Following is a list of some of the leaders in the recessed lighting industry. They have lights that span virtually any residential use you can imagine. If you live in a major metropolitan area, they will be represented by numerous lighting retailers. If you have lighting showrooms like those here in Cincinnati, you will find abundant literature, brochures, etc. at these retail lighting centers. Use the following names as an aid to identifying companies who have a track record in making these types of fixtures.
Finally, do not buy cheap fixtures. Make sure the UL label is clearly stamped on the fixture. Absolutely follow the installation instructions to the letter! Recessed lights often require a special type of plastic coated wire (Romex) that has a high temperature rating. If you use some old wiring from your basement, and/or wiring salvaged from a job it may be unsafe! It may not be rated at 90 degrees Centigrade. This is the temperature rating the wire must have. UL approved plastic coated wire that is stamped NMB is what you should look for. The letter B is the designation that indicates it can withstand temperatures up to 90 degrees Centigrade. This is vitally important. Be sure to look for this lettering on your wire.
There are three levels of light in this kitchen, four if you count the bright lights under the stove hood! Photo credit: Tim Carter
Wide Selection/Uses
What happens if you want to add recessed light in a finished ceiling? No problem! They make special housings that will slide in a hole you cut. What about low voltage recessed lights? They have those as well. What about sloped ceilings? Ever been in a room and have those lights aiming at your eyes? Well, that is not a problem anymore. You can purchase special housing that aims the bulb directly to the floor!
Want a super energy efficient recessed light that doesn't leak air? You can get those as well. A regular recessed light that is covered with insulation can leak up to 2.6 million cubic feet of air per year! That can equate to nearly 1 million BTU's of energy loss. Check out the air tight fixtures.
Recessed Light Suggested Uses and Installation Tips
I have used recessed lighting in just about every imaginable place you can think of in a residential house. My customers and myself have come up with some very imaginative uses. Many of them you might be familiar with.
Exterior Uses
Any covered porch is an excellent candidate for recessed lighting. It doesn't matter if the style of the house is contemporary or traditional. Of course, contemporary styling makes the choice a natural. But let's say you are building a period Victorian house. How would recessed lighting look? Well, consider using it on a covered front porch to wash the front porch walls with light to highlight the front door or ornate paint detailing for people who pass by your house when it is dark. Just like you might use landscape lighting to light trees to show them off, use recessed lights to wash your house with light.
Place recessed lights in soffits, cantilevered floors, etc. to illuminate or highlight features of your house. You will be surprised how striking the effect really is!
Interior Uses
I really like using recessed lighting in conjunction with other forms of light in rooms. I have already told you about my kitchen. Think of using recessed lighting in a study or den to create general mood lighting around the perimeter of the ceiling. If you plan your furniture layout and choices, you can place lights centered on these items to illuminate them fully. By using soft, low wattage bulbs you create a very soft low lighting mood. High intensity lights can be used at workstations or reading chairs.
Modernistic dining rooms offer a great place for recessed lighting. You can tray (layer) a ceiling and include recessed lights in the lower tray. The center of the ceiling can contain a chandelier as well. The recessed lights can be strategically placed to highlight furniture, paintings or decorative items. They can be turned on independently of the chandelier to create a glow in the room. Dimmer controls work great for this effect.
Recessed lights work great above tubs, showers, whirlpools, etc. I always installed recessed lights over the mirrors in my customers bathrooms. They could control these lights from a different switch that controlled the wall mounted decorative fixtures above or along side the mirrors.
Recessed lighting is often the safest choice for the interior of closets. Many house fires have been caused by objects (falling from shelves) coming into contact with unshielded bulbs from surface mounted fixtures.
Installation Tips
Have you ever installed a recessed light? If so you probably did it this way: open box, determine location, nail up fixture, begin wiring process, take muscle relaxant for strained neck muscles!
My electrician taught me the trick to avoid the muscle relaxants! It's simple. All you need to do is wire the fixture on the ground or floor level before you nail it in place. No more strained neck muscles. No more dropped wire nuts. You will be surprised how much easier this is.
If you are a DIY'r, please take the time to read the specific installation guidelines. If you didn't get any with the light, call the company and ask for some! If wired improperly, recessed lights can be hazardous. Do not underestimate the amount of heat a 150 watt bulb can produce!
Above all, please get your job inspected by a certified electrical inspector. People die every day in this country from electrical-related house fires. Don't you be one of them.
Have you ever tried to change a light bulb that has been on for several minutes? Did you burn your fingers? Light bulbs get extremely hot. The surface temperature of a bulb can be hundreds of degrees.
