Posted: 9/6/2014 1:55:49 PM EDT
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Long story short is that my elderly mother has macular degeneration and is legally blind. She needs a LOT of light to see.
I am going to rip out the paneling (that dark brown thing wood paneling from the 1970s and 1980s) from the walls in the utility room and garage, drywall, and paint white, and add a lot of lighting. Pretty sure I want to go with LED lighting for the brightness but I am clueless as to how many fixtures and what type. I want to have a lot of ambient light (e.g., some floods) plus spot lights on things like the washer and dryer and doors. I would gladly do the work myself but don't have the time, so an electrician will be doing it. I mention this because installing a few and then adding more if needed would be a pain in the ass so I want to make good choices from the git go. The utility room is roughly 15 ft. x 20 ft. with 8 ft. ceiling. The garage is a 2-car garage with an 8 ft. ceiling. Bright light works best for her so I'm thinking color temp of 5000K or so. Maybe BR30 or PR30/38 LEDs in recessed fixtures with the spots on gimbals. I have nothing against surface or flush mount. Track lighting is really expensive but if that will give the best result for her I'll go for it. Any advice greatly appreciated. |
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Sounds like your answer is the one I came here to suggest. LED lighting is great and I have most of my house converted. Except my shop, which will remain fluorescent T5s. Wherever I want a lot of light, I either use lots of dimmable LED lights or fluorescent. The price difference isn't all that great if you always run the LEDs at 100%. |
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Quoted:
Sounds like your answer is the one I came here to suggest. LED lighting is great and I have most of my house converted. Except my shop, which will remain fluorescent T5s. Wherever I want a lot of light, I either use lots of dimmable LED lights or fluorescent. The price difference isn't all that great if you always run the LEDs at 100%. What kind of LED lighting? If using recessed, what diameter and what kind of bulbs? Thanks in advance. |
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Quoted:
What kind of LED lighting? If using recessed, what diameter and what kind of bulbs? Thanks in advance. Quoted:
Quoted:
Sounds like your answer is the one I came here to suggest. LED lighting is great and I have most of my house converted. Except my shop, which will remain fluorescent T5s. Wherever I want a lot of light, I either use lots of dimmable LED lights or fluorescent. The price difference isn't all that great if you always run the LEDs at 100%. What kind of LED lighting? If using recessed, what diameter and what kind of bulbs? Thanks in advance. My Costco has a great sale on Feit Electric dimmables of all varieties. They have floods for recessed as well. Costco also has recessed kits that may fit your usage better (depending if you want IC or ICAT). I haven't purchased any of these so I can't comment. These Feit bulbs are great. Bright, robust, great color in my opinion, fully dimmable, VERY fast on (but definitely not instant as they claim), work with a variety of dimmable switches. I'm not sure if the prices I was paying are nationwide, but I was getting 60W replacements for $3 a bulb, so I stocked up. I have also started getting in to home automation and am becoming a big fan of the TCP Connected series. Really easy to set up and install. The control interface is a bit kludgy, but it will suffice for most people. You can have the lights come on/off according to schedule, a particular person arriving home, motion sensing, doors or windows opening, temperature getting to a certain point, etc. They are expensive but a ton of fun. |
| I have been replacing all of the light bulbs in my house with the Cree LED bulbs from Home Depot. Just make sure to get the 5000K Daylight ones. They have a 10 year warranty, run cooler/do not generate heat like my other energy saving bulbs, and are instant on, no waiting for them to warm up. They have all different sizes for your existing fixtures. |
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My Costco has a great sale on Feit Electric dimmables of all varieties. They have floods for recessed as well. Costco also has recessed kits that may fit your usage better (depending if you want IC or ICAT). I haven't purchased any of these so I can't comment. These Feit bulbs are great. Bright, robust, great color in my opinion, fully dimmable, VERY fast on (but definitely not instant as they claim), work with a variety of dimmable switches. I'm not sure if the prices I was paying are nationwide, but I was getting 60W replacements for $3 a bulb, so I stocked up. I have also started getting in to home automation and am becoming a big fan of the TCP Connected series. Really easy to set up and install. The control interface is a bit kludgy, but it will suffice for most people. You can have the lights come on/off according to schedule, a particular person arriving home, motion sensing, doors or windows opening, temperature getting to a certain point, etc. They are expensive but a ton of fun. Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Sounds like your answer is the one I came here to suggest. LED lighting is great and I have most of my house converted. Except my shop, which will remain fluorescent T5s. Wherever I want a lot of light, I either use lots of dimmable LED lights or fluorescent. The price difference isn't all that great if you always run the LEDs at 100%. What kind of LED lighting? If using recessed, what diameter and what kind of bulbs? Thanks in advance. My Costco has a great sale on Feit Electric dimmables of all varieties. They have floods for recessed as well. Costco also has recessed kits that may fit your usage better (depending if you want IC or ICAT). I haven't purchased any of these so I can't comment. These Feit bulbs are great. Bright, robust, great color in my opinion, fully dimmable, VERY fast on (but definitely not instant as they claim), work with a variety of dimmable switches. I'm not sure if the prices I was paying are nationwide, but I was getting 60W replacements for $3 a bulb, so I stocked up. I have also started getting in to home automation and am becoming a big fan of the TCP Connected series. Really easy to set up and install. The control interface is a bit kludgy, but it will suffice for most people. You can have the lights come on/off according to schedule, a particular person arriving home, motion sensing, doors or windows opening, temperature getting to a certain point, etc. They are expensive but a ton of fun. I never would have thought of Costco--that's a great tip. Thanks. |
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I have been replacing all of the light bulbs in my house with the Cree LED bulbs from Home Depot. Just make sure to get the 5000K Daylight ones. They have a 10 year warranty, run cooler/do not generate heat like my other energy saving bulbs, and are instant on, no waiting for them to warm up. They have all different sizes for your existing fixtures. +1. I put the daylight ones in my kitchen, and had to take them out. Just TOO damn bright. The 100 watters in daylight are awesome when you need to see what you're looking at. |
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I purchased 2 pairs of T8 led tube lights from amazon that are pretty bright. House them in some reflective housing and it can get retina scorchingly bright!
These are the ones I purchased from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IT1DVEY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
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Quoted:
I purchased 2 pairs of T8 led tube lights from amazon that are pretty bright. House them in some reflective housing and it can get retina scorchingly bright! These are the ones I purchased from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IT1DVEY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Occurred to me that I could replace one of the two tube T12 fixtures in the kitchen ceiling with a two tube T5 to test it out, so I picked up a fixture and some 4 ft. T5 tubes (cool white because they did not have daylight). Those T5 tubes put out a remarkable amount of light. I'm going to replace the other T5 fixture in the kitchen with the same thing. Looks like I have found lighting that will work. Thanks all. BTW, in the future I will definitely be replacing bulbs around here with LEDs. |
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Occurred to me that I could replace one of the two tube T12 fixtures in the kitchen ceiling with a two tube T5 to test it out, so I picked up a fixture and some 4 ft. T5 tubes (cool white because they did not have daylight). Those T5 tubes put out a remarkable amount of light. I'm going to replace the other T5 fixture in the kitchen with the same thing. Looks like I have found lighting that will work. Thanks all. BTW, in the future I will definitely be replacing bulbs around here with LEDs. Quoted:
Quoted:
I purchased 2 pairs of T8 led tube lights from amazon that are pretty bright. House them in some reflective housing and it can get retina scorchingly bright! These are the ones I purchased from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IT1DVEY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Occurred to me that I could replace one of the two tube T12 fixtures in the kitchen ceiling with a two tube T5 to test it out, so I picked up a fixture and some 4 ft. T5 tubes (cool white because they did not have daylight). Those T5 tubes put out a remarkable amount of light. I'm going to replace the other T5 fixture in the kitchen with the same thing. Looks like I have found lighting that will work. Thanks all. BTW, in the future I will definitely be replacing bulbs around here with LEDs. Cool beans! Yeah the T5 are really bright! |
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Quoted:
Cool beans! Yeah the T5 are really bright! Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I purchased 2 pairs of T8 led tube lights from amazon that are pretty bright. House them in some reflective housing and it can get retina scorchingly bright! These are the ones I purchased from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IT1DVEY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Occurred to me that I could replace one of the two tube T12 fixtures in the kitchen ceiling with a two tube T5 to test it out, so I picked up a fixture and some 4 ft. T5 tubes (cool white because they did not have daylight). Those T5 tubes put out a remarkable amount of light. I'm going to replace the other T5 fixture in the kitchen with the same thing. Looks like I have found lighting that will work. Thanks all. BTW, in the future I will definitely be replacing bulbs around here with LEDs. Cool beans! Yeah the T5 are really bright! I replaced the second fixture last night so now the kitchen ceiling has four bare 4 ft. 54W T5 tubes above a suspended ceiling grid panel. There is no doubt in my kind that T5 is the way to go for serious brightness. At some point I may want to put some dimmable LED tubes in but T5 tubes have a long service life so that won't be anytime soon. Thanks to all for the advice. |