Please help with 'vintage' title 24 kitchen lighting plan!

16 years ago

I am trying to come up with a lighting plan for my soon-to-be-remodeled kitchen while adhering to Title 24. My house is a 1930 Mediterranean and I would love it if the lighting looks like it belongs.

I was hoping to use 1 surface mount (over sink) and 2 pendants (over island) from Rejuvenation, each 100 watts. So to comply with title 24 in this plan, I would need 300W of high efficacy lighting. I've been figuring I need some flourescent cans and undercab lighting (17.5 feet) I drew a plan that placed some fixtures.

1. My current plan (see link below) does not have enough high efficacy lighting (6x18=108 watts from cans + ?? watts from undercab lights). What would you suggest to make up the difference? More cans? A flourescent surface mount fixture (perhaps in the area in front of the fridge?)

2. Am I going about this the wrong way? Should I choose flourescent Rejuvenation fixtures instead to relax constraints on other lighting?

3. Is there a good alternative to recessed cans that provides effective task lighting and will have a more vintage appearance?

4. Suggestions for undercab lighting?

Some facts that may be relevant:

- the ceilings are 8'4" and the cabinets will go to the ceiling (with crown moulding.)

- the walls will be a soft green

- the back wall with windows is on the southeast side (there is an awning outside over the door and window)

Thanks for any help!

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff275/thedinos/lightingplan.jpg

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Comments (11)

dim4fun
16 years ago
Title 24 is tough to design around. You need to embrace it or cheat. Rethink the cans. 18 watt is pretty feeble in a kitchen. Especially with a darker color like soft green. Switch to 5" 26 watt. Use something like Juno fluorescent under cabinet to help instead of hurt the wattage. Their fixtures use a high quality lamp and look pretty nice. They come with 3500K but you can warm it up if needed. Because you already have under cabinet task lighting covering the counter tops you can back the cans away from the cabinets and use them for more general light, which I think you'll need anyway.
homepro01
16 years ago
Do recessed Fluorescent cans count towards complying with title 24? If so, look into Contrast lighting or the sort for recessed lights that use CFLs.

Good luck!
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We are facing the same decisions on our reno in Lake Tahoe. I have lighting plans done, but my KD and contractor don't see eye to eye and right now I'm feeling pretty blurry eyed. Thanks dmlove for your contribution! I love your idea of overworking the Fluorescents on the overhead cabinets. I have a lot of those to work with, so you think T5HO would be the best solution for this? (For T24 only, we'll never use them) My husband and I live on mood lighting even when we aren't entertaining. Evenings we cook together and our kitchen lighting consists of candles on our island (2 glasses with a good Brunello or Bordeaux), 2 medium-lit task lights and a low-lit chandelier in our adjoining dining room. For us, bright lights are for surgery and cleaning. I'm also taking a look at your suggestion of the Juno 13 watt bulb airtight cans to dim and Lutron Hi Lume that dim down to 1%. We are searching for warm ambient lighting with dimmers......so any other suggestions are welcome! Under island and undercabinet lighting needs to be decided as well
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Thanks to both of you. Unfortunately, we can't buy ourselves maneouvering room with overhead cabinet lighting, as our uppers (of which there are very few b/c of the configuration of the room) go to the ceiling. RemodelerMatt, I thought that I couldn't comply in the kitchen with standard fixtures on a dimmer, even with CF bulbs? Am I wrong about that? In a great room, the non-kitchen portion if separately switched would comply. Ours isn't a great room, though it is a fairly sizable, eat-in kitchen. From my admittedly still limited Title 24 knowledge, I think I could argue that the breakfast nook shouldn't fall into the kitchen restrictions as long as it's separately switched, but that doesn't really help me, as using non-CF recessed in that part of the room might look weird in terms of light quality with CF recessed in the rest of the room, right? If my pendents would count as CF for compliance if I used CF bulbs and a dimmer, I'd be thrilled, so if my interpretaion is wrong, please tell me! (I'd really love my recessed lights to be dimmable. . . that's the frustration here. . .I'm perfectly willing to use CF bulbs nearly everywhere, and the slight upcharge for dimmable CF bulbs doesn't faze me. But this isn't permitted, or at least so I've been told?!?) I went to a big lighting store here in LA yesterday to at least try to see some of the recessed CF lights. And they had zero on display. Probably 15-20 recessed lights were on display, but none were CF. The salesperson looked at me like I was nuts when I said that I had no choice but to install CF recessed in my kitchen. . .Title 24? Ever heard of it? Sigh. . .
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Thanks mary & chefkev for your input. Do you have any pictures of your kitchens? (even if they're not finished) I think I will need to stick with 2 pendants. I worry that 3 pendants will look like too much (particularly as I can't have one too far right because of cabinet door clearance), and I think that 3 could also be a problem for Title 24 (as they would be halogen). I've put the cans on the sink wall lined up with the edge of the counter (rather than just over the counter) as the lights we have currently just light up the counter and create dark shadows in front of the sink on the floor. I think it might be even darker once we get our dark cabinets (although the rest of the room will probably be better lit than now, so maybe it won't). There is actually a ceiling fixture in the adjacent hallway which spills into the entrance to the kitchen. I've put together a few more options, based on some of the comments here and on the lighting forum. I waver between too much light, too little light, type of lights and confusion about best placement of lights. (In all of these options, green strips are undercabinet lights). Option 2: Ceiling fixture (large red dot) and pendants (yellow) ........ Option 3: Ceiling fixture, pendants and fluorescent cans Option 4: Yellow pendants, red fluorescent cans, blue dimmable incandescent cans. (I know, it looks like a lot of light. It may well be too much light and too many holes. Here's my thinking behind it - I figure that the blue incandescents would be on a dimmer and would be dimmed most if not all of the time. If we're in the kitchen cooking, we would have the red fluorescents on. The kitchen is visible from the living and dining areas, so when we're not in the kitchen, we could just have the pendants and the blue incandescent lights on low for ambience. In both instances, we would have the U/C lights on). Option 4: Yellow pendants, red FL ceiling fixture, purple dimmable recessed LED cans .......... Option 5: Same as 4, more LEDs Are any of these any good at all?? Should I just get candles? Please help ...
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I would use a more regular pattern and try to keep to a consistent size. Your spacing may be too tight in some areas (upper right) for even 4" units with 102" ceilings.... and definitely so for 6" units. The other advantage to using more cans is that it increases your high efficiency wattage, and lets you have more freedom in selecting your low efficiency pendants, sconces and chandeliers. As you know. you must first sum up your can wattage (e.g 9.5W x 15 4" cans in your plan), add your UCL wattage, and then apply the kitchen "bonus" if you use dimmers/motion sensors. It appears you may have as much as 230W to 280W in low efficiency wattage to apply to your more decorative fixtures. We have LED UCL but appreciate the recessed lighting for general lighting. I would say these are on the most often -- on dimmers -- but ironically the decorative pendants are rarely used because the light tends to be more supplementary rather than primary. But, most of our work occurs on a central island -- not on the perimeters, except for the range and the sink. In summary I would make sure your grid near the island is complete -- your general distance between the green rows is pretty far. You might consider a more regular grid of 4 across.
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homepro01
16 years ago
Do recessed Fluorescent cans count towards complying with title 24? If so, look into Contrast lighting or the sort for recessed lights that use CFLs.

