Lighting Cans and Efficiency
richbankhead
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
I have a Northwest home and the original owner surely liked cans for lighting. That would equate to about 70 cans for about 2000 sq. ft. The house was built in 1985 with R-38 fiber glass blown into the attic. Reading the articles in the Energy Efficient Homebuilding book…this doesn’t seem like the best situation due to the considerable air leakage through and around the cans. Any thoughts?
Replies
Sounds like its time to update the ceiling and lighting. Of course you are right on about heat loss , plus the added heat transfer, plus your electric bill, plus a very poor form of lighting in the first place . I just installed two can lights in my office to run separately from a fan light . 75 watts is used in the fan light , and it lights up the room very nicely. The cans have 75 watts apeice and the only thing they will be good for is to sit at this computer, with out the fan light turned on. I have no heat loss because there is a non insulated floor above , but Im very dissatisfied with the lights. What I should have done is put flouresents in their place . 40 watts would have blown me away with light. I just got done redoing my gameroom in the basement and changed to 8 ft flooresents. Im very happy . I know that my resolution wont work for you in your living room , but I think light fans would. Ive been using floresents in kitchens and baths for a long time . Im getting old and I need better light . My remodel is on a 30 year old home , so I wasnt blessed with modern ideas either.
My thoughts .
Tim Mooney
Thanks for the input, but hanging new ceiling is a bit of a chore...especially since the house is also fire sprinkled...everything would have to be dropped. I guess I could cover the holes. Again a huge task..not sure I would ever be able to get the ceiling to look as if it didn't have cans for light at one time. Sometimes the solutions are never easy. Any other suggestions?
You can replace the cans with IC rate AIR TIGHT ones. I assume that you have access to the attic side. But I believe that there are rework ones available.
Also you can build an seal box around around them. I have heard of people using drywall. Keep it 3" away from the can shells.
There are old work IC cans available. I just installed some and they really put out the heat.
Recessed can lights are the dumbest form of lighting.
1] Mention has already been made that they leak heat up thru the cieling.
2] They are inflexible in position. They generally have to be laid out "just so", as Martha Stuart, the insider trader [alleged], would say. Thus you may be forced to install one exactly where a ceiling joist or a bottom truss chord happens to be so you have to do extra work cutting said item. With an outlet, 4 square box, you only have to make a shallow notch.
3] The light spread is generally limited, as Mr. Mooney mentioned. Once they're in, they're in and you can't move them over a foot to get light where you need it. All they can do is illuminate a circle on the carpet below.
4] Furthermore, the insides of the can are painted flat black for decorative purposes. This absorbs more of the expensive lumens you are creating with your fireless illumination source.
5] Structurally, they are pieces of flimsy junk. You try to line them up to the nearest 1/16" of an inch and they wobble all over. That's frustrating.
Your best bet is a keyless porcelein receptacle.
-Peter
When you come to a fork in the road, pick it up. Otherwise somebody might get their tire punctured.
"you may be forced to install one exactly where a ceiling joist or a bottom truss chord happens to be so you have to do extra work cutting said item."
People that cut my trusses make me cranky. PMS has nothing on me when I see that someone's butchered up my stuff.
Don't screw with the truss guy.............
I have the body of a God. Buddha.
Dear Mr. Hog,
I wouldn't ever do that. I wouldn't ever do that. However I was just pointing out one of the layout problems with recessed can lights. They, the lilac loving designers, want them centered and spaced out evenly despite what the ceiling joist/truss layout is.
-Peter
I have the body of a god. Uranus.
I didn't really think you were serious. I was mostly just poking fun.
How many Dull Men does it take to change a light bulb?......One
Energy-efficiency-wise flourscent reflector bulbs would help. Both in electric consumption and in heat loss since the fixture wouldn't be nearly so hot. It would help much in the air leakage through the fixtures, though.
If my own place, I'd leave some incandescent bulbs in the mix (20% or so) so that there is an instant-on effect with full lighting happening a second or two later.
I've also used compact flourscents when the original fixtures don't provide enough light. Maybe limited to 60 watts. But a 24-watt flourscent will put out the equivalent of 100 watts while staying way under the heat limits.
Caution: Mixing flourescent and incandescent bulbs in a closed fixture can burn out the flourescent bulbs prematurely. They don't take the heat generated by the incandescent bulbs well.
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
Off topic Boss. All of a sudden I'm losing your tags. They are smaller than all get out.
What gives??????? Has prospero done something?????? I've resized my settings thinking the kids screwed with it to no avail.
