Halogen lights??

nicky28

Am building a house which has a double height kitchen with a large glazed area. Wondering what sort of lighting to put in? Don't fancy a pendant which will block view out the windows from upstairs. Will halogen lights use too much energy? Will they give enough light-from ceiling (which will be double height). Anyone any ideas?! Thanks!

riccol1966

a single 50w halogen bulb uses about 50watts of energy if it is mains powered and 48watts of energy if you are using the low voltage version (12v). If you had planned a lot of downlighters then thats a lot of energy, particularly in such an often used room.

It's probably worth considering mains GU10 CFLs which are the same shape as halogens but use a lot less energy. A 13watt GU10 CFL is appx equivalent to a 40-45watt traditional halogen. Just be careful with the colours - you need "extra warm white" in CFL terms to match to the colour of halogen .

ircoha

Dont recess the lighting, not considered green anymore

If u use a wire to hang the lights they wont spoil the view as itf it is double height...

next time u are in a mosque or church or where ever have a look at the way they hang.

The green vision is lighting for purpose so if u need it on the worktop go under unit etc

I trust u have either a good fan or a good HRV system to keep the kitchen smells out of the upstairs

probe

It is hard to beat the colour characteristics of halogen. Why not mix in a few low wattage halogen lamps with the LED alternative? Or put a little 12v battery charging solar panel on your roof to supply 12v halogen lamps!

.probe

ircoha

probe wrote: »

It is hard to beat the colour characteristics of halogen. Why not mix in a few low wattage halogen lamps with the LED alternative? Or put a little 12v battery charging solar panel on your roof to supply 12v halogen lamps!

.probe

if u do this dont have the led and halo on same switched circuit, the leds burn out rapid:)

zzap64

riccol1966 wrote: »

It's probably worth considering mains GU10 CFLs which are the same shape as halogens but use a lot less energy. A 13watt GU10 CFL is appx equivalent to a 40-45watt traditional halogen. Just be careful with the colours - you need "extra warm white" in CFL terms to match to the colour of halogen .

Wow, thanks for this. I didn't realise these existed. I have just bought a new house and was disappointed by the number of halogens in the kitchen (about 6 or 8!). So was looking at about 300 - 400 Watts per hour, which is crazy!

Are there CFL alternatives for the 12V halogens?

Thanks,
Iain

riccol1966

I have seen 12V CFLs but the cost is on the high side, and it's much better to do away with the transformers and use direct GU10s, in my opinion.

Just a note on LEDs: I tried lots of different mains voltage LEDs last year and when I tested the strongest one (a single Luxeon 5W LED) equated to appx 15watts of light, so be really careful if you are thinking that LEDs will reduce your power consumption even further. They may have improved now but I doubt if they are good enough yet for main lighting, also apart from primary colours its very hard to get a Kelvin colour match on LEDs that equate to Halogen (2700Kelvin).

shineon

I agree with GU10 cfl's - I have them in my house and they're deadly. I got some 7w's equal to about 35w halogen. Think they were only 7.99 or so and they have a 10,000 hour life - perfect for awkward ceilings!

forestfruits

I replaced some of the halogens in the kitchen with led and have to say was very disappointed!

Any ideas where to buy cfl alternatives to halogens?

probe

forestfruits wrote: »

I replaced some of the halogens in the kitchen with led and have to say was very disappointed!

Any ideas where to buy cfl alternatives to halogens?

Your eyes are obviously colour temperature/spectrum sensitive, as are mine, and probably lots of other people have a similar issue. CFL also delivers a very limited spectrum of light.

You can't beat halogen for good quality artificial light, period.

It seems to me that the best approach is to use halogen in areas that are important to you - space where you spend the most time, and use CFL or LEDs elsewhere (garden, corridors, garage etc). And buy / generate green energy to feed everything. And install motion detectors to switch lights on/off in “transit areas”.

Leo Laports set up an LED lit TV studio in his "Twit Cottage" in Petaluma, CA [just north of San Francisco] recently - (he makes about 10 netcasts a week from the cottage), and has started streaming video of the netcasts live on the internet using the LED lighting. The LED system cost him a good few $$$ - but the colour is perfect TV quality – solely from low energy LED lighting. You can catch a look at www.twitlive.tv - he is not on air 24/24 - but does replay some content. He often has his studio full of guests, and the lighting is still perfect from all angles.

Laporte got the LEDs from litepanels.com and he uses 3 Canon XL-2 cameras.
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=165&modelid=10350

He seems to be working towards building a handful of highly specialised TV/radio "channels" on technology topics, from an "annex" to his home, and he has a growing worldwide audience. He uses Skype audio/video and broadband to involve guest participants - or they can travel to the cottage to participate in person - with perfect sound quality. He serves them locally produced wine when they call in….

Prior to this he used to be constantly flying in the US and Canada several times a week doing radio programs. He now makes everything which goes out on national networks from the cottage (except when he is on vacation/projects).

Leo was in Tasmania a few months ago on a camera shoot, and continued to make his weekly live chat audience call-in radio programmes at stuido sound quality using ISDN, with no call quality or sound delay issues between Australia and California - despite the appalling telecommunications infrastructure (by European standards) in the US and Australia. With people all over the US calling their local radio station with questions, the calls going over ISDN to Leo in Australia, and his reply to them going back over the same system for live broadcast - without a hitch.

He doesn't boast about his "green-ness" - he just figures out the smartest way to run things and does it - and usually it turns out to be the green way.

I suspect that there are a lot of backstreet retailers out there selling poor quality LEDs (and everything else). In my experience many Irish retailers sell obsolete stuff at top prices, and one has to be particularly wary in this environment when investing in "green technology". You have to do your research and shop around on the net and be prepared to use websites in other languages (using google language tools if you don't speak the language in question to translate these websites) to get a "preiswert" deal. In French it is RQP (rapport qualité prix) - the price/quality ratio. The English word “cheap” has nothing to do with the concept. The nearest concept in English is “quality is remembered long after price is forgotten”, which is more akin to rip-off-ireland, compared with the value for money concept.

.probe

His netcast portal is at www.twit.tv