Lighting consultant recommended adding 29 downlights to our house to our renovation.
Whoa. What about the effect of downlights on the top quality insulation that I had put into attic?
This is an issue not just affecting me, but anyone considering putting in lots of downlights.
From what I read, there is a serious effect of downlighting on insulation effectiveness. Most lighting stores don’t mention this issue, so you may not know about. If you’re sceptical, have a look at the data in this study by an insulation manufacturers trade association (ACIMA):
http://www.acima.asn.au/DownLights.php
This website by a downlight cover manufacturer, it has several pages discussing downlight issues and explains downlight covers:
http://efficiencymatrix.com.au/insulati ... -lighting/
What to do about it? One solution is fewer downlights and more alternatives to downlights. Another solution is to use downlight covers, which greatly reduce the insulation loss from the downlights. However, downlight covers reduce the airflow that cools the LED, and may therefore reduce the lifespan of the LED in the downlight.
Any response to any of these questions welcomed.
1) Any general comments or advice about LED downlight effects on reducing insulation effectiveness?
2) Any recommendations of brands of 10, 10.5, 12 or 13 watt dimmable LED downlights with appropriate downlight covers (such as the downlight mitt from Efficiency Matrix at the above webpage)? Does the downlight manufacturer have to specify their downlight is coverable? Efficiency Matrix company lists on their webpage iGlobe and Brightgreen.
3) When the LED downlight burns out, what do you do? Do you have to replace the whole downlight fixture? Or can you just replace the LED bulb? Does that require an electrician to do (replace the whole downlight fixture)?
4) Someone appeared to suggest (see text below) that a revised Australian standard for downlights requires ALL downlights, including LED downlights, to use the old 200mm clearance that was required for halogen downlights. Is this correct? It means a bigger hole in the insulation for each downlight.
5) If you’ve seen a good discussion of this issue on the web, can you share the URL?
Thanks.
Frank
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1672024
“..but the requirement for a 200mm clearance from the cover to glass batt insulation is ridiculous. LED's put out less than one fifth of the heat generated by halogens.
Not much I can add here, you've both stated facts that are classified as "Bleeding Obvious"...To everyone it appears apart from Standards Australia.
It seems that even with the latest updates to the Standards, they still haven't really recognised that LED lighting is much less of a fire hazard.
In fact, from my reading that ALL spacing requirements have been increased to 200mm I think they have actually taken a step BACKWARD.
The only reason I can see that they might have done this is to cater for the lowest-common-denominator effect......”