I'm attaching a couple of links to a really thorough discussion of the different kinds of undercabinet lighting available. The only thing sorta' glossed over is the heat factor, particularly in regards to xenon & halogen. The kitchen is, generally, the last room in the house that needs additional heat sources. [Although I'm wondering how I could use one incandescent puck light (safely) for plate warming purposes in the winter.]

Fluorescent is the hands down winner, IMO.

Undercabinet2-LED

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/assist/pdf/undercabinet1.pdf

Those are excellent links! Thanks!

mangosink,

I just want to reiterate the point made above about heat gain from xenons. I'd researched a bit, not real thoroughly, before I picked xenons for my rec room kitchenette. I hadn't really used them until my main kitchen got demo'd and now that we're using them daily I hate the xenons and would not do them again. They put out an astonishing amount of heat. The bottom shelf of my uppers is hot to the touch after they've been on a while, and you can feel heat radiating from that area into the room.

I will not use them in my kitchen :)

ci-lantro, thanks for the links above.

A

Bluekitchen, don't mean to hijack but I am looking at lighting now also, what kind of lights do you plan on using if you have ruled out the xenon. I was told the linear strips do not get as warm as the pucks was I mislead?

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/home-garden-lighting/index.aspx
LED Under Cabinet Lighting

I had planned on using Xenon in my new kitchen, but after reading the various posts about xenon lights, I think I am going to use Fluorescents with warm bulbs. I don't see any disadvantage to them, except they are not dimmable (I wasn't planning to dim them anyway). They are cheaper, cooler, burn less enectricity and the replacement bulbs are cheaper.

I was told the linear strips do not get as warm as the pucks was I mislead?

If you're comparing xenon linears to xenon pucks, I would think that, watt for watt, the heat output is going to be the same. The puck would feel hotter because the heat output would be concentrated in a smaller space. Like holding your hand close to one of four 25 watt light bulbs in a row vs holding in close to a 100 watt bulb....I'm guessing here because I've never had any xenon lights.

I have xenon strips and really like them. I left them on for a day and yes, the actual bulbs were hot (I know that because I was moving themaround) but they didn't noticably warm up the countertop or the cabinets (they're installed both in the cabinets and below them). I prefer them to the light you get from pucks since you can put them whereever you want, as many or as few as you want with the strips. The xenon picks in my china cabinet get way hotter!

ci lantro -- thanks for the links!

FYI on LEDs. We have LED strips. We liked the idea of cool lighting that last a long time, because we planned on using the undercabinet lights as nightlights. We were told that LEDs don't dim, but we tried it anyway. Our LEDs don't dim in the traditional idea, but ours have full that does go to dim to off (kinda like a 3 way light bulb) which works for us because we like them for night lights.