Well, I opted to leapfrog the CFLs and used LEDs from Cree. The house is not finished yet, so I don't have actual living/working experience, but I think I really like them. Someone else here (Aussies, I think) didn't like hers and switched them back to halogen, I think. (Do a search.) I personally love loads of light when I am working and am delighted to have an ultra-efficient, mercury-free alternative to CFLs. Last house had halogen btw and they were hot. Bright fabulous light but not an option for me as I attempt to become more environmentally conscious.

I came home one day and DH had replaced all the recessed lighting in the kitchen with CF. I hated it, it looked like a UFO. The light was too bright near the bulb and was shadowy on the counter.

I'm in California and our law pretty much mandates fluorescent lighting, but we don't even have the option of CFL's. They have to be pins. Otherwise apparently we energy hog Californians would all replace them with halogen bulbs as soon as the inspector leaves...okay some people would, but I'm more in favor of letting people have some freedom of choice...subsidize the fluorescent bulbs or tax the halogen...help sway many without forcing everyone. Anyway as long as your cans don't let the fluorescent bulbs stick way out and you plan the spacing for the appropriate amount of watts, you can get light that is the exact same color as halogen or incandescent if that is your wish. All for less cost and with less heat. The problem that Iris16 had is probably that her DH used bright white fluorescent bulbs (yes it would look VERY different and UFO would be a good way to describe it) and probably not enough watts (causing the "shadows"). Fluorescent is actually much less directional and it's harder to create shadows, especially if you have overlapping light from multiple sources, such as recessed cans.

- Jim

CFLs aren't perfect, but they save so much money and energy, I'm comfortable with the trade offs.

And they aren't all created equal-- the 'cool cathode' models have a tiny tube, smaller than a soda straw, are dimable, offer better color rendition, and even more energy efficiency. Old style cfl reflectors often don't have actual mirrors, and used difuse lenses. The cool cathodes do use reflectors and clear lenses, and the nature of the light is much closer to incandescent spot bulbs.

I love LED in theory, and I'm still looking for one that gives enough light in my spaces.

But for now, the only non-cfls in my house will be for things like primary bathroom light, stair lights and other contexts where you want full light instantly.

We have overhead recessed halogens pretty much throughout our house, built over 10 years ago. We started looking at CFLs a couple of years ago and have converted a few (but not many) fixtures. Many of our switches, including the ones in the kitchen, are adjustable (dimmable), and CFLs do not work well as "dimmables", unless there have been new advancements recently. We also are in the habit of turning off the lights when not in use, and the gradual startup of CFLs can be a bit annoying. I understand that CFLs tend to work better (or last longer) if they are not cycled on and off all the time, but I would defer to someone with more expertise in this area than me. There seems to be a lot of improvements with CFLs recently, so some of my concerns may no longer be valid.

More: All of our halogens are floods. Light coverage is better than with spots; less chance of shadow areas.

Are you designing your home, or considering replacement bulbs in an existing home? If designing, the spacing of the fixtures can be tailored to eliminate unwanted effects.

We have recessed lights with CF floods in our kitchen, providing all of the work light except for the halogens over the range. I like them fine, except for the fact that they take a minute to warm up. We come down to the kitchen in the morning, flip the switch and the lights are very dim for 30 - 40 seconds. I'm just letting the dogs out during that time anyway, so I'll live with that happily for the trade off of lower utility bills.

Does anyone know if halogens can be dimmed?

jeanar: Yes, the halogens can be dimmed. We seldom have them on at full brightness, usually between 50% to 75%, depending on what we're doing.

amysrq--do you mind if I ask how much the leds cost? Perhaps I'm looked at the wrong thing when I looked up the Crees, but it seems each bulb (?) unit cost about $200. Is this right? Are these floods which can be used in a regular housing?

I'd love to use LEDS, but I cant afford that price!

I have halogen and CFLs and regular bulbs above my Black Galaxy counters in different places. The way halogen makes the granite pop is just amazing. There are twice as many inclusions in it under halogen. Dimmed halogens are worth it to me over the island.

Many large lighting stores have a 'lab' setup with multiple fixtures and bulbs over various home settings. I attended a seminar in one and it was well worth the time. Light has properties I didn't suspect or understand. The seminar really changed the way I look at every room I'm in now. It opened my eyes to a whole new layer of my environment.

Most cool cathode cfls are dimable.

We live in California, so we went with an all-fluorescent kitchen, including 5", 26-watt, pin-type recessed lights, and undercabinet T5 fluorescent lights. The kitchen is very brightly lit and very easy to work in.

