4' vs 6' recessed lights - both line voltage

17 years ago

I am completely remodeling my kitchen and am looking to use recessed lighting. This will be augmented by under cabinet lighting as well as some line voltage pendants over the island.

The ceilings in this house are very low (90") and I fear that the 6" cans will be a bit of an eyesore. The 4" cans would be less obvious, but the max 50W bulb may mean that I will need more of them resulting in a crowded ceiling, more expense, and more labor. All of the cans must be wired through EMT due to local code resulting in much more labor. I am also considering 5" cans, but they are harder to find and seem to have fewer options.

Any thoughts or opinions? Anyone have success using only 4" recessed lights?

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Comments (3)

Jon1270
17 years ago
The best way I know of is to position cans along the edge of the countertops. A lighting designer who posts occasionally on the kitchens forum has suggested 35-60 footcandles on the countertops, preferring to aim to the high side of that range. My kitchen has about 36 footcandles and, while sufficient, it's dimmer than I'd like it.

That said, with 90" ceilings and 4" cans, you could use 50w PAR20 30-degree floods spaced about 29" apart and get 59 footcandles on the counters. Alternatively, you could space those 4" cans about 39" apart, use 50w PAR20 40-degree wide floods and have about 44 footcandles, which would probably be enough with the UC lights assuming your eyes are decent and your kitchen isn't black. If you went to 5" cans, you could space them (again) about 39" apart, use 50W PAR30 40-degree floods, and have 64 footcandles on the counters. Notice how the bigger bulbs that fit the bigger cans give you more light for the same wattage?
garyu
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks, jon. Where are you finding the lumen rating for the lamps? I've looked around and can't seem to find where the manufacturers list this information which is needed to do the calculations. Do you have a website you can point me to?
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Jon1270
17 years ago
The information I used came from Osram Sylvania's product catalog, linked below. The PAR-type lamps start on page 39.

Lumen output is often printed on the boxes the bulbs come in. However, lumen output isn't the figure you need to calculate how much light makes it to your countertop from a reflector bulb pointed directly at it. For that you'll need to know candlepower, which you can find amongst other photometric data in the catalog.

Also, lamps/bulbs are described with a series of coded numbers, often stamped somewhere on the bulb itself, that give you a fair bit of useful information. For example, 50PAR20/CAP/SPL/WFL40 means 50 watt Parabolic (or Pressed glass) Aluminized Reflector, 20 eighths of an inch (2 1/2") in diameter, CAPsylite (a Sylvania brand), SPL (another Sylvania brand, referring to an "optical system" which I don't know anything about, Wide Flood, 40-degree beam angle.

Here is a link that might be useful: Osram Sylvania Lamp & Ballast Catalog

4' vs 6' recessed lights - both line voltage

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Jon1270

garyu
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4' vs 6' recessed lights - both line voltage

Comments (3)

Jon1270

garyuOriginal Author

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garyu
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