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Basement Lighting Recommendations -Can Lights in Drop Ceiling

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Basement Lighting Recommendations -Can Lights in Drop Ceiling blah@blah.com 11-29-2006
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Posted by blah@blah.com on November 29, 2006, 2:31 pm


I'm finishing about 1300 square feet of my basement. I plan on putting
in a drop ceiling with can lights.

I was thinking about spacing the 6-inch cans about 6 feet apart. Is
that too close? That's a lot of lights (roughly 36) which seems like
too much to me. Any thoughts/recommendations? Assuming 75W lights
(total of 2700W), I'll probably need two or three separate 15A circuits
for them as well, correct?

Another option is flourescent but I'm not sure I want to go that route.
Doesn't look that nice and placement is not as flexible.

Thanks,
Kevin


Plumbing 468x60
Posted by dpb on November 29, 2006, 2:39 pm



blah@blah.com wrote:
> I'm finishing about 1300 square feet of my basement. I plan on putting
> in a drop ceiling with can lights.
>
> I was thinking about spacing the 6-inch cans about 6 feet apart. Is
> that too close? That's a lot of lights (roughly 36) which seems like
> too much to me. Any thoughts/recommendations? Assuming 75W lights
> (total of 2700W), I'll probably need two or three separate 15A circuits
> for them as well, correct?
>
> Another option is flourescent but I'm not sure I want to go that route.
> Doesn't look that nice and placement is not as flexible.

Depends on what you want/intend to use the room for. I did recessed in
the basement initially and thought the same thing -- seemed like far
more than should be necessary so cut back. Big mistake! The actually
lighting effectiveness of the recessed fixtures is really not good so
if you want good illumination for activities that need it, you want to
go more rather than less. If they're only 75W each, definitely need
that. I'd place them on separate circuits for area control depending
on the area's intended use. A total of 12-1400 W per 15A circuit keeps
you at the roughly 80% load range which isn't a bad target.


Posted by Art on November 29, 2006, 3:36 pm


A lot of people (including me) are buying flourescent for their canned
lighting these days. Works well but takes a few minutes to get fully
bright. But canned lighting does not go very far. You want the basement to
be bright and cheerful. We went with recessed panel flourescents in our
finished basement and haven't regretted it.


> I'm finishing about 1300 square feet of my basement. I plan on putting
> in a drop ceiling with can lights.
>
> I was thinking about spacing the 6-inch cans about 6 feet apart. Is
> that too close? That's a lot of lights (roughly 36) which seems like
> too much to me. Any thoughts/recommendations? Assuming 75W lights
> (total of 2700W), I'll probably need two or three separate 15A circuits
> for them as well, correct?
>
> Another option is flourescent but I'm not sure I want to go that route.
> Doesn't look that nice and placement is not as flexible.
>
> Thanks,
> Kevin
>



Posted by on November 29, 2006, 4:59 pm



blah@blah.com wrote:
> I'm finishing about 1300 square feet of my basement. I plan on putting
> in a drop ceiling with can lights.
>
> I was thinking about spacing the 6-inch cans about 6 feet apart. Is
> that too close? That's a lot of lights (roughly 36) which seems like
> too much to me. Any thoughts/recommendations? Assuming 75W lights
> (total of 2700W), I'll probably need two or three separate 15A circuits
> for them as well, correct?
>
> Another option is flourescent but I'm not sure I want to go that route.
> Doesn't look that nice and placement is not as flexible.
>
> Thanks,
> Kevin

Don't pull something out of your butt (or someone else's) for something
like this. Google for "lighting level calculations" to use some tools
to properly determine your required fixture density for the lighting
level that you want.

BRW


Posted by JP on November 29, 2006, 7:34 pm


I guess it depends on what you want to use the basement for and what your
definition of "bright" is. The setup you suggest (36 x 75w bulbs) is going
to be factory bright. In my 720 sq ft. basement I did the same thing (drop
ceiling, 6-in. cans) for two rooms (home theater and bedroom). I used 12
cans with 50w mini-floods (you see them mostly in track lighting) and we
like it fine. Six of the cans shine straight down on the floor for areas
where you need to see your footing (stair landings and doors), and the rest
are eyeballs that we put about 1 ft. from the wall and trained on the walls
to diffuse the light and highlight wall hangings. Using that few places a
couple areas in shadow but that was the effect we wanted, and we supplement
the ceiling lamps with a couple of table lamps as needed for reading.

Whether it's too bright or not will also depend on the wall and floor
colors. We used tongue-in-groove pine paneling on the walls with clear
urethane and medium green w2w carpet, and the amount of light is just right.
With off-white drywall walls and lighter carpeting or tile, we'd probably
replace the bulbs with weaker ones.

One note about fluorescent: Just for grins I replaced one of the 50w
eyeballs with a 14w fluorescent bulb. The fluorescent bulb is way, way
brighter, almost painfully bright in comparison with the mini-flood.

Good luck with your project!
John in MD


> I'm finishing about 1300 square feet of my basement. I plan on putting
> in a drop ceiling with can lights.
>
> I was thinking about spacing the 6-inch cans about 6 feet apart. Is
> that too close? That's a lot of lights (roughly 36) which seems like
> too much to me. Any thoughts/recommendations? Assuming 75W lights
> (total of 2700W), I'll probably need two or three separate 15A circuits
> for them as well, correct?
>
> Another option is flourescent but I'm not sure I want to go that route.
> Doesn't look that nice and placement is not as flexible.
>
> Thanks,
> Kevin
>



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