Michael De Luca on light placement

16 years ago

I have a book by Michael De Luca, CKD, ASID, called Kitchen and Bath Lighting Made Easy. It's a good book with loads of information. Heavy on the math and formulas, light on design, which is what I was looking for. However, he seems to have an interesting take on the placement of recessed lighting in the kitchen. He uses formulas based on the ceiling height, work surface height, light size, candlepower, and beam angle to determine where to place recessed lights. In my opinion, it works well everywhere except at the counter. He doesn't advocate placing the light at the edge of the counter, which seems to be the prevailing opinion amongst most professionals, but instead using the formula (or his software) so the edge of the beam intersects the junction of the wall and the work surface (in this case, the counter). His view is lights at the edge of the counter result in "light scallops" on the wall cabinets, and undercounter lighting should be used to fill in the counter area.

In my kitchen, with 9 foot ceilings, using a 4" recessed light with a 50w PAR 20 bulb with a 40 degree beam, that puts the lights 34" out from the wall, rather than the 25" that would put them over the edge of the counter. While that looks good on paper, in practice (my kitchen is gutted and I'm doing the work myself, so I've been playing around with placing the can lights in various positions)I find it casts a very dark and distinct shadow of me on the counter surface. I would think it would take some fairly powerful undercabinet lighting to overcome this.

Anyone here have any experience with DeLuca's books/ideas or any other thoughts on the subject?

Thanks in advance.

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Comments (2)

Jon1270
16 years ago
"the edge of the beam intersects the junction"

Generally, there is no 'edge of the beam.' The light from most bulbs is brightest in the middle of the beam and gets less bright as you go out from the center. The gradient is narrower for spot lights and wider for floods. The 'beam angle' tells you the approximate angle at which the light is half as bright as it is in the center of the beam.

I haven't read DeLuca's book. He is right that placing the lights closer in is likely to place scallops of intense light on the upper cabinets. That can look odd if the placement of lights has no relationship to the placement of cabinets and thus appears random, but it can be done thoughtfully and look fine. If you don't like the scallops at all and prefer to place lights further out, then you're going to get the shadows. Oh, and yes, you would want to get good UC lighting if you want the counters well-lit. Even with them you'd never eliminate those shadows, but you could make them much less noticeable.

If you were to move the cans toward the cabs and use them for task lighting, I think you'll find that 50W par20 bulbs are a little underpowered for 9' ceilings. Even if you spaced them 32" apart, you'd only have about 40 footcandles on the front of the counters, which may be enough if your eyes are good. Stepping up to par30 bulbs could give just as much light with the same amount of electricity and fewer fixtures, or more light with a similar number of fixtures.

It's worth mentioning that you have to think about your own needs to make sense of the options; formulas can help you attain a particular light-level target, but you really ought to be sure that the target the formula aims for is appropriate for you and your lifestyle. If your counters are primarily used for opening takeout food, task lighting may not be very important. If you do a lot of chopping and mixing and reading of recipes then you may want much better than average lighting.
hatman52
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for the response, jon1270. You might check out DeLuca's book, you'd probably find it useful. Skip the software, though -- has to be one of the most poorly designed and difficult-to-use programs I've ever experienced. Save your money on that one.
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