Cable bushing and wire connectors of the right size are necessary for proper installation. You'll also need the following tools:. Locate the correct breaker and turn off the power supply to the switch outlet where you're going to connect the lights. Position the lights according to how you laid them out earlier.
Take apart the lights and screw them where you want them to go. To make this easier, you may want to use a pencil to mark the bottom of the cabinets. Depending on your backsplash, you may have to peel it away from where you're installing the lights.
Then, you should cut a channel behind the backsplash using your drywall saw. The channel should stretch from under the switch box to right near the farthest light. Finally, use the drill to bore a hole through the studs so you can run the wire.
On the bottom of each cabinet, use the drill again to make a hole for the wire for each light to come through. This is where you might need the wire fish to run the wires down the wall from one fixture, through the channel, and to the next fixture. Beginning with the farthest fixture from the switch, run electrical wire from one fixture to another.
We recommend leaving about one foot of cord at each opening. At the farthest fixture, you'll have a foot of cord hanging out the end, and the fixture next to it will have two cords hanging out one entering and one exiting. Do this for every light until you get to the one closest to the switch. This light needs one length of wire coming from the switch box and one leaving the light on its other side. At the closest fixture to the switch, connect the wires with the wire nuts.
You should connect the black fixture wire with one wire on the electrical wire in the wall with the plug on the end, and one wire heading to the next fixture. Do the same for the white fixture wire. At the switch outlet, make sure the electricity isn't on and then remove the receptacle. Where is the center of your countertop, and how much light do you want over your work area?
The surface of the countertop will also tell you how much bounce-back there can be. Spacing between these lights can be 12 inches of spacing along their chosen strip.
The 6-inch lights are also called puck lights since they resemble hockey pucks. As these are larger, you need less of these lights underneath your cabinets. Because of their size, you need to be careful where they go so they will fit properly. But as long as you have enough installation room, they can be placed where they fit best.
The measurements for each must also be uniform so all the lights appear aligned under the cabinets. Give each puck at least 1- 1 feet of spacing between each other for uniformity. This all depends on your desire to have more illuminating lighting. With lights that are placed further back toward the wall, details are obscured. But not exclusively, since the working surface can have a bounce-back effect. This is from a countertop that bounces light due to its smooth texture.
The further backlights are placed would also be a good reason to use angled lighting. This helps point light more toward the center of the countertop. If you bring the lights closer to you inside the cabinets, this gives better light for highly detailed kitchen work. Using a temporary stick-on LED light to locate and play with this lighting distance beforehand.
This is a good way to find what works best for your needs. If you use 4-inch lights, a strip of lighting can include 3- 4 along the bottom of a cabinet. With 6-inch lights, the amount is less with only under a cabinet for clearance. The issue is with how many lights the LEDs can light-up. Since LEDs provide a lot of light, you have to be careful about how many are used. This makes your kitchen look too bright or it can make people feel uncomfortable.
To solve this you can do a couple of simple tricks. Lower the light level using a LED dimmer if that model allows dimming. You can also use special transparent paint that reduces the glare. These round circles can be inserted into the recessed LED puck frame. This can reduce the amount of light glare. This is why you need to add the right amount of watts rated for a single circuit to handle. The washing machine or refrigerator can cause surges on the line cause the circuit to blow. Your LED lights will also have fewer flicker issues if they have a direct power line too.
The problem is that these may create shadows in areas of your countertop that look unpleasing. You want to space your lights at least inches from each other so you have higher light saturation. Add a kit that runs on a specific LED dimmer to control the brightness.
If you like color-changing lights, add these so add variety. Having LED lights too far back on your cabinets does have some negative aspects. Because these lights are further back, the amount of back-shadow on objects on your work counter is increased. The level of bounced light might be able to fix this problem but not always.
This helps at lighting-up foods and items on the countertop. In the case the lights are too close to your countertop, the light will be too bright and you get more shadows.
Let just say that you have a different kind of cabinet setup that has high cabinets or bridge-like overhangs. These overhangs are where recessed lighting is added in addition to hanging cabinets.
