Project 1: Your Home Experience

Real World Exploration of Lighting

Ali Yalaz



Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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INDEX
1. Current Usage
a. General Specifications
b. Bedroom
c. Living Room
d. Kitchen
e. Bathroom
f. Reflectance of the Surfaces
2. Fixture Schedule of the Current Plan
3. Current Light Fixture and Window Plan
4. Current Light Fixture and Furniture Plan
5. Potential Improvements
a. General Specifications
b. Bedroom
c. Living Room
d. Kitchen
e. Bathroom
f. Reflectance of the Surfaces
6. Fixture Schedule of the New Plan
7. New Light Fixture and Furniture Plan
8. Appendix
a. Appendix 1
b. Appendix 2
c. Appendix 3
d. Appendix 4
e. Appendix 5
f. Appendix 6
g. Appendix 7
h. Appendix 8
i. Appendix 9









Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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Current Light Usage
General Specifications
All the windows are 2 feet above the floor and 1 foot below the ceiling.
All the switches in the house are classic on/off switches.
All the surface mounted ceiling fixtures are the same in the house and they
are semi spherical diffusing luminaires.
All the fixtures in the house are consisting the same lamp, GE Lighting
Incandescent A19, 60W (see Appendix 1)
Bedroom:
The main light sources that are used in this room are daylight, desk lamp
placed on the desk and decorative Christmas lightings. During the day almost no
electric light source is needed due to the two windows facing to the east direction.
Common activities I perform in my room are drawing, playing video games,
reading, listening to music and spending time with my friends. Most of these
activities except for drawing and reading dont require full brightness of light and
usually there is Christmas lights (decorative lights) used as a general source of
lighting. Even though this is not really recommended, it doesnt cause any issue
since the main purpose of these decorative lights is not general lighting, but acting
more like accent lighting.
Living Room:
The main purpose of the living room is gathering with roommates, watching
TV and eating meals. The Lights are always turned off during the day since there are
three windows almost covering the whole south faade of the room. During
nighttime, the decorative Christmas lights surrounding the edges of the ceiling are
Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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turned on in order to get a warmer environment feeling. These lights are good to
prevent the glare on the TV screen but economically it is not a smart option.
There are few major false installments in the living room are as well. The
surface-mount type luminaire on the ceiling is right in the middle of the room but
the row of barrier on the ceiling is restricting the light to reach on the other half of
the room.
Kitchen:
The kitchen area is the most weakly lightened section of the house. There are
two vaguely placed surface mount lights, one in the middle, one over the sink. The
window and the porch door provide daylight but the fridge placed right next to the
window is blocking the majority of the daylight entering the room. Additionally, the
porch roof is also blocking the sunlight to reach to two windows. Another major
mistake done in the kitchen is not placing any sort of light sources to the small
section going towards the back of the kitchen. This area consists cupboards, thus the
lack of lighting is giving hard time using these cupboards during night.
Bathroom:
The bathroom is a relatively small area, which makes it easier to lighten all
around. During the day the electric lighting is almost not used because of the
daylight entering the room through the window placed. Only time the general light
in the bathroom is during people use the mirror during daytime and during
nighttime.
Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
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The two main issues in the bathroom lighting is the lack or task lighting over
the mirror and any kind of light fixture over the shower.
Reflectance of the surfaces
Overall reflectance of the surfaces is really low in all the living spaces except
for the bathroom. The walls and the ceiling is painted in matt eggshell color which
has the reflectance rate of about 70% on the ceiling, 30-40% on the walls. The floors
are dark brown carpet, which is an object that also has a low reflectance, has the
reflectance rate of about 15%.
The reflectance of the surfaces in the bathroom is relatively higher in the
bathroom. The wall and ceiling reflectance is the same as in the other rooms (70%
and 30-40% respectively), but in the other hand the floor reflectance is much higher
due to the shiny white tiles. Also the bright white sink bowl and toilet bowl
contributes to high reflectance in the area.
Potential Improvements:
General Specifications

Since this is a design project, while considering new fixtures and
improvements for the lighting systems in my living space, I did not take the initial
costs of the new fixtures into account. The improvement suggestions are done by
considering three major points: Increasing the effectiveness of the lighting, the
economical aspects and environmental issues.
Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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Even though I will be making individual improvements to each room in my living
area, there are two main improvements I will be using for each of the living spaces:
dimmers and LED lights. The reason why I choose to use these two for every light
fixture is that they provide control over the light source, which is useful for setting
certain ambience in the room and lowering energy consumption of the light fixtures.
The dimmer that will be used is SR150LED120 LED dimmer (Appendix 2).
This dimmer is compatible with LED, CFL and incandescent lights.
Bedroom:
As stated before, the bedroom consists two 36x72 windows facing the east
direction, which provides a huge benefit of using the sunlight during daytime. Also
taking the size of the room into account and not to make it difficult to place furniture
into the room I would not add any other windows.
The general light solution I decided on for the bedroom is using Philips frame
kit Lycaster LED 5, IC, Frame-In Kit (Appendix 3) with the PAR20 from TCP Elite
Designer PAR series (Appendix 