This type of heat can cause fires. In fact, many residential fires have resulted from improperly installed or modified recessed light fixtures. This is especially true in older homes that have old recessed light fixtures. In these situations, homeowners have mistakenly covered older fixtures with insulation. This insulation traps the heat created by the bulb. This heat, in turn, can either melt the insulation on the electrical wiring or ignite combustible materials near the fixture.
This insulation craze, created by the energy crisis in the late 70's, caused the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) to respond. This is the organization that is responsible for the many improvements to our electrical fixtures, wiring and code requirements.
The individuals at UL mandated that recessed lights be equipped with a safety override switch within the fixture. This switch would sense when the light fixture was trapping too much heat. In such an instance, the safety switch would simply turn the light off automatically. Once the fixture cooled down, the light would then turn itself on.
Leaky Lights
But, this wasn't the total answer. The popularity of vaulted ceilings in the 80's created another problem. Recessed lights were installed in roof rafter spaces where insulation was absolutely necessary. However, the code and the lighting manufacturers said not to put insulation within several inches of the fixtures. As you can imagine, this caused major problems.
Every recessed light location was like a hole in your ceiling! Heat would leak out of the fixture as cold air blasted into your house. Many homeowners became disenchanted with recessed lights.The honeymoon was over.
In Contact (IC) Fixtures
Once again, the UL people responded. They developed guidelines that allowed manufacturers to build recessed light fixtures which could be completely covered and smothered with insulation. These fixtures carry an IC designation. The fixture will actually be labeled as such. This is your safety guarantee.
However, these lights often come with a slight penalty. They tend to use lower (less than 100 watt) wattage light bulbs. This is because the insulation covering or abutting the fixture will trap way too much heat from the higher temperature bulbs.
These IC fixtures are also equipped, as long as they are UL approved, with the thermal protection switches. So, if you install a bulb that is too powerful, the light will cycle on and off.
There are three levels of light in this kitchen, four if you count the bright lights under the stove hood! Photo credit: Tim Carter
My wife designed the light layout in our kitchen. It was my job to install the lights. As I nailed up the 12 or so recessed light housings that she selected, I whined the whole time, saying that there would be too much light. After all, we had a decorative hanging fixture that would illuminate our island. Furthermore, there was a paddle fan over the kitchen sink that also had a light fixture.
Well, I was wrong. The recessed light fixtures created a ring of brilliant light over all the counterspaces. They compliment the softer light from the hanging fixtures. Kathy was right once again!
Hidden Light
The widespread use of recessed lights occurred in the 1950's. The contemporary housing trends of the 50's and 60's dictated that all aspects of a house were sleek. This meant that surface mounted fixtures were out and hidden, recessed lights that were smooth with the ceilings were in.
The advantages of recessed lights have stayed with us. The types of fixtures and the trims, however, have come a long way. The original recessed fixtures were very simplistic. There were very few trims available.
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Recessed Light Parts
Recessed lights are somewhat different than an ordinary light fixture. A recessed light has three primary components: the housing, the bulb and the trim. The housing is the main part of the light. It is installed early in a job, before the plaster or drywall is installed.
Bulbs for recessed lights are very specific. They do not resemble ordinary light bulbs, except for the treads. They are cone shaped and often come as spot or flood lights. Very often the inside of the glass surface is coated with a reflective material so that the light created by the filament is directed down, not sideways.
The trim is the part of the light that you actually see. There are a multitude of designs, shapes, finishes, etc. that are now available. Some of the most popular trims used today are those designated as spectacular. These trims have a highly polished interior surface which helps to reflect as much light as possible down into the room.
The following is a listing of some very standard 4 foot fluorescent bulbs, their manufacturers, the lumens per watt (This is a measurement of how efficient they are. The higher the number the more light the bulb produces per unit of energy.), the CRI, and the color temperature.
All the manufacturers have all this information about all of their bulbs and it is sometimes published on the packaging. But sometimes you have to ask for it, as it is not always printed on the label or container. At the end of the table each manufacturer is listed with their 800# in case you run into difficulty at a store.
Remember to do a little price comparison shopping. Compare the average life of the bulb to the price and keep in mind the efficiency rating. A lower efficiency bulb may cost less at the store, but may cost more to operate in the fixture.
Bulb Comparisons and Manufacturers
MANUFACTURER
BULB/MODEL#
LUMENS/WATTS
CRI
COLOR TEMPERATURE
SYLVANIA
D830 FLUOR.
