How to Space Recessed Lights
Video transcription
My name is William Perkinson and I'm here to talk to you about how to space recessed lighting. There are 3 types of recessed lighting so the spacing is going to determine, is going to be determined by which type of lighting we're talking about. We have flood lighting, spot or task lighting and wall washing. Flood lighting is for general lighting the room. If you want to fill the whole kitchen with light, you would have these types of lights which are in a flood pattern, which fill the entire room, the entire floor space with light. One fact to know is, the height of the ceiling which in this particular home is 9 feet then the pattern of light that they'll project on to the floor will have a 9 foot circumference. And for task lighting or spot lighting which is like over the sink, we want to light up the task that we'll be working on so we want a spot light in the sink to see exactly what we're doing. This type of lighting is typically a brighter bulb, sometimes it's halogen and it shines directly down and lights up this specific area. The other type of recess lighting that you find maybe in front of a fireplace, in front of a mantel, what we call a wall washer, and its projects light on to one particular area on the wall, or you could if you had a gallery, you want to light several pieces of artwork, you'd have several wall washing recess lights in the ceiling shining on a particular wall. Typically, they're 2-4 feet out from the edge of the wall to the ceiling and it depends on the projection that you going to have onto the piece of artwork if you have a taller ceiling, you might want to come a little farther away from the wall. In the center part of the kitchen, we're trying to flood the room with lights. So, we've laid the recessed light out in a rectangular pattern. These are approximately 6 feet apart. You really don't want to get them too much over 6 feet, depends on how tall the ceiling is. If you have an extremely high ceiling, as maybe as much as 8 feet apart, if you're trying to flood an area with light. Generally, the farther part they are, the softer the lighting is. So, if you're in a large family room, maybe you do want to do that to soften it up a little bit but in the kitchen where you need to see what you're doing, you need to be able to read the cookbook, you need to be able to work with knives safely or electrical appliances. This is a good pattern we use, about a 100 watt bulb in here, we want good light, strong light but we don't want it to blind you, you don't want to feel like you're out in the sun. But generally, those are the tips you need to know about spacing recessed lights. My name is William Perkinson, thank you!