Recessed Lighting Density

[bthorne]

A friend of mine is going to be renting out the main floors of his house and moving into his basement apartment. As part of that move, he is planning to replace the ceiling in the basement and convert it from a drop ceiling with fluorescent lights to a drywall ceiling with recessed cans (with dimmable CFL's in the cans). This will give him about a foot of extra head room in most of the apartment.

He asked me if I knew any rules of thumb for density / spacing of recessed lighting, and I don't know the answer, so I thought I'd pass the question along to you guys.

Do any of you have experience with recessed lighting? Any recommendations on spacing of the lights for an 8' ceiling? Any other planning considerations he should be thinking of?

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.

Bryan

[reddog552]

Area lighting

I generaly stay wirh the 4-8 theory on area lighting with recesset lights.4 ft. in kitchens, baths, maybe living rooms. 8 Ft spacing in hallways ,beddrooms,haulways,computer rooms, offices.

[Garasaki]

Yeah space about the same as the ceiling height for a typical space.

Since he's using dimmers (I assume, otherwise why bother with dimmable CFLs...), he could sort of overload the space and rely on the dimmers more.

I would suggest zoning the lights a bit too - think of what lights you'll want on for which activity - ie only a few for TV watching, put those on a switch, the rest on another, etc.

[eccentrictinkerer]

I recently finished a neighbor's basement remodel. I used the 4' to 8' rule and installed 8 recessed lights in the family room and 6 in the large laundry room.

I initially put the standard 65 watt bulbs in the fixtures and the lighting, to my eyes was perfect and could be dimmed for TV viewing.

The owner then replaced all bulbs with dimmable CFL's and the resullts were much less than spectacular. The bulbs brightness is not even a close proximity to incandescent bulbs and they dim down to about 50%. Also, the failure rate of the CFL's is very high compared to incandescent.

I'm not a CFL basher and have many all through the house. Primarily closets, storage areas and attic. Our cold climate prevents their general use because they have greatly reduced output when cold (porches, garage, basements, etc).