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| Greetings. I am at the stage of my kitchen remodel where I am framing the ceiling for new sheetrock and thus am selecting lighting. Being completely new to this, i.e. like many I grew up with a circular florescent fixture surface mounted to our kitchen ceiling, so this recessed lighting thing and all the various bulb options is a little daunting. I've read a number of the posts and thought to go with a low voltage halogen solution. Why...couldn't tell you, it seemed that low voltage was less expensive to run that high voltage.
SO I went to a web site that sold 4" fixtures that use MR-16 bulbs and noticed that there is a ballast, etc on this fixture and began to wonder from a maintenance standpoint, would it all be accessable for maintenance through a 4" hole in the ceiling? Obviously I don't want to tear up sheetrock to replace components, so then I started thinking of line voltage cans, where theoretically nothing goes wrong once the wiring is right. So bottom line is I'm a bit lost. IS there any relationship between low voltage and low energy comsumption? Or will line voltage cans be fairly energy efficient because of non-incandescent bulbs? Is there a family or configuration of halogen or LED bulbs that have a much longer life expectancy than others? Finally, I don't have a budget for $200 cree fixtures, although they look great. I'm at the big box stores looking at $20-$30 fixtures. The kitchen will have also have under cabinet and two hanging fixtures over our island to provide general lighting. I am relying on the cans for specific work area lighting. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions. Tom |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| I suggest you go with 5" Halo/5020H line voltage and use a Philips 60 watt Par 30 IRC. The lamp puts out close to what a 75 watt typically does. Eventually there will be a screw in replacement LED in the par 30 size. There are improvements in driver heat control, light output and color quality occurring to enable this. Philips has some interesting screw in products now with more on the way. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Philips
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