Low Voltage Lighting

[GTP 320]

I'm in the process of planning building a new home in the new year,just your opinions on low voltage lighting.I quite like them and im looking at getting around 120 lights installed in the home,are they economical and do they give a good spread of light beam ?
Cheers John

[ebxr8240]

Yes I have them in most the house..They are not intrusive and set up with dimmer/s are excellent!!! They last heaps longer than incondecant lights..BUT use quality fittings, the cheaper fittings need screw type connectors and pita to fit new globes latter...Sheeeesh 120 ?

[Husaberg-man]

Use a mixture of low voltage (dichroic and burner or pin type), incandescent, and even the new T5 flouros. To many LVs will make your house look like a landing strip, the light doesnt spread far outside of teh cone and it can be hard on the eyes.

Yes I am an electrical contractor and have done a lot of lighting jobs with some of melbournes best architects.
Get some architectural magazines and have a look around. Try the inlite web site as they have some reasonably priced stuff that looks great.
By cheap stuff and you will have to pay a mug like me to replace it in 3-5 years.

Mr Sparky

[wulos]

sure they may look & operate great...
lets look at a few facts first. With you average sized room you will need 4-6 LV downlights fitted with 55w globes. as the fittings are recessed, they tend to be more of a pinpoint light spread(directional) rather then providing a better flood of lighting.
You can effectively light the same area with a single oldschool incandescant lamp of 60w, or using the new energy saving miniature flourescent type globes(11w). compared to 220-330w using the LV downlights. Ultimately lighting is ALL about mood & atmosphere. You need to work out what you want to achieve, & weigh that off against the cost of initial purchase, & running costs.

[Charliewool]

Originally Posted by wulos

sure they may look & operate great...
lets look at a few facts first. With you average sized room you will need 4-6 LV downlights fitted with 55w globes. as the fittings are recessed, they tend to be more of a pinpoint light spread(directional) rather then providing a better flood of lighting.
You can effectively light the same area with a single oldschool incandescant lamp of 60w, or using the new energy saving miniature flourescent type globes(11w). compared to 220-330w using the LV downlights. Ultimately lighting is ALL about mood & atmosphere. You need to work out what you want to achieve, & weigh that off against the cost of initial purchase, & running costs.

Not being a sparkie, but when you use a 24volt 55watt downlight compared to a 240volt 60watt normal type lamp, Isn't the low voltage heaps more efficent? Something about a watts/voltage = amps formula??

[free-energy64]

Just something to think about is the huge waste of power these downlights use(they're a small heater),not to mention the air gaps which mean you loose warm air in the winter and lets in hot air in the summer. If you are fixed on downlights LED replacement bulbs can be fitted which will last for years longer than di-chloric(halogen)bulbs but are a bit pricey. Compact fluoro's are the cheapest to run energy wise.IMOP I would opt for a recessed fitting which can accommodate a compact fluoro bulb.
Just my 5 cents worth.

[Walkinshaw]

Our place runs all down lights. One room has 26 x 100w normal globes. Sure they spread the light better, but you should pay the power bill.

If we could build again low-voltage would be the go.

[Electric]

Originally Posted by charliewool

Not being a sparkie, but when you use a 24volt 55watt downlight compared to a 240volt 60watt normal type lamp, Isn't the low voltage heaps more efficent? Something about a watts/voltage = amps formula??

No its all about power, you electricity bill is for the KWh you use KilloWattHours, or how many thousand whats you use per hour.

P=IV power = Current x Voltage

swap it around and you get I=P/V

So from your example you get

60/240 =0.25A
55/24 = 2.29A

So the only difference is that you have greater current flowing for the same power output.

So just as wulos said if you use 6 50 watt Low Voltage downlights to light up your family room and you could achieve the same result with one 11 watt Compact fluorescent.

Then you will be spending almost 30 times as much when your bill comes to do the same thing. Not to mention 30 times as much coal burnt and CO2 in the atmosphere.

