Help! contractor installed undercabinet lighting weirdly

12 years ago

While we were away for Thanksgiving, our contractor installed the LED undercabinet lighting in our kitchen. The front of the fixture, which has a slightly curved plastic diffuser, actually TOUCHES the cabinet.

See photo.

Is this normal? I do not think it is. Could other people please post photos of your undercabinet lighting.

The other thing is that because of this, I feel the wood stops the lighting in its tracks, so there is a very definite dark vs. light shadow area on the countertops, vs. a more gradual spread of light. If the fixtures were back even just 1 inch, I think it would help.

How hard is it to move undercabinet lights?

Thanks.

Comments (4)

dandylandy
Original Author
12 years ago
trying again - don't know why the photo didn't post - this is the link I copied from photobucket:

http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z421/dandylandy/kitchen%20lighting/undercabinet%20lighting/IMAG0794.jpg
bmorepanic
12 years ago
Can you even get the diffuser off?

The double quotes on both sides of the file name in an img statement keep the whole file name together - otherwise it gets to that space between kitchen and lighting and just quits.

There are other parts that can appear in an img tag. For example, your picture fits a little better by adding a width so the picture is resized a bit. This forum has some trouble when overly wide pictures are shown as you can clearly see from the overly wide example statements. So the final looked like this.
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mountaineergirl
12 years ago
I'm not sure if I'm seeing the back or the front of the cabinet. Are you saying he mounted the light up against the light rail (wood trim) rather than toward the wall? As in he mounted them backwards? I'm sorry if I'm confused - maybe a picture that's farther away would show it better?? It just looks to me that he aimed the light the wrong way, he turned them around backwards.
Tim
12 years ago
That would be the front edge of the cabinet I think - you can see the bottom edge of the doors.

Not sure if on LED lights like that if getting the diffuser off is even an issue. Can the fixture itself be removed if necessary? Are the mounting screws on the ends of the fixture and accessible?

LED's are designed to last 50,000 or whatever hours - you don't take the diffuser off to change the bulb. I'd guess when the bulb fails, you replace the entire fixture.

I'd suggest he installed them as far forward as possible to ensure even light distribution over your counters - the doors of your 12" deep upper cabinets are 1/2 way across your 24" deep counter, so getting the light to the front provides the best possible lighting.

I used LED pucks on mine, centered front to back mainly because I wanted to wash the backsplash with light and you can see the undersides of the cabinets while walking up the back entry stairs, so cosmetics were important.