How To Benefit From LED Lighting In Your Kitchen
Really good kitchen lighting designs characteristically use a great deal of lighting - and we're not talking about putting a few extra roses on the ceiling Kitchen lighting requires all manner of different types of light to handle the requirements of many different zones. Just about the worst lighting solution for a kitchen is the use of bright fluorescent strip lights on the ceiling. Sure, they're unquestionably very bright - but cold, flat and likely to induce a headache in less time than it takes to soft boil an egg.
An obvious problem with central ceiling lights in a kitchen is that you inevitably create dark spots and are always standing in your own shadow. A common solution to this is to install banks of halogen down lights uniformly across the ceiling with additional lighting for worktops and hobs.
This certainly does the job fairly well, but is not without its own list of issues: halogen lights run at a very high temperature; they have a short lifespan; and they are without question the most costly solution as regards running kitchen lighting. A staggering ninety percent of the cost of halogen based lighting (and indeed, incandescent lighting in general) is the electricity they quite literally burn.
This one fact helps explain the growing popularity of cool, super energy efficient LED kitchen lights. For mains powered lighting you simply replace all existing GU10 halogen lamps with equivalent GU10 LED lights. For low voltage systems, you first replace existing 12 volt transformers with a smaller number of constant voltage 12 volt LED drivers (each can power a number of light fittings) then replace MR16 halogens with LED light bulbs.
When installing LED spotlights there are 3 main areas to bear in mind, these being: brightness (or luminosity); colour temperature (whether the light appears cool and blue or warm and yellow); and beam angle (tightly focused or widely dispersed). It's a good idea to get as close as possible on these three areas to the qualities of the halogen lamps you're replacing.
It has become the norm to measure brightness according to wattage, but the wattage ratings for LED light bulbs are approximately 10% compared to normal incandescent or halogen bulbs of the same brightness. Accordingly you should look to replace a 35w halogen lamp with 3-4w LED and a 50w with probably a 5w LED.
How cool or warm a light appears is graded according to "color temperature". LED lights come in a wide range of white color temperatures (not to mention actual "colors"), but historically it was easier to manufacture blue LEDs and hence many cheap LEDs exhibit a cold/bluish tint. However, if you specify warm white (technically a temperature below 3,500 Kelvins) you should get a fair approximation of the white light normally created by halogen lamps.
A narrow beam angle, say 45 degrees, makes any light appear tighter and more contained to a defined spot, whereas a much wider 120 degrees spreads the light out evenly, eliminating glare and "hot-spots". Quite possibly the best LED spot light currently available that acts as a straightforward halogen replacement is the Sharp Zenigata.
Determining how artificial light appears to the eye often owes less to the light itself than to the surface it is aimed at. A warm feeling is easily obtained by pointing spot lighting at areas that are themselves warmly colored, such as terracotta tiling, any type of wood or even just a warmly painted wall. By contrast, a dramatic effect can be had by simply throwing blue LED light against dark or hard surfaces - blue or green tiles, granite, enamel and steel all lend themselves to this treatment.
Mixing a variety of lights that offer different characteristics with a range of textures and colors makes it possible to obtain an extensive palette of effects for the various zones in your kitchen. LED strip lighting systems in particular offer all manner of options for accenting plinths, coving, worktops and pretty much anything else you could imagine. But at the end of the day though, once you're done playing with all the new ideas on offer, try and settle on just a few designs that really appeal - it's quite surprising how impressive even a bit of LED kitchen lighting appears.
An obvious problem with central ceiling lights in a kitchen is that you inevitably create dark spots and are always standing in your own shadow. A common solution to this is to install banks of halogen down lights uniformly across the ceiling with additional lighting for worktops and hobs.
This certainly does the job fairly well, but is not without its own list of issues: halogen lights run at a very high temperature; they have a short lifespan; and they are without question the most costly solution as regards running kitchen lighting. A staggering ninety percent of the cost of halogen based lighting (and indeed, incandescent lighting in general) is the electricity they quite literally burn.
This one fact helps explain the growing popularity of cool, super energy efficient LED kitchen lights. For mains powered lighting you simply replace all existing GU10 halogen lamps with equivalent GU10 LED lights. For low voltage systems, you first replace existing 12 volt transformers with a smaller number of constant voltage 12 volt LED drivers (each can power a number of light fittings) then replace MR16 halogens with LED light bulbs.
When installing LED spotlights there are 3 main areas to bear in mind, these being: brightness (or luminosity); colour temperature (whether the light appears cool and blue or warm and yellow); and beam angle (tightly focused or widely dispersed). It's a good idea to get as close as possible on these three areas to the qualities of the halogen lamps you're replacing.
It has become the norm to measure brightness according to wattage, but the wattage ratings for LED light bulbs are approximately 10% compared to normal incandescent or halogen bulbs of the same brightness. Accordingly you should look to replace a 35w halogen lamp with 3-4w LED and a 50w with probably a 5w LED.
How cool or warm a light appears is graded according to "color temperature". LED lights come in a wide range of white color temperatures (not to mention actual "colors"), but historically it was easier to manufacture blue LEDs and hence many cheap LEDs exhibit a cold/bluish tint. However, if you specify warm white (technically a temperature below 3,500 Kelvins) you should get a fair approximation of the white light normally created by halogen lamps.
A narrow beam angle, say 45 degrees, makes any light appear tighter and more contained to a defined spot, whereas a much wider 120 degrees spreads the light out evenly, eliminating glare and "hot-spots". Quite possibly the best LED spot light currently available that acts as a straightforward halogen replacement is the Sharp Zenigata.
Determining how artificial light appears to the eye often owes less to the light itself than to the surface it is aimed at. A warm feeling is easily obtained by pointing spot lighting at areas that are themselves warmly colored, such as terracotta tiling, any type of wood or even just a warmly painted wall. By contrast, a dramatic effect can be had by simply throwing blue LED light against dark or hard surfaces - blue or green tiles, granite, enamel and steel all lend themselves to this treatment.
Mixing a variety of lights that offer different characteristics with a range of textures and colors makes it possible to obtain an extensive palette of effects for the various zones in your kitchen. LED strip lighting systems in particular offer all manner of options for accenting plinths, coving, worktops and pretty much anything else you could imagine. But at the end of the day though, once you're done playing with all the new ideas on offer, try and settle on just a few designs that really appeal - it's quite surprising how impressive even a bit of LED kitchen lighting appears.
About the Author:
Before you design your new kitchen lighting, Abigail Monot strongly recommends you discover more about kitchen lighting design in particular and domestic LED lighting in general.
0 comments:
Post a Comment