There is definitely a warm-up period, but I find that the pin-type fluorescents warm up a whole lot faster than the screw-in CFLs we have in other parts of the house. We are probably at 90% of the full brightness within 30-45 seconds, and the initial brightness when you hit the switch is more than adequate to find your way around--maybe around 65-70%. The warm-up period isn't an issue for us because once the kitchen lights are on, they tend to stay on for a while.

Right now, we are using the cooler white lights that came with our fixtures. It took some getting used to at first, but now we don't notice it. We will probably consider replacing with a warmer light when the time comes to change the lights out. (Could be years).

Our bathroom has 4" halogen recessed lights, and the beam is definitely more concentrated, as compared to the fluorescents in the kitchen. The halogens have as much, if not more glare than the fluorescents, even though the halogens have a white baffle trim, and the fluorescents have reflector trims. We do appreciate that the halogens are dimmable (good for middle of the night trips to the bathroom). The full brightness upon turning on is nice also, since bathroom visits tend to be shorter, as compared to the kitchen.

This leads me to think that part of deciding on how to light the rooms in your home should involve an analysis of human behavior--how you use the rooms, how much time you spend in them at a time, etc.

Thanks, everyone!

I'm not thrilled with the mercury in CFs, but at least it's recyclable. As far as LEDs go, I'd like to know more about the EM field around the transformer. I have the same question with low voltage halogens. Maybe it's a non-issue, but it exists on a higher voltage level with power lines. (I find it frustrating that "green" products rarely tell the whole story. They're often greener in one way, but worse in another.)

oruboris, are your kitchen CFs recessed? If not, what kind are you using?

vjrnts, a few questions: How far apart are your recessed CFs? Is the light color OK, ie, similar to incandescent (what type are they-- soft white, daylight, etc)? What wattage are they and. lastly, what brand? (Some people claim certain brands last longer than others). Thank you!

perqqderqq and tofudog, since you can only use pin-type fluorescents in CA, what kind of fixtures do you use? I can't picture what they'd look like.

We live in California and went with Juno 5" recessed flourescents. Juno has a dimmable version but they are very expensice. More than 3 times as much for the dimmable version.

The pin type flourescent lights are not very attractive so you need to purchase a lens cover for the cans. The lights take about 30 seconds to warm up which is not an issue for us. We have six of them in a 14x8 area and they put out plenty of light.

You can select warm, white or daylight versions of lighting.

I also live in California and am in the process of building a house. We have fluorescent pendants from WAC Lighting, recessed lighting from Lightolier, and a combination fluorescent tube and halogen fixture from Edge Lighting, over the island. We are not yet living in the house so I also do not have a lot of experience with the lighting, but it seems very bright and while not warm, at least not cold.

I am using 2700K bulbs, which is considered "warm". My fluorescent tube lighting which mainly provides ambient, is 3000K. My ceilings are white and kitchen floors are dark (walnut). My cabinets are a mocha pine and the countertop is Cinder caesarstone. The color of your ceilings, cabinets, and floors, will influence the warmth of the light. If all your surfaces are dark, you will not have much reflected light, meaning also that you will probably need more light in the kitchen. Warmer reflective surfaces will contribute to warmer light. You can with many recess lighting brands, specify the color of the reflector. The reflector influences the color and amount of light, and the glare. It is a trade-off between the amount of light and the color and glare control. I am using an amber colored reflector for the fixtures on the high part of the ceiling. I am using a more silver reflector on the alcove over the counter (about 7 feet high). The most annoying thing about the lighting as others have stated, is the 1 minute warm up period.

Lightolier has a very cool web tool that can model simple lighting layouts, and give you an approximate measure of the light in foot-candles. 50 foot-candles is recommended for the kitchen work surfaces. I used this tool to determine fixture spacing. The Juno recessed lighting catalog is a fantastic reference on approximating lighting levels and coverage for different ceiling heights and bulb types. It is in the back of the residential catalog. Both Juno and Lightolier make quality lighting. I chose Lightolier because they offered a low profile fluorescent fixture which I needed for some of my ceilings.

Thank you, this is very helpful.

This is a very informative thread. As usual, I'm blown away by what a great resource this site is.

I just looked up the cool cathode CFLs and it says that they only go up to 30W equivalent. I would love to use these in my kitchen recessed lights (we tend to have the lights on for long periods of time, and I need them to be dimmable) but because of the spacing and darkness of the room need more than 30 watts equiv. Any suggestions?

More LED options please, save energy, safer, low heat and don't wear out from vibrations, = buy once, install and last a very long time.

