Lighting & design budgets
Your home’s artificial lighting will require careful planning early on to make the most of opportunities, says Tim Doherty
Most of us struggle to get the quality, frequency and variety of artificial lighting ideally balanced in our homes, especially if these decisions are being made late in the chaos of a building site. It’s quite an art to get your artificial illumination right – an illthought through design reliant on the ubiquitous recessed spotlight and dimmer switch combination is unlikely to produce an aesthetically pleasing result. So it’s much better to have help early on, carefully considering how every individual room will be used at different times throughout the day and perhaps working up mood boards.
Measuring light
Manufacturers will label bulbs (known as lamps by the trade) in terms of the products’ Lumen output, Lux intensity and their Kelvin shade/warmth. These are how different elements of the light is measured: brightness in Lumens; and intensity (or spread per m2) in Lux. To put this into context, 800 Lumens generally does well to replicate normal daylight inside the home. The Kelvin (K) scale works to identify the tone of the light, with the warmer yellow/orange tints set at around 2,000K-3,000K and colder white/blue hues at 4,000K-8,000K.
Many self build homes include an open-plan kitchen, dining and family zone as the central hub, where different lighting demands are required as the daily routine evolves – task lamps in the kitchen, relaxed/warm illumination at the dining table and a cosy, fireside ambience for watching movies on the sofa. Experienced interior designers taking a holistic approach to the artificial illumination will include a mixture of different fittings. Think overhead lighting
to provide directional wash over wall and floor surfaces, uplighters to do the same with walls and ceilings, pendants to highlight features and table lamps to soften the mood.
Directional lamps can help to reduce glare, while dimmers are useful for softening intensity and the general
Minimum specs
Conventional lights are connected to a circuit (either a ring/loop or a radial, which travels in one direction) that feeds to the consumer unit (the fuse board). There are usually separate circuits for ground and first floors – there are likely to be several in each storey in larger properties.
Each circuit is protected by a 6-amp miniature breaker (MCB) that works to keep it safe from overload. The whole
Lighting costs
As with all building products, prices vary enormously; the cost of different light fittings presented below are purely a guide. Although many folks leave it to the electrician to supply these, if lighting is important to you then it’s better to visit suppliers and look into the options – much like you would with other elements, such as bathroom fittings. layering of light will create striking architectural shadows thanks to strategically placed features, blinds and curtains. It’s worth bearing in mind that the colour of your walls and ceilings will contribute to the amount of reflection – for instance, darker hues tend to absorb rather than transfer.
system is protected by a minimum of two residual circuit devices (RCDS) that are there to guard against any earth leakage (and human shocks).
The below table is a rough template for how many fittings are needed in different rooms – it’s easy to see how numbers can escalate. Adding a porch light and then four external flood lights would tip the total over 100 with around 25-30 light switches.
It’s difficult to isolate the overall labour costs of having your artificial illumination installed as this will be carried out as part of the overall electrical installation at both the first and second fix stages. However, lighting will represent about half of the electrician’s work in the house and it usually takes two weeks for first fix and another two for second and final commissioning.
Upgrade options
Smart technology is fast becoming a more affordable choice, with lighting controls at the heart of the automated home. Common options include multiple push button switches where three, four or five pre-set mood levels can be selected, each then graded with a dimmer. These require independent cabling and a central controller/relay for each zone (usually one room); however, one criticism of these systems is that a slight delayed response can cause the user to keep pressing buttons. Control via mobile phones and tablets is also an option, with some systems allowing you to change things even when you’re not home. For more on smart lighting see page 87.
In addition to purely technological upgrades, you may want to incorporate some more theatrical lighting, such as illuminated wall recesses or a perimeter channel around a dropped suspended ceiling. In combination with a central chandelier, these features can help to create a bit of drama and atmosphere. Stair lighting is increasingly common and subtle directional illumination can also help to separate zones within an otherwise open plan layout.
External lighting
Not simply a way to guide you to the front door when you get home in the dark, external lighting can be used to enhance garden features. Rather than closing the blinds or curtains, an internal space can be enhanced by switching on the outside lighting so that you can see a dramatically staged set – especially where there might be a pond, pergola, pool or illuminated specimen trees.
Obviously there is some expense incurred with external lighting but its installation is becoming increasingly easy thanks to robust external sockets and switches, flexible armoured cables (which can travel through planters) and uplighters mounted on spikes. A useful recent innovation is the ability to set the sensitivity and time delay for some external security lights remotely by a device operated at ground level rather than having to do this from a ladder.