83
80
3,000K
GE
SPX-30
83
82
3,000K
PHILIPS
30-U
76
85
3,000K
SYLVANIA
D835 FLUOR.
83
80
3,500K
GE
SPX-35
83
82
3,500K
PHILIPS
35-U
76
85
3,500K
SYLVANIA
D841 FLUOR
83
80
4,100K
GE
SPX-41
83
82
4,100K
PHILIPS
41-U
76
85
4,100K
MANUFACTURERS & LITERATURE
SYLVANIA 800-LIGHTBULB (800-544-4828)
GE 800-327-2080
PHILIPS 800-555-0050
Sylvania has two excellent booklets on Color Temperature and Color Rendition. These books have excellent color photographs illustrating the effects of color temperature on objects. These booklets are Color isHow you Light It and Understanding Lighting. I suggest you ask for them. Also, maybe your town has a lighting center like mine. Here in Cincinnati, Becker's has a light lab setup that will show you numerous fluorescent bulbs and how they change the color of pictures, fabrics, etc. The demonstration is dramatic! Hopefully, your town has a retailer like Becker's.
The following list gives you a feel of where certain light sources are relative to one another on the Kelvin scale.
Candlelight
1,850K
High Pressure Sodium
2,000K
Regular Incandescent Bulb
2,750K
Warm Fluorescent Bulb
3,000K
Some Halogen Bulbs
3,000K
Mid Range Fluorescent Bulbs
3,500K
Cool Fluorescent Bulb
4,100K
Some Metal (Mercury)Halide Bulbs
4,500K
Special Fluorescent Bulbs
5,000-6,300K
North Blue Sky light in low pollution area, low humidity, ideal weather conditions, high noon
7,000-8,500K
Color Rendering Index
The color rendering index is an arbitrary scale of 0 to 100. It was developed in the 1930's, before fluorescent lights. True color samples (8) picked by the international lighting community are used to test the manner in which a particular bulb affects the color of the samples. Since the color of the sample is known, the amount that its color changes because of the bulb illumination determines the bulb's scale rating.A 0 rating would be the absolute worst, with a score of 100 being perfect.
Ratings can be all over the scale. For example, certain mercury vapor lamps have a CRI rating of 20! That is why your car looks weird in some parking lots at night. Some fluorescent bulbs have a CRI rating as high as 90.
For comparative shopping, any bulb with a CRI rating of 70 or higher will produce excellent color rendition. Values between 60 and 70 would be considered good. Below 60, and you run the risk of poor color rendition. Be careful!
Many people are familiar with "cool" white or "warm" white fluorescent light bulbs. These bulbs have vastly different color temperatures. A "cool" white bulb commonly has a color temperature of 4,100K. This is in the low range of blue color, similar to ice. Hence, the "cool" adjective.
The "warm" fluorescent bulb often has a color temperature of 3,000K. It imparts a more orange / red light on objects. Because you normally associate warmth with red or orange objects, this accounts for the "warm" descriptive name, even though it is a cooler temperature on the Kelvin scale.
As we discussed in photography, color temperature can affect the way things look in your house. If you decorate with reds, browns, and oranges, you want to illuminate these rooms with bulbs that have a color temperature in the 2,750 - 3,000K range. Conversely, if you happen to like green carpets, or blue colors, light these rooms with bulbs that produce color temperatures of 4,000K or above.
What happens if you have both colors in a room? No problem! Use a mid range bulb. You can purchase bulbs that produce light in the 3,500K range.
Color Rendition
This color thing gets even more confusing. Don't blame me! I'm trying my best to make sense out of it.
Two different bulbs that have the same color temperature can produce vastly different looks on colored objects. In other words, an inferior or poor quality bulb can make a red object actually appear green! I'm not kidding! As such, light scientists developed a way to measure the ability of a bulb to render true coloration. They use a color rendering index. It is simply a scale of 0 to 100. The closer a bulb is to 100, the better job it does at rendering true colors.
When you purchase bulbs from a lighting store, they normally have this information in their catalogues. I doubt that you can easily obtain this information from a giant home center store that has hundreds of light bulbs on their shelves.
It is really worth it to visit a full blown lighting center. Ask the sales people what they know about color temperature. Ask for literature. The major bulb manufacturers have GREAT booklets on this subject with dramatic photography showing just what can go wrong.
These are trees on a 90-acre tract of land I own in central NH. As you can tell, it was peak color. The photo was taken about 1 PM and not even close to the golden hour around 5 PM!