Help I miss them so.
Yo Jet -
I haven't changed anything lately. I'll try something different with this one, though. Then I'll reply to Tim Mooney's post a slightly different way.
Let me know if one looks different that the other.........
Today I dialed a wrong number... The other person said, "Hello?" "
I said, "Hello, could I speak to Joey?"... "
They said, "Uh... I don't think so... he's only 2 months old." "
I said, "I'll hold."
I see yours just fine but don't see tim's. What did you do different???
In my IE 6.0, when I go to the View drop down, Change Text Size and change from medium to something smaller, I too lose Boss's tag lines, but nothing else on this forum changes. I noticed this first when my kids messed with the settings, and I happened to remember it. FWIW
Edit: I might add that I'm on a 21" at 1280x1024, 32-bit. Your results may vary.
Be seeing you...
Edited 10/2/2002 2:17:04 PM ET by TDKPE
All fixed. between the view thing and boss's thing it's all good.
And now I have to find a better bed.
Mine is too hard.
My kids is too soft.
But DW is just right.
what are you doing sleeping on the dishwasher?Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
Forget the primal scream, just Roar!
ROAR. DW is gonna love that one.
I thought that comment I made was going to go in the toilet. But your's takes the cake. 30 milkbones for you.
Or for those out there who are up on this, "Deux morceaux de robots."
I am laughing my butt off here . Sounds exactly like you though, hope you don't mind me saying it ! That was funnnnny! Ok, I know you were serious , but these are the times I spoke of before that I call you humorous. Remember " kick in the pants "?
Tim Mooney
"kick in the pants ?"
No, I'd have to say I don't remember that one............
A skeleton walked into a bar. "What'll it be?", asked the bartender. "I'll have a beer and a mop,"
On my browser, the Joey one is legible, the other one is not.
I'll try playing around with my tag line settings and see what happens...........
Is this one big enough ???
The early worm gets caught.
The one to me is perfect. the one to Tim is too small. The one to Uncle Dunc is quite large.
Ditto. The one to jet is perfect. The one to Tim is too small. The one to me is too large.
"My tag line is too small"
"My tag line is too big"
"My tag line is just right"
.
Dang, you guys sound like Goldilocks and the three bears..................(-:
Actually, I think I've found the problem. I was trying to make the tag line a different size so it would be obvious it wasn't part of the regular post. I don't like the tag lines that are the same size and color so they look like part of the post.
Like: Excellence is it's own reward!
(Don't remember who's tag line that one is.................(-:
Anyway, the problem should be fixed. Thanks fer letting me know about it.
I called the family doctor this morning and said: "My Wife dislocated her jaw - do you think we could get an appointment in a week or two?"
In the olden days, before the world wide web, there was e-mail, which did not contain virus bearing attachments, and usenet newsgroups. In both of these kinds of messages, the convention for distinguishing signature text (which could include things like your tag lines) from message text was that the lines of signature text each began with two dashes.
-- Like this
Check to see if you have the right wattage and reflector type lamps. You can get internal reflectors for flourescent lamps if the heat and energy savings really bother you.
Yeah, I've got the right bulbs. Thanks
Yes I do have an idea . Take a circle cutter , and cut some sheet rock the sizes of the holes , put plywood strips behind the holes and srew it off. Then let a finisher come in with a good reputation, and tell him to get after it . Of course you will have to fix the wiring , but you do have access. Im a finisher , and its a peice of cake , just work is all. Im saying this because you mention that you are not comfortable getting it to look right. A finisher does it all the time , just another day at the office ! LOL Get every thing ready and masked off for him and he will be there 8 billable hours is my guess, but if its 16 , its the cheapest way.
Tim Mooney
Just saw a new house built for a pal of mine. He has tons of cans. I mean TONS of cans. They are IC and sealed. He works for a division of Thomas Industries who also owns Capri/Omega brand lighting division. His division makes flours and HID lights. He got his cans free or at cost. He also has advanced lighting controls and he has added his old X10 stuff to the loop too for some of the light circuits. It works for him. If only the plumbers and roofers had been as good as the electrical engineers from his office that installed the lights! You can make cans work. You just have to work at it. My folks have them in their den. Their house is pretty old so they leak air badly. They kept smelling a 'wet fireplace' smell from the fireplace insert. I put that sticky backed celophane they use in food packaging across all the cans for a while and it went away. Of course, not a perm solution since can't use lights with it up there and the shiny spots look funny...