Browse Forums Lighting + Lighting Design Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 3Apr 09, 2013 7:35 am I don't know how the building/provision thing works but you need all the wiring done before the plaster board goes up. I've recently retrofitted LED lights to our house and I went through a bit of trial and error which can get a bit expensive if you need an electrician every time you change you mind. Our place had the standard 50W halogen down lights with 90mm cutouts so I was limited to bulb only change or fixtures that used the same cutouts. A 10W LED is roughly equal to a 50W halogen. In the lounge, dining, family room and bedrooms I have replaced the complete fixtures with 10W warm white fixtures with perspex covers which gives a softer appearance and broader spread of light. These were all in a 1X10W LED arrangement and I've found 10W to be plenty bright enough. 2 10W LEDs over the dining table was too bright for us so I used dimmable hear and in the lounge. The kitchen has a high concentration of lights were 10W LED replacements would have been too bright. We went for a combination of 5W SMDs in the ceiling an 4W bright over the benches. We didn't need to go so bright in the hallways either. 5W SMDs worked fine and give a good even spread of light. Colour spectrum can be a bit arbitrary. I'm not a fan of the yellow 'warm' light and 'bright' can be a bit in your face when its too bright. I found that the warm white in the LED lights tends to be a bit brighter and not as yellow as the fluorescents. Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 4Apr 09, 2013 6:07 pm i would go to a lighting place and pick which lights you want and get them to work out the locations, then get the builder to just fit junction boxes in roof space so after hand over you can fit your lights. i stuffed up a bit and not wanting to change things now, i had the builder fit 2 batons per room through the kitchen dinning lounge are. i was going to use cfl downlights but know told that 2 per room wont be enough so looks like im going with the beacon 15w LED as they have a good light with a 155deg beam. all the other LED only have 90deg so would need more of them. Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 5Apr 09, 2013 6:22 pm lukasfab i would go to a lighting place and pick which lights you want and get them to work out the locations, then get the builder to just fit junction boxes in roof space so after hand over you can fit your lights. i stuffed up a bit and not wanting to change things now, i had the builder fit 2 batons per room through the kitchen dinning lounge are. i was going to use cfl downlights but know told that 2 per room wont be enough so looks like im going with the beacon 15w LED as they have a good light with a 155deg beam. all the other LED only have 90deg so would need more of them. I have done the same thing as you two baton per each of those rooms with hope of having 6 downlights eventually. You also have to look at lumens produced not just angles as they can still wash out near floor level if not enough light. I got to see the equinox ones in a room at delights and they had 6 in a 6m by maybe 3m room and it was sufficient. The Led chip is replaceable in these ones too. I am looking at the Beacon as well. They are 900lm compared to 1400 lms on the wattsaver though. Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 6Apr 09, 2013 6:23 pm Can we actually install them ourselves into junction boxes? Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 7Apr 09, 2013 6:51 pm oh ok, only started looking at LED the other day will call wattsavers tomorrow for some advise i think you still need electrician for junction boxes but what if you get them to fit normal power points in the roof space where you will fit the downlights? then you plug in diy no worries Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 8Apr 19, 2013 11:21 pm We bought these ones: http://www.lightingillusions.com.au/sho ... -downlight 13w led, dimmable, ip44, brushed aluminium. Which means we can use them outside/inside/bathroom without worrying about the chrome looking bad after a while etc. Should also mention that they are fairly big (a good thing) and very nice looking in our opinion. Our closest lighting illusion store (windsor, brisbane) has a completely dark room with downlights fitted so you can easily compare brightness etc, and we were surprised how bright they were (we were initially going for CFL, but there was jut no contest). For $44 it seems like very good value as well. That said they have not been installed yet, so I can't really say too much about quality etc EDIT: Actually, I now see that there is a silver and an "anodised aluminium" option.. we paid $44 so we have the silver option. We were told it was brushed aluminium (which we wanted as they will be used outside) but now I'm not sure. We were not told about this other option, which is probably what we wanted. The generic specs on the site says "cast aluminium" though, so maybe the other one has just been treated better. Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 10Apr 20, 2013 7:45 am lukasfab Sorry but you're comparing apples and oranges. Good LED downlights are so much better. I wish they weren't as I'd save thousands using these. I've trialled CFL, halogen and a number of LED downlights. In the end I went with a combo of Wattsavers, generic 13w Cree LEDs, CFL pendant and LED strip lighting for my house. Only reason I went for generic Cree LEDs was 4 x Wattsavers was going to be too bright for the smaller bedrooms. Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 11Apr 20, 2013 9:49 pm nope! not comparing anything, just saying obviously LED is tops in lighting but we all have different needs and I dont need daylight in my house at night. people have make do with one batton light per room for decades, I'm sure these CFLs will be just fine for what I need. sorry to OP probably shouldn't have posted as you didn't have CFLs on you list Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 12Apr 22, 2013 10:40 am Talk about advertising. 5 posts in a short time all plugging a "friends" store. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 13Apr 22, 2013 11:46 am ^^^ Dealt with now delatite..and thanks to the Forum member who reported this. Deemaree Kyndylan Capers: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=46852 My blog: http://www.sufficientlysufficient.blogspot.com/ Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 14May 02, 2013 5:09 pm After doing some reading, I am also undecided on what I should get for a new house. Should I get the GU10 downlights which suffers from low brightness or one of those package unit like BrightGreen or Wattsaver? Only problem I see with Brightgreen or Wattsaver is that when it come the time to replace the bulb, you need to replace the whole fixture. What if you can no longer get the same fixture? Re: Help with Downlight choice- Pleeeaaasssseee 15May 02, 2013 6:19 pm I think the wattsavers have lifetime or 10 years warranties. In 10 years or so, you will be able buy better LEDs for $4.99 GU10s and their LED replacements are terrible compared to the good LEDs. Hi there, long-time lurker but first time posting. I've bought a house 2 and a bit years ago and last year we had some major water damage on a converted pergola area… 0 7995 Yes, unless you are in a low intensity rainfall area or the area is protected from rain. Do you have access to NCC Part 2 or can you download it? I can email you a copy… 10 12623 Thankyou so much 😀 I've decided on White on white for doors and trims, White on white 50% on ceiling and Mt buller for walls. Fingers crossed it will look OK 😀 2 7359 |