Color Temperature - It's all About Kelvin - No, Not Kevin
I remember that autumn afternoon vividly in my mind. It was a brilliantly sunny afternoon. The fall colors were at their peak. I had driven past this particular maple tree every day. However, the depth of color was so dramatic, I raced home to get Kathy, my wife. The orange and red leaves, when brushed by the breeze, made the tree look as if it was being consumed by fire.
We got back to the tree within 15 minutes. Although the tree was still beautiful, it didn't seem to possess the same brilliance. The sky was still cloud-free. The difference, although I didn't know it at that time, was that the color temperature of the sun had probably dropped several hundred degrees. Kathy said, "What's so great about the tree? It looks just like any other tree around here." No matter how I tried to describe it, it didn't seem to make any difference. She mumbled about me seeing an eye doctor as we walked back home.
You should read my other two columns. Here's the original color temperature column that appeared in over 100 newspapers across the USA. I then produce an extra document people could buy for $2. This document was split into two parts. This page is one. Here's the other half of the color temperature document.
Color Temperature in Geology Photography Class
I first learned about color temperature back in college. At that time, I was deeply involved in photography. I was taking an advanced course in color photography when the topic was first introduced to me. It was very confusing at the time. I don't think the professor did a great job of showing us examples of the color temperature scale. All I remember was that different lights had the ability to render different colors. I also remember that the final exam was a killer.
The Kelvin Scale and Color Temperature
Light (from the sun, a flashlight, light bulb, etc.) is simply visible electromagnetic energy. Visible light contains different colors of light. You see these colors whenever you witness a rainbow, or an artificial rainbow created by a prism or cut glass.
The science community uses three temperature scales: Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin. Most of us in the USA are familiar with the Fahrenheit scale. This is the scale we use to measure our weather and cooking temperatures.
The Kelvin scale is used primarily by scientists. It does not have any negative values. In other words, the absolute coldest anything in the universe could get on the Kelvin scale would be 0 degrees.
Heating an object can produce the rainbow of colors. That is where the Kelvin temperature scale comes in. If you begin to heat an object, it eventually begins to radiate color. Just like a rainbow, the color at lower relative temperatures is in the red/orange range. As the temperature increases, the color begins to pass through yellow, green, and finally ends with blue/violet. You can demonstrate this to a limited degree if you turn on an electric stove element or a toaster. The glowing metal (usually orange) is radiating that color. This is also why embers glow in a fire.
This is a shot looking towards tee box number 2 across that pond and to the right at Pheasant Ridge golf course in Gilford, NH. I took this photo in October of 2020 on a glorious morning just after the golden hour. The colors were still vibrant.
Kelvin and My Tree Story
Remember the tree I thought was so beautiful? It just so happened that I drove past the tree when the sunlight was producing the best orange/red light. On the Kelvin scale the color temperature would be around 2850, maybe a little higher. This happens in the morning and afternoon.
At noontime, the color range is closer to the blue/violet range. The Kelvin temperature on a cloud-free day at solar noon would be at 5,600 or better.
World-class photographers use this to their advantage. Take National Geographic for example. Those awesome photos in that magazine may take days to shoot. The photographer will wait for just the right light temperature to get the effect he or she is looking for. For this same reason, if you visit the Grand Canyon on a vacation, DON'T take pictures at high noon. The colors in the canyon will appear washed out in your photos. Take them just a little after sunrise, or a little before sunset to get the best orange and red coloration.
Many homeowners who have low voltage landscape lighting have problems with cut power cables. It is easy to forget over time where shallow buried cables lie. To avoid this, try to plan your cable runs so they might not fall where you will possibly landscape in the future. After you install the cables, consider making a detailed map of your light layout and where the cables are. Take measurements off permanent outdoor points like corners of your house, edges of patios, any feature that is not likely to move. Take this drawing once completed and put it in a zip-lock plastic bag and nail it to the wood panel where your main electric circuit box is. You should remember that it is there as you think about buried cables when you start to dig in the future.
Bad Bulbs
I have received complaints from people who feel low voltage light bulbs burn out too soon. This can happen for two primary reasons. If you buy cheap bulbs, don't expect them to last. There are imported low voltage bulbs that are flooding our markets. They look great, but they usually don't perform as well as a domestic name-brand bulb.
Also, you really need to wear cotton gloves when you install them. NEVER touch a low voltage bulb with bare hands. The oils from your hand cause the high quartz content glass around the bulb to actually become brittle. This can cause the high pressure gas inside to leak out!