At risk of becoming regarded as a tree hugging hippy, I personally have only 4 LV Downlights in my home one in the kitchen, 2 in the hall in front of each linnen cupboard, and above the mirror in the ensuite and a 150W incandescent in each bathroom. The rest of the house has CFLs.

Which are actually seldom used as I have a PV (Photovoltaic) on the roof of the garage, a solar regulator and 300Ah of bateries under the house and these power LED (Light Emitting Diodes) Downlights at the Front door, back steps, back door. As well as in the Hallway all bathrooms and toilets, as well as dim nightlights in each of the kids bedrooms and the WIR. These turn on automatically when the sun go's down, and turn off again in the morning.

Each LED downlight uses between half and 5 watts. I have to use a LV CFL in the family room and lounge though.

And for at least the next 25 years should not cost me another cent. Nor put any greenhous gas into the atmosphere....which allows me to feel less guilty about thrashing about the place consuming vast amounts of Vortex 98 in my Typhoon.

So in answer to GTP 320 your 120 LV downllights, if all turned on at once would draw about 6000W plus a bit for the transformers or inverters need for each light to convert the 240V into 24V or 12V. To do the same job with CFL would be about 220W.

Admittedly you would need to buy pretty light fittings to hide the CFLs but quality LV Downlights are not cheap either.

I would never use LV DL's for more that just mood or ambience lighting, in a handfull of locations within a house.

[wulos]

For the layperson watts is a good measure of power 100w of power @ 10V is basically the same as 100w of power @ 230V (well for the sake of arguments Im ignoring the transformer losses & cabling losses which actually mean that the LV setup is a little more then 100W, but I won't confuse people with the exact reasons for this)
Suffice to say LV downlights ARE more expensive to run, they are less efficient in terms of lumens output (due to the directional aspect of this type of light - similar to putting a globe inside the bottom of a bucket, allows light to emit from the open end only) They ARE quite good at providing another option in terms of mood / ambience, but you should be well aware of the costs behind running these lights full time in a normal house. How many times do you need that romantic 'starlight' type lighting? & is it worth the cost of paying higher running / maintenance costs?(both to your wallet & the environment? when time of use metering comes in & it will NOT be very far away, 3-5yrs, this $$$ factor will be felt even more noticably)

[GTP 320]

Thanks for your constructive comments, you almost make me feel guilty about the tree huggers,but it's going to be my dream home and low voltage will be the go to give it the effect and present.
Looks like the water bill will also be high, as there will be 5 toilets in the house.
Cheers John

One downside is if you have polished floors they will show all the imperfections in the floor.

[GTP 320]

Originally Posted by lizardmech

One downside is if you have polished floors they will show all the imperfections in the floor.

You might be right,but there will be Tiles and carpets only.
Cheers John

[mick.wheelz]

edit: beaten to it

[wulos]

Originally Posted by GTP 320

Thanks for your constructive comments, you almost make me feel guilty about the tree huggers,but it's going to be my dream home and low voltage will be the go to give it the effect and present.
Looks like the water bill will also be high, as there will be 5 toilets in the house.
Cheers John

my comments were not intended upon swaying your judgement, merely helping you to make an informed decision. In my own dream home (if I was given free reign & unlimited funds) I'd most DEFINITELY be fitting downlights in dining room, longueroom / home theatre area (with focal spots used on seperate switch to highlight specific artwork hanging on walls / display cabinet etc)
In kitchen I'd thoroughly recomend usage of directional spots(depending upon size of kitchen 3-4 spots should suffice).
For bathroom/toilet areas Id fit Tastic 3 in 1's with hollywood lights above mirrors(trust me for womens warpaint gives them NO excuses then lol)
Most importantly in shed Id fit a row of fluoros on either side of car 18" off deck with tri phospher tubes (can NEVER have enuff light without shadows under cars for work - though ya prob lucky enuff not to need to work under the gt)