www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Good evening everyone, we are hoping to get some helpful advice on LED downlights please. Our sons room is quite dark. It is 4.5m x 2.7m and 2.2m high and currently has 1 x single pennant in the middle of the ceiling with a 100 watt lamp fitted. We would like to replace this with LED downlights but after looking into LED downlights, it's all a bit confusing with so many variations available and for many applications. Due to the room being dark, we think Natural White would be the best colour to brighten it up but unsure what LED wattage we would require, how many lumens, what beam angle and how many downlights are needed for the room size. The bedroom has the loft above it so access from above to run cable is OK, but it does have loft insulation so would we need fire rated or non fire rated or some kind of heat shield cone over the top of each downlights to keep the loft insulation off them? And also do all downlights have their own transformer or are there some that just run off the mains? Thanks very much in advance for any help you can give us,
Andy

I find down lights give poor lighting unless you have lots as they only give a pool of light.
If you want a bright light and are not fussed about it being fancy I have this in my bath room quite literately brilliant!
https://www.sylvania-lighting.com/produ ... s/0043265/

toolbox wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:47 am If you want a bright light and are not fussed about it being fancy I have this in my bath room quite literately brilliant!
https://www.sylvania-lighting.com/produ ... s/0043265/

Hmmmmm That page clearly says "We're sorry, but this product is not currently available at any of our preferred retailers."

Shame, I got one from screwfix just before Christmas.

draco#12 , although it sounds an easy to answer question, what you ask has an infinite number of answers which in turn means you will not get a precise answer. (It really depends on what you want)
I can however offer some information.

How many lumens depends on how bright you want the room to be. (The darker the walls the more lights you should have)
Beam angle will depend on where you want the light to cover
Number of lights is a mixture of above.

Regarding fire rated/heat shield That is a popular misconception. The idea of a fire rated fixture is so that if there is a fire in the room the flames can not get to the floor above via the light fitting. Most will opt for a fire rated light "to be sure" when there is no need.

You should never cove any type of light fitting with insulation, the insulation will never catch fire, but it will cause the lamp to over heat and fail.
LED lamps do not use transformers, they have "drivers" which are not the same.
Most are going away from such lamps as you can get "GU10" (That's a fitting type) LED lamps which are 240v

You can not dim LED lamps (You can pulse them very fast) so a simple and effective alternative 1/3 2/3

Say you have 3 lights in a row, 1, 2 & 3
You have 2 switches.
1 switch operates lamps 1 & 3
1 switch operates lamp 2

So if you want a not bright light you just have lamp 2 lit.
If you want it brighter, you turn off lamp 2 and turn on lamps 1 & 3 (You just press a switch)
If you want it brighter still you turn on lamp 2 as well

Obviously the bigger the room the more lights you have but try to keep to multiples of 3.

You can get online light guides, that you answer some questions and it works it out for you, but I have never tried one.

@someone-else has given some good advice, light energy is converted to heat energy when it lands on anything dark. So we aim light to something light to reflect and spread to light, in most cases this is the ceiling not the floor.

At my bed head on the wall to read with I have two spots, turn these to light the ceiling and the room is reasonable lit, turn them down as designed and just two pools of light to read with.

So on the ceiling size matters, 800 lumen from a spot (9 watt) is useless but 800 lumen from a 10" lamp will light the room reasonable. So 2 x 800 lumen 10" or 4 times 600 lumen spots and the two lights will likely do a better job.

In my living room was 2 x 100W changed to 6 x 40W then when we went energy saving 10 x 8W compact fluorescent these were useless so fitted 10 x 3W LED seemed brighter, however when we tried to read not good enough so want to 10 x 5W so with candle bulbs facing up, likely you need 5 x 5W LED.

With 2" ceiling lights likely 8 x 7W.