Good luck!
Julie Drew
Original Author
16 years ago
thanks dim4fun & homepro01.

homepro01, to answer your question, yes, Fluorescent cans do count toward the high efficacy wattage in title 24. (Only the kind that take only fluorescent bulbs. You can't do it by plugging in fluorescent bulbs into incandescent fixtures.)

I checked out Contrast Lighting on line but I'm not sure whether the cans (MR16s) would be considered high efficacy? Aren't they halogen?

dim4fun, for those Juno lights, do I butt them up against each other to cover every linear inch under cabinets?

If I stick with the non-cheating plan, and go with 5" cans, that gives me 6x26=156 watts in high efficacy watts in cans, plus about 120 watts in undercab Junos. I getting close...only 26 watts to go! How about one more can in front of the french door ? Is there a better place?
dim4fun
16 years ago
Fill up the under cabinet space as best as you can. The 12" Juno fixture should be avoided if possible. One more by the door should be OK. Once you start trying to layout the cans in the framing some options go away and others present themselves.
homepro01
16 years ago
Contrast light has fluorescent cans. I have included a link below.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Contrast Lighting CFL
Julie Drew
Original Author
16 years ago
Got it - thanks.
Any particular reason to avoid the 12" Juno - is it inferior quality?
dim4fun
16 years ago
The 12" fixture uses a lamp/ballast technology rated at 7500 hours and some can see a slight difference in color temperature compared with the longer lamps.
Julie Drew
Original Author
16 years ago
OK, thanks again for the suggestions!
napagirl
16 years ago
Hi dim4fun,
I read what you said above about the Juno 12" fluorescent lamps having a slight difference in color temperature compared to the longer lamps.

Since my kitchen wall cabinets are of varying widths (14", 20", 22", 42") what length would you suggest I use? I had assumed I would use the largest that would fit in the space, but of course I want all the lights to be the same color. TIA
dim4fun
16 years ago
Unfortunately the small cabinet spaces need the smaller fixture.

This color shift is pretty common in fluorescent lighting. Similar lamps from different manufacturers often suffer from some color shift. A solution may be to try different lamp sources. I've not researched a solution, only noticed the problem and try to avoid it.

Please help with 'vintage' title 24 kitchen lighting plan!

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Please help with 'vintage' title 24 kitchen lighting plan!

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