If you bought smaller 4-inch recessed LED lights, these might be too low for the Lumen you need. You can buy stronger LED lights and put the lower Lumen lights somewhere else. Perhaps these lights would be best for lighting up the inside of sink cabinets or deep drawers instead. There is a silver lining in every situation, so this problem can be solved. The easiest way to solve this is to either replace your lights with stronger ones or add more lights in between the line that you have already.
In most cases, a well-placed light in the middle of each spaced LED will do the trick. If this is a case of the light not being enough, you have to use LED lights with higher Lumen output.
A good measurement between lights is 12 inches to 1. The sad part about recessed lighting is that this rumor was started by interior decorators. It was overused in the s for the most part. All the problems it caused by overheating incandescent and burnt-out bulbs, made it costly to maintain and install.
LED recessed light in the kitchen has a modern look that is ambient and beautiful. LED lights are not very hot at all since they have cooling vents on the top that cool-off quickly.
You can get away with using LED lights underneath cabinets in this size kitchen. LED lights along two hanging cabinets will be efficient with 3 lights underneath for each.
In a bigger kitchen like this, you need to have no less than LED lights. Long banks of hanging cabinets will likely be meters in length. For each cabinet, you will have lights under each.
I feel that larger kitchens like this can have more lights if there are more cabinets. In the kitchen, you want to have 30 lumens per square foot. It can be higher but under a cabinet, the amount of lumen produced by just one is lumens.
This is why you might want to consider using a dimmer. This helps control over-lighting issues. This might sound odd to mention though it does happen often enough. At this point you will have the connected downlights hanging from the ceiling.
All the remains is insert the light into place. Generally there are springs on the side of the light unit which is going to be recessed into the ceiling. Squeeze these in so that the light can be pushed up into the hole that you have cut out. As the light slides into the hole, the wire catches will catch on the ceiling and force out the springs so that they push down on the upper side of the ceiling boards holding the light unit in place.
There are a number of things to consider when selecting downlights. It used to be popular to use 12 V lights in kitchens and bathrooms because they offered a better light and also had the benefit of being lower voltage, however they need a transformer to step the voltage down which will get hot so needs to be ventilated.
With the advent of LED lights, there is no need to go for 12 volt lights as LEDs come in all the different light intensities and colours you could want and have dimmable versions, so there is no real benefit to using 12 Volt anymore. It is less complicated to simply stick with Volt.
They also get hot so consideration needs to be given to ventilation. They are a little more expensive, but well worth the extra cost. For us it is LEDs everytime. As we mentioned above, the ceiling is an important fire barrier to slow the spread of a fire to upper floors. Peppering this with holes will not help, so you should fill these holes with fire rated lights and in many cases the regulations will ensure you have to — see more information in the Building Regulations Approved Document B all about fire safety.
You must consider the safety zones in bathroom where the lights are going to be fitted which you can find all about here as you will need to use IP rated lights in these zones. You need to ensure that you are using the right IP rated light in the zone you are planning to have the lights fitted.
There are acoustic rated downlights which you can consider using if there is a problem with noise from the floor above. Integrated downlights are lights where the blub is fitted inside them and cannot be removed — integrated. Because LED bulbs have such a long life it is considered that they will outlast the life of the lightitself, or at least provide sufficient life.
With standard downlighters you can change the bulb as normal. Which offer more flexibility should you need to, or if you want to change to a different tone light. The big danger is that if one light fails and you cannot get a matching replacement, if the model has been discontinued for example which might well happen in the long life of these lights , then you have to replace the whole lot if you want them to match. Fitting, replacing or adding downlighters to your ceiling is a job that can easily be done yourself.
All project content written and produced by Mike Edwards , founder of DIY Doctor and industry expert in building technology. Find a tradesman now! We love feedback on our DIY tutorials it helps us to make them the best they possibly can be so if you have any comments you would like to share with us, click the button below and let us know.
Skip to primary navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar Skip to footer Main navigation. Search this website. Blog DIY Competitions. Twitter Facebook Pin It Buffer. Project Page Menu. Fitting Down Light Spots There are really only 4 steps to fitting ceiling spots: Positioning the downlights Fitting the downlights into ceiling Wiring the lights Inserting the down light unit.
Position the down-lights to cast light one work surfaces — Image courtesy of Ablelectrics The number of lights needed will depend on the brightness of the lamp or bulb and what you are going to use the space for.
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