 for a standard light point and $100 to upgrade to LED downlight.

We have a lighting package with our build which includes 1 LED downlight for each room/per walkway and we are thinking about adding another 20 downlights, which would cost us an additional $3200...

Thanks
The reason, I've been told, is

Hi all,
We're building with Simonds, and our initial quote with the salesperson was to replace 6 standard batten lights with 20 down lights for $3,500. Happily when we went to our colour and electrical appointment it was way cheaper. We've replaced most of the battens in the house with LED down lights. We're now having 32 and the total cost is $2345, so that's about $73 per light. We had to put in some additional circuits to have the extra lights, but it wasn't too pricey.

We wanted to do it as part of the build to save headaches, as well as so we could avoid damages and touchups once finished. And also it was good to price them into the mortgage, choose exactly where our switches etc. would be on the day and know what we were getting

We asked about dimmers at the electrical appointment and I can't remember if she said that we couldn't have them, or it was quite expensive to have them....
We decided not to worry about it anyway, as we've just grouped our LED lights in twos mainly, so we can highlight parts of the room, and create a lighting feeling depending which ones are turned on and off.

Can I ask what wattage LED Downlights are you generally getting for the house?

For us I've been told that it's 10W for smaller rooms and 15W for larger areas e.g. living, dining etc.

It says Beacon 170231 white trim and cool white globe LED down lights (same lights throughout). The beacon website says they are 11W ... but then it says suitable for outdoor undercover use ...

Cool, thanks...wow looks like it can also be used in the alfresco area then!

We asked the builder to put the standard lights in the positions where we want to add down lights in the future.

They also installed all the dimmers and separate wiring, so basically an electrician can come in post-handover and tap of each existing light for every area.

Hope that makes sense.

We also got quoted approximately:

- $150 per LED Downlight
- $120 per Halogen Downlight
- $55 per batten fixture (no globe)

Cheers

If you're given a choice, have a look at the different available colour temperatures with these downlights; eg. 2700K is usually "warm white", then you get "daylight" and "cool white" (I can't remember which is which, one's usually around 4500K and one's usually around 6000K).

We drive past a new place which has installed all 6000K (or higher), and it looks like some sort of horror-movie inside, the light colour is so stark & cold.

Great point. Another factor in our decision to do our own down lights. We have decided to go with watt-saver DL7 series most probably 3.5k or 3k.

If you are doing downlights yourself.. probably worth buying the LEDs from electrical whole-seller as it can turn out to be cheaper when bought in batches compared to Beacon Lighting. This is especially with the good brand LED lights. Then you can call in the electricians to install it for you.

Also compare the downlights you are getting with what the builder is providing.. as probably the builder is giving a top quality brand vs a China brand you found at Beacon.. just so that you are comparing apple to apple when you are comparing the prices

I calculated $100 per downlight if done post handover ($40 for electrician, $60 for the LEDs). The builder is quoting us $145 per downlight but we are also getting credited for removing existing light points for $65ea. I did a comparison and with the amount of LED I wanted to install, I would only save $800-$1000 if I were to do it post handover. Its a good saving, but in the bigger scheme I thought it wasn't worth the risk and the extra time/effort.