Nuccia, I bought the Cree 6" LR-6 for about 90 each. I only have six in my kitchen. If you are doing them throughout the house, it does add up fast. For that price, you get the whole unit (minus the standard recessed housing) and do not need to buy trim or a lens as you might with a CFL.

Just this past week, I found a local distributor of the LR6 LED lights, and the price is $80-ish, including the light, diffuser, and trim. I'm told that these are roughly 75W equivalent, come in 2700 or 3000K and fit into a standard 6 inch recessed housing, as amysrq also noted. Dealer claims that you get payback in about 2 years. That would be nice, but we're going with the LED because of the low energy use, and no heat in the kitchen. This dealer did not come up on the CREE website when I searched for a distributor, so it may pay to call around your area with Yellow pages in hand. Also, this business deals more with commercial applications (and the guy said that he is selling a lot to offices where the lights are left on all the time), so if you are interested in finding a local source, try that, as well. A side-by-side comparison with a standard recessed incandescent flood in the showroom looked very similar to me.

Does anyone know how many watts per light provide good lighting on countertops? (This is for a ceiling height of 8' or 9', when the recessed lights are placed about 3 or 4' apart.)

I posted a similar response to another question a week or two ago, but I will say again I love the CREE LED lights. I have only 4 in my approx. 14x15 kitchen and they provide ample bright, clean light. I do have other light sources, but for general lighting, these are quite sufficient - and this is with a dark granite and cabinets stained a medium tone. I don't care for fluorescent light (although I admit I've not experimented with many of the newer bulbs that are supposed to provide more "natural" light), and I was concerned about halogens throwing off too much heat. For me, the energy efficiency, clean color of the light and extremely long life (yayy! - no getting out a ladder and climbing up to replace bulbs!) justified the cost. And as amysrg points out, they are self contained, so you save on the trim pieces you need with many of the other cans.

egganddart...this website has a table about 2/3 down the page that may help answer your question.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lighting Plans

OK, I think I screwed up when I specified my cans. The electrician and builder both said that the 6" cans use 5" bulbs; so I asked them to put in 5" cans so that the holes would be smaller. They installed short-necked halogens in them, which are quite expensive to replace. The standard 5" floods are just a bit too long and stick out. The only short-necked floods I found are halogens. I was excited to think I had another alternative, but I just saw that the CREE LR6 is 5.5" across!

Do I have my facts straight? Perhaps I should go to the lighting forum...

If you look at the CREE website, they will give you a list of compatible cans. And for those for whom it is not too late, there is a smaller unit from CREE available now. It hadn't come to market when we started to build, so I spec-ed the 6" lamps.

CREE also list compatible dimmer, but the word out there is that none of them really work. Yet... I am hopeful that the switch manufacturers with catch up soon.

Nuccia: try taking off the trim ring and the baffle, [you may need to remove teh bulb, too] take a look at the innards of the can.

Mine all have a little wing nut that can be loosened to raise or lower the bulb, which may allow you to use a more standard size.

Raising the bulb will also cut down the size of the light circle cast on the floor below. It isn't an efficient way of customizing the output, but it works to a degree.

I really like mine, glad I mad sure I could do dimmable CFs. They are 65 watt equivalents.

This photo was taken when the kitchen was still under construction:

Sue

well, that seems simple enough..

why wouldn't you be able to use them? What do I need to make sure I have or don't have, sue?

Sue, thank you. This is what I was hoping to hear. Sorry, but I have a bunch of questions!

1) Do you know if they're "daylight" bulbs? (Do they create a pleasant colored light, ie, warmer than the older fluorescents?)

2) Would you say they cast a pretty even light, not brighter in some places and darker in others?

3) About how far apart are they spaced in the ceiling?

4) How long do the bulbs actually last?

The idea of LEDs sounds great, but I'm a little concerned about their transformers. I'd go with them if I could find out whether they create a field of EMR around them. I know, I worry too much!

I didn't read the entire thread so forgive me if I'm repeatig what someone else has already said.

Keep in mind if you use the CF's in the cans that you don't have a dimmer. Dimmers require special bulbs and as far as I know the dimmer lights do not come in the full spectrum. As far as I'm concerned anyhing other than the full spectrum are ugly and give a morgue affect.

We have Sylvania 65 watt halogen, but I do think they'll need to be increased to a larger wattage because for me they aren't quite bright enough for the kitchen. They do work fine in the other rooms where the the recessed lights are stictly used for ambient lighting.

