# Forum Home Renovation Lighting  Lighting - Later downlights

## SWMBO

We are currently renovating and having 3 rooms added/rebuilt.  In the kitchen and family room I would like to keep our options open with regard to down lights but just install hanging pendant lights for now. My husband hates downlights and believes it makes a home look like an office. 
Would we just ask the electrician to run wiring for the possible future down lights and just have him leave 3 pin sockets (power points) above the ceiling in case we want to instal them later. He could put an extra switch on the wall but it would do nothing yet.  It would be difficult to put in wires later as it is flat roof. I know where I would put the lights if we ever do instal them.
That way if we want  them installed later perhaps we could fit them ourselves and just plug them in. Would that be legal?

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## seriph1

fit the downlights and don't turn them on    :Biggrin:

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## SWMBO

I should add that apart from my husband hating down lights, I myself am confused by all the different types of lights and the more I read about LEDs etc the more confused I get. So I also would be happy to put the decision on which down lights to instal on hold until I can convince my husband and know more clearly what would be best type to install. We will have 3m ceiling height.

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## seriph1

It can be very confusing wading through the huge number of lighting options  -  on the one hand you try to have good general lighting but on the other, task lights can really make a room homely and are practical when reading or just wanting focus on one space/area/item. There are professionals who have great expertise in such things  -  I am not one of them though lighting is something I have to seriously consider when designing.  
Kitchens often fall very far short in the lighting dept. but we are getting better at it. Many of the TV renovation shows give some great tips on lighting too, but there are also a large number of books available that detail how to light a room for various functions/effects. 
Betterworldbooks.com has a couple of hundred books available  -  they are an anti-landfill site that provides new and used books of all kinds at what I find to be utterly unbeatable prices.  The Home Lighting Effects Bible by Lucy Martin - Reviews, Description & more - ISBN#9781554077106 - BetterWorldBooks.com   
You mention your home has 3 metre ceilings  -  is it a Bungalow or similar style period home? If so, I may be able to assist with some suggestions.

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## SWMBO

> You mention your home has 3 metre ceilings  -  is it a Bungalow or similar style period home? If so, I may be able to assist with some suggestions.

  Thanks for your help Steve 
I always get confused with house types but it is a large 100 year old,4 bedroom, stone home with iron roof. Ceilings in all existing area areas are 3.4M and will be 3.0m in the new areas. 
The new areas will consist of a Kitchen 25m2 and Family room 50m2 which are basically open plan separated by a 3.5m long bench. These two rooms will be under main roof so an electrician could easily instal lighting there later but it might be simpler to just make allowance for down lights now. Dining room(25m2) is a separate room under a flat roof as is the new laundry (7m2). These are the rooms I would like to definitely ask the electrician to make allowance for down lights later if I can convince my husband it would be an improvement. I would not like to have to start having the roofing removed to install wiring later. We have been to display homes and he is very disparaging of the down lights. He thinks they look sterile and like an office not a home. Mind you he says that about most things in the display homes.

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## Bruiser

The answer to your question is Yes.  Make sure you have enough clearance - downlights need about 150mm or more, plus space for the transformer.  (I agree with HWMO, but you didn't ask about that!)

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## Smurf

Personally there's no way I'd install downlights for general illumination in a home simply because they are truly awful as a means of providing general illumination. They are a classic example of something which looks fashionable but which doesn't actually do the job very well at all in most cases. 
That said, if you really want them then LED's are the way to go certainly. You'll be saving 80%+ on power and you don't need the huge gaps in insulation and airflow to the roof space that halogens create. 
LED downlights - OK as such but personally I don't like the appearance. If you really want downlights then this is the way to go. 
Halogen downlights - a fire hazard that use a ridiculous amount of energy. Rather than worrying about ordinary light bulbs, they should have banned halogen downlights instead since they use more energy than you'll ever use in a practical situation with ordinary bulbs. That plus you're forever changing globes with these downlights too simply because you end up with so many of them, each of which doesn't last that long.  
It's personal choice. I'm no climate change fanatic but it might be true (it's a bit hard to know due to politics getting in the way of proper science) so I can't see the point in wasting energy on halogen downlights when literally every other lighting option uses less power and most of them do a better job too. There's no point polluting for the sake of it when you don't have to. Get LED if you really want downlights.  :Biggrin:

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