With rising energy costs and a general wish to consume less energy, many homeowners are deciding to install LED recessed lighting. LED recessed fixtures have reached a point in the marketplace where the cost-performance  ratio makes them a viable replacement for older incandescents.

Why choose LED for recessed lighting?  What are some of the differences from traditional incandescent that make LED worth considering?

LED, when performing correctly, uses roughly 25% of the energy of incandescent sources.  This not only leads to energy savings, but fewer watts equates to less heat in the lit spaces.  LED will produce a quarter of the heat of incandescent, and even that small amount of heat is filtered up through the top of the recessed fixture, rather than projected downward like a flood lamp in an incandescent fixture.

Today’s LEDs are reliable and rated operating life can exceed fifteen years.  Imagine not having to get up on a ladder and change a light bulb until your toddlers go off to college!  If you tire of bulb-changing, the investment of LED recessed lighting may appeal to you.

In the not-so-distant past, people have been turned away by the harsh, blue light of LED.  It is now common to find affordable, bright, color-true LEDs in a variety of recessed trim styles and sizes.

Homeowners with existing recessed fixtures may be unable/unwilling to tear open their ceilings to install an entirely new LED system.  Thankfully, many manufacturers supply ‘retrofit’ canisters that replace older incandescent trims, and utilize the existing recessed housings.  Replacing a trim takes only minutes, and there are styles available for less than $100.  If you factor the energy and bulb cost over 15 years for the old light, the money doesn’t seem so daunting.

Even if you are reluctant to change an old fixture, you can still pick up a reliable LED flood bulb for around $30 that will give you the same brightness as incandescent, yet last up to 50 times as long.

Whether new construction, retrofit trim or replacement bulb, you will find many choices of recessed lighting that will bring you energy savings, lower heat and extremely long life- all with a light quality that will please even the most discerning eye.

Since we look at lighting all day, we are not easily impressed with new LED offerings from our manufacturers.  Puck lights, undercabinet fixtures and LED tape lighting ( like rope lighting, but flatter!) need to give off bright, flattering illumination in order for the staff to take notice.  Everybody makes LED, but very few companies’ offerings produce high-quality light at a price that isn’t offensive.

Because of the aforementioned reasons, I was reluctant to take a look Diode LED, yet another company promising the moon.

Turns out, I was very impressed.

Orinda, California’s Diode LED (Pixar’s next door neighbor) started making LED lights for high end vehicles such as Lexus and Infiniti.  Their engineers are no strangers to crisp, white light that can be easily dimmed.  Due to customer demand, the folks at Diode have produced puck lights, tape light (dry and damp location) and low-profile undercabinet bars that are brighter than halogen but use a fraction of the energy.

While most companies emphasize the quality of the LED chip in the production of fixtures, Diode uses high-quality drivers as well.  Drivers are what regulate the voltage to the LED chips and are usually the weakest link in the installation.  Diode’s drivers are affordable but promise to be more reliable than many brands’.

We invite you to stop into our St Paul showroom where one of our lighting consultants can show you the Diode LED display.  We believe you’ll be as impressed as we are!

Refract Undercabinet LightBar

The American Lighting Association provides an easy to ready chart outlining the new incandescent bulb requirements.  Check it out if you have questions! 

http://www.americanlightingassoc.com/About-ALA/Press-Releases/New-U-S–Energy-Efficiency-Legislation-for-Light-B.aspx

Art Deco Pendant

What’s hot in lighting for Fall 2010? We have rounded up the best ideas happening in interior design and lighting right now and put them in an easy to read list:

• Art Deco fixtures – Deco lighting is timeless, going from Victorian to Contemporary interiors. Particularly nice for a bit of warmth in a a black and white decorated room. Deco lighting was plentiful, so there’s plenty affordable pieces in the secondhand market.

• Environmentally friendly fixtures are in – just like in every aspect of interior decorating, “eco-conscious lighting” is brightening the day for “eco-conscious homeowners”. Dimmer switches help keep energy usage down, as do automated lighting control. LED light fixtures enable longer lamp light along with compact fluorescent bulbs in traditional fixtures. Look for lighting to go more high tech as this trend continues.

• Larger lighting lingers in design, as great rooms and larger multi-purpose rooms need the big fixtures for scale.

• Metal bases for table lamps shine with the metallics that are setting the design stage in 2010.

• Barring a metal base – look for more organics, such as bamboo, cork, wood veneers and even vines to be used in lighting.

• Lighting is going global with Japanese influences sneaking into fabric styles, look for the trend to continue to lighting as well.