You have to make sure the dimmer switch is compatible with the CF's for some reason. They had a book they checked, and told me which dimmers they had in stock that could be used. They also made sure the housing of the can was a size that would accept that size bulb, that it was within the wattage the can would accept, and that the base you insert the bulb into was correct. The only thing that seemed to be a problem was the dimmer switches. I think they said the wrong dimmer could cause buzzing or other problems and wouldn't work correctly. I had a choice of two dimmers I think. Some were NOT compatible and they rechecked several times.

I think mine are made by Juno.

Sue

Title 24 requires CFL with pins not the screw in type of CF.

They are not full spectrum or "daylight". They are not the old blue white color, either. They are warmer, if they are warm enough for you or not is not something I can say. If you require the pin type because you live in CA, these will not do it. If not, here is my take on it. If you buy cans that CAN take the R30 type dimmable CFs, AND a dimmer that is compatible, and you don't like the bulbs currently available you can switch them out for whatever you prefer. They will still take regular, non-CF bulbs. Then, if you decide to you can switch them out again if/when they make bulbs in the color you want. I am a woman who likes choices. I like to keep my options open. I would rather have the OPTION of using CFs and dim them or not than be limited to the old higher energy bulbs. I do think at least some and maybe all that can take the R30 CFs can also take R30 halogen bulbs. I am pretty sure mine can.

Sue

I have only had these lights for 5-6 months. They are spaced based on my cabinet run, one light exactly centered in front of each upper cabinet. They are placed close enough to the cabinets that they light counter in front of me when I am standing at the counter and I don't throw a shadow like I would if they were behind me. I also UC lights. There are no dark areas in the working part of my kitchen when all the lights are on, no shadows. I have a center light, recessed cans, UC lights, a sink pendant and one lighted cabinet in the corner. I was told I still have the option of adding more cans if I want. I may add one in front of the refrig. some day but don't currently want that area lit from above to highlight it.

They are supposed to last 4 yrs if used 4 hrs per day.

They do cast pretty even light, but they are adjustable and can be set higher up into the can which would "focus" the light more. So if you get good, adjustable cans, you can control that between the spacing and how low you set the bulbs in the cans. The smaller 4 inch cans I found had more of a spotlight effect and were less even. That probably could have been fixed by having twice as many, though.

They are very expensive if bought at a lighting store (26.00 ea I was told, but this store is expensive!). Purchased through the electric company they were much less, about 8.00, I think. About 12-13.00 each at Walmart.

By the way, they are now coming out with R30 LEDs! So I think they will be very versatile in the future. I don't want to have to redo all the ceiling lights if they come out with better stuff like this in the future.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: R30 LEDs

I am researching this issue and in CA which mandates to have 4 pin CF style, recessed, with built in ballast, as a result one can is very expensive, in the Juno brand, trim and housing cost over $100, that is for one light.

There has been a mention of Cree LR6 for under $100 in this thread.. I am so interested but how does the LR6 lumens compare to a 26W CF? I calculated the LR6 at 650 lumens at 12W consumption, it does exceed title 24 requirement of 40Lumens per Watt.

However for the Cree LR6 take up 6" can space, it puts out little light relatively to a 26W CFL, as I believe a 26W CFL puts out about 1700-1800 lumens.

That means to acheieve the same Lumens of one of the Junos you need almost 3 LR6s!

Now one of the LR6 I believe puts out around same Lumens as a 50W bulb, which is enough to see what you are doing, ambient lighting. Just relatively, a CF recessed can puts out so much more.

My references to Lumens values of old incandescent bulbs are based on this article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, I am not knocking your choice, I think LED is just on the rise and there will be significant improvements in the future. But CFL has been around longer and it should be a better choice to install right now and not worried it would get obsolete in a few years.

I know there a many factors, heat, energy consumption etc.. but with a little calculation, CFL is still the leader of lumen per watt.

Since the R30 compatible cans are compatible with CFLs as well as non-CFLs, I see no down side to using them. The issue changes for those who in CA vs. the other 49 states due to the pin issue, and 100.00 per can is pretty pricey. The r30 screw type cans MAY also be compatible with LEDs in the future if they continue to make the R30 LED and it gets better and less expensive. Unfortunately, I think the CA law is limiting the energy efficient technology that can be used there in the future for many years to come.

The prices I gave were for the bulbs, not the Juno cans. The Juno cans were well under 100.00 each but are not the pin type because the pins are required here in CT.

Obviously, different issue, different pros and cons and different choices available for those who live in CA and those who don't.

I wish everyone would indicate somehow where they live when they ask questions. It makes it much more confusing and frustrating to have people trying to help from parts of the country that can do things you can't.

Sue