Lighting

If you replace a standard suspended light fixture with a single recessed light you will probably be disappointed. Most conventional lighting fixtures that are suspended from ceilings are designed to spread light all throughout the room. In fact, many light fixtures reflect more than 50 percent of their light off the ceiling before it comes down into the room. Recessed lights can't do that. Because the fixture is recessed into the ceiling the beam of light is focused down and does not reflect off the ceiling. You can still fill a room with light using recessed lighting, but it generally takes a lot more than just one lamp positioned in the middle of the ceiling.

Because of this limitation, the most important concept to understand when designing a recessed lighting layout is beam angle. The light coming down out of a recessed light fixture is in the shape of a cone. Usually this cone is no bigger than 60 or 70 degrees wide. This is called the beam angle. By the time the light gets to the floor, it will be a 8 to 10 foot circle of light. Of this circle of light, only the middle 5 or 6 feet is good quality light; with the outer foot or 2 scattered and much less intense. If the light is pointed down on a table, or at a painting, then the cone of light will be even smaller. This makes recessed lighting great for spot lighting key features of a room. For example - recessed lighting works great above a kitchen countertop, above a desk in the den or pointed down on a painting on the living room wall.

If you want to use only recessed lighting in a room, the best way to plan it out is to start with a floor plan of the room. Then draw in the circles that represent the beam angles of the lighting fixtures and lamps you plan to use. For example, a 65 degree beam angle light will produce a 10 foot diameter circle of light on the floor if the light is 8 feet above the floor. This does not mean we want to space the lights 10 feet apart. Since the light is only good in the middle 5 or 6 feet, it is generally a good rule of thumb to space the lights 5 or 6 feet apart. The next step would be to draw out 6 foot diameter circles in the floor plan and space them about 5 feet apart to get a little overlap. Since you won't get lamp overlap at the walls, space the first light in a row about half that distance from the wall. So the first light would be about 30 inches from the wall, and the rest 5 feet apart.

This will give you good overall light coverage for the standard room in a house. For task lighting, such as kitchen counter tops and bathroom mirrors, 4 foot light spacing or less is best. This is because the lighted surface is much closer to the recessed lights. After you have done this, if you want more intense lighting for a dining room table or pictures on the wall, it is best to add additional recessed lights. Putting these additional lights on a separate dimmer and switch will give you maximum flexibility, and control of the lighting in your house.