Japanese Influence

Organic Material

Metal Base

LED Desk Lamp

Great New LED task and desk lamps have just arrived at Creative Lighting! A simple design, a great price, and a superior color LED make these a great way to be part of the LED revolution!

Compared to fluorescent bulbs, advantages claimed for LED light bulbs are that they do not contain mercury (unlike compact fluorescent light bulbs), that they turn on instantly, and that the lifetime is unaffected by cycling on and off, so that they are well suited for light fixtures where the bulbs are frequently turned on and off. LED light bulbs are also less apt to break.

LED Floor Lamp

LED lamps have no glass tubes to break, and their internal parts are rigidly supported, making them resistant to vibration and impact. A LED light bulb can be expected to last 25–30 years under normal use. The bulbs maintain output light intensity very well over their life-times.  Creative Lighting has great prices for our LED Desk Lamp: $99.90, and our LED Floor Lamp: $129.90 (both available in Chrome or Black).  Plus, if you come in right now, you can save 10% off all our LED lamps with this coupon.

This 10-watt fixture produces more light than a 54-watt xenon

Undercabinet lighting has come a long way since the days of flickering T12 (fat) fluorescent tubes. While these are still fine for laundry rooms and ‘man-cave’ workbenches, they don’t do much to flatter the high-end countertops and custom cabinetry that today’s homeowner demands.

For over twenty years, customers have had the option of using color-true halogen undercabinet lighting. Halogens will make granite dance, but will also produce so much heat as to ruin spices and even warp cabinets if used for many years. Xenon has all but replaced halogen as the go-to undercabinet lighting choice, but even xenon still produces a fair amount of heat (25% less heat than halogen).

LED (Light-Emitting Diode) technology seems to be a perfect fit for undercabinet applications. Long-life, energy-efficiency, and very low heat output seem to crown it the new king of undercabinet lighting.  The very thought of kitchen lights that last for 18 years of average use may make you want to rip your current system out of the wall.

Is it really that simple?  As of July, 2010, I can confidently tell you, yes.  Even folks’ main objections to LED- high initial cost and light quality- are much less of an issue today.

For instance, a high-quality low-voltage 22 inch xenon undercabinet fixture will run about $110, whereas a middle-range non-dimmable LED fixture with acceptable light quality will only be 40-50 dollars more.  You can certainly find higher-end LED fixtures with even higher color rendering and light output for a much higher cost, but I believe there are currently enough reliable LED choices in a reasonable price range to recommend over xenon lighting.

When considering an LED system for your undercabinet lighting, make sure it is from a reputable brand, offers at least a three-year warranty, and is purchased from a retailer that will be able to answer any questions you may have.

Most importantly, purchase a (returnable, of course) plug-in version of one or two brands of LED you are likely to choose so you can take them home and decide for yourself if the brightness and light quality meet your expectations.  Unlike xenon, LED brightness and color vary greatly from one company to the next, even in higher-end products.  Only after this test should you buy a whole kitchen’s-worth of LED undercabinet lighting.

There are myriad options for LED undercabinet lighting, and the staff of Creative Lighting would like to help you make the selection as smooth as possible.  A bright, cool, energy-efficient kitchen is just around the corner!

Lighting has a larger decorative value today than it did even a few short years ago, and consumers are now choosing lighting products as an important accessory to their overall home design.

Three Major Movements. Most of today’s design choices fall under one of three definite categories: casual elegance, with fixtures a bit more upscale in design that still create warm, relaxed and cozy environments; simplified traditional that removes the ornate by such methods as stripping down solid brass fixtures and applying an antique patina; and soft contemporary that is still clean, modern and simple, but no longer “cold.”

• Larger Fixtures: As the average size of homes in this country have increased, so have the design elements that go into them. Larger interior volumes need larger lights, and energy-efficient compact-fluorescent lamps (CFLs) often need larger fixtures than their incandescent predecessors.

• Layers of Light: Rooms need multiple sources of light to get the best balance of light in a room. Especially in areas such as kitchens and eating areas, a simple overhead light is only the beginning. Well-placed task and accent lighting is a must to brighten the perimeter and fill the background.

• Energy Efficiency: Consumers are looking to save energy when they can, and lighting is an obvious place to cut back consumption. Dimmer switches and whole-house control systems allow for mo re precise usage, conserve energy and extend lamp life. Low-voltage bulbs cont inue to grow in popularity and use, as CFLs and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) offer a higher quality, warmer light than just a short time ago. Also, many contractors are fitting recessed fixtures more tightly, which cuts down on conditioned-air loss through ceilings.

Think of approaching lighting design the same way you would approach buying a piece of art. There are enough lighting options out there to suit everyone’s taste.