Forums/Lighting Applications/Residential - Indoor Lighting
Non-glare lights
A Member from Previous Forum
asked this on March 21, 2011 05:26 pm
--- Originally posted by sunshine Nov 4, 2009 ---
Hi, and thanks for this forum and all the info on your website. Very helpful and useful to us novices. We're planning a kitchen/living room re-do in our very small house, wanting lighting that meets the requirements of two very different sets of eyes, bright ambient light for husband who likes things bright, and absolutely no glare for wife whose eyes are super-sensitive to glare.
I'm hoping that your adjustable T4 and/or T5 bulbs might provide at least a partial answer to both our needs, with those nifty pivoting adjustable light shields to hopefully keep the direct light out of my eyes .
There are several locations, such as over the sink and perhaps over the kitchen table, where a hanging lamp might be efficient and useful, but I'd want one with a light baffle or louvers to protect my eyes from the brightness of the bulb at all angles. Do you know of a lamp with baffles or louvers? We have a family "heirloom" lamp, a nice old white metal hanging lamp, dome-shaped top, with 3 incandecsent bulbs and a translucent concentric baffle/louver flat bottom, that makes an ideal light source for us, but seems to be so out of style that nothing similar is available that I've been able to find. Any sugggestions in that direction?
Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge.
Comments
--- Originally posted Nov 4, 2009 ---
Non-Glare Lights
In general, it sounds like "indirect lighting" is what you might be looking for. Very simply, indirect lighting provides light without your seeing the light source. Here are several ways that you can produce indirect lighting in your kitchen.
1) Add good under cabinet lighting, if you don't already have some. Dimmable under cabinet lighting might be best.
2) If there is any kind of space between the top of your wall cabinets and your ceiling add bright fluorescent fixtures to the top of your cabinets. Look for fluorescent light bulbs that have high color rendering and low color temperature. This along with under cabinet lighting, can often provide enough light for your entire kitchen. If you really want to get the best benefit from this technique, use dual-switching, wherereby one on/off switch turns on one row of fluorescent light fixtures and second switch turns on a second row of fluorescent lights.
3) If you have recessed downlights in your kitchen, change the light bulb and/or the trim so that the light bulb is more deeply recessed into the ceiling. If the light bulbs in these downlights do not have a frosted face, change them for ones that do.
4) Use dimmers to soften any incandescent, halogen, or xenon lighting in your kitchen.
5) Consider adding "toe-kick lighting" around the toe-kick area of your floor cabinets.
6) If any of your wall cabinets have glass doors, consider adding cabinet lighting inside them.
7) A brand new dimmable fluorescent pendant-mount fixture could be great in a kitchen. It's modern, attractive, provides excellent lighting, and is dimmable to suit the tasks and needs of the user. Go here to learn more: http://www.lightingfortomorrow.com/2009/winners/dimming_designers_f...
8) You may want to consider adding more light to your kitchen by using dimmable wall sconces that are translucent or opaque.
9) If you have wall hangings in your kitchen that could use picture lights, you may want to consider using picture lights for them. (My dining room is nicely lit when I use only the accent lighting that is pointed toward our wall-hung art work.)
By the way, if you have any hesitation about using fluorescent in your kitchen, "forget about it" as long as you use low-color-temperature, high-color-rendering fluorescent light bulbs. (Look for "830" somewhere on the bulb.)
You may find the following pages on our Pegasus Lighting website useful:
Under Cabinet Lights
Over Cabinet Lighting
Dimmers
Recessed Lighting
Picture Lights
--- Originally posted by sunshine Nov 4, 2009 ---
Thanks very much for all these ideas, some of which we are very new to us, like toe-kick lighting! We shall pursue each concept for what will and won't work here. Yes on the under cabinet lighting, whcih we are aiming to install, as well as above-cabinet lights, looking at floursecent for the energy efficiency and becasue the house is oldish and we don't want to have to upgrade the power service.
Right away we have some specific follow-up questions:
re: #1) do your T4 and T5 flourescent bulbs have the "830" factor? But unfortunately they don't dim, do they? What would you suggest for dimmable under-cabinet lights?
re: #2) as to using the daul switching, that sounds real good. I'm picturing it so that we can operate the above-cabinet lights separately from the under-cabinets...is that where you're going with it?
re #9) lighting the art sounds like a good idea, but my eyes cringe at the glarey reflcetion of the light bulb in the glass on the art....do you know of where to find the old perforated metal louvers or some such to reduce that kind of glare ?
Thanks.
--- Originally posted by sunshine Nov 4, 2009 ---
Thanks for the link to that new dimmable flourescent kitchen fixture/bulb, the VersaLux pendant, which looks pretty cool, but won't work for me, as I notice that there's a hefty gap between the shade and the diffuser, a space for bare bulb to glare out at me, sigh....
But the tip does alert me to the fact, which I hadn't really understood before, that dimmable flourescent is hard to find and is only recently beginning to show up on the horizon. Dimmable would really improve our situation since our kitchen/living room is so multi-purpose. Good idea, thanks. Back to drawing board.
--- Originally posted Nov 4, 2009 ---
Dear Sunshine,
For under cabinet lighting I strongly recommend that you consider using our Xenon Line Voltage Thin Under Cabinet Task Lights. They have a hi/lo/off switch, they provide good "warm-colored" light, and they can be dimmed. (I have them installed in my kitchen!)
For over cabinet lighting I strongly recommend that you consider using our Microfluorescent T4 Light Fixtures. They are energy efficient, easy to install, linkable, and give off with a good deal of light. (Again, I have them installed in my kitchen.)
My comments on dual switching applied ONLY to the over cabinet lighting. One row of linked Microfluorescent Fixtures could be controlled by one on/off wall switch while a second row of similar Microfluorescent Fixtures along side the first row could be controlled by a second on/off wall switch. This would give you TWO levels of lighting - just for the over cabinet lighting. The under cabinet lights should be controlled by their own dimmer switch.
Yes, our T4 fluorescent lamps come in 3000K (warmish in color) and have a very good color rendering index of 82+.
Some large fluorescent fixtures can be dimmed but only if they have a special dimming ballasts. So far, small fluorescent fixtures, like the Microfluorescent Fixtures, are NOT dimmable.
With regard to honeycomb light louvers you may want to look at this page of our website:
http://www.pegasuslighting.com/honeycomb-louvers.html
With regard to the indirect glare coming off the picture glass, the angle of light incidence can often be manipulated to minimize this.
Don't rule the Versalux Pendant fixture out just yet. I have NOT seen this fixture in person; so, I am not certain that you can see the light bulbs directly. Besides, please remember that you can dim them, which is a huge plus.
If I were you, I would start your kitchen project one lighting area at a time and then reassess the situation after each change. First, start with the under cabinet lighting and then add the over cabinet lighting later, and so on.
--- Originally posted by sunshine Nov 4, 2009 ---
Thank you for the quick and very detailed replies. Much useful info & suggestions.
I hadn't thought to go with the xenon under-cabinet lights, so I will go look at them on your page.
Your T4 microfluorescents are exactly what I had envisioned for over the cabinets. They seem to offer everything we want in that application. I ordered a pair yesterday to try out, actually one T4 and one T5HO, one adjustable one with warm colored light and one non-adjustable with daylight bulb, so we'll have a lot of different features to try out and make decisions by.
Thanks for the clarification on the dual switching on the over-cabinets....what a good idea -- two different moods for the same room! THis is exactly what we should do.
Regarding the honeycomb louvers, they are getting close to the kind of thing I want for other lights, only I'd like louvers that are much deeper and wider (and some with clips for clipping onto incandescent bulbs would be a huge big deal for me --- I located a pair of those little tiny clip-on perforated metal shades today online, ones from back in the day, and they're listed at $35 as antiques!) but as I undertand it, these specific ones here at Pegasus are only for the halogen M16s, and though I love the light quality of halogen, I'm thinking to not use it due to the power and heat issues.
Sure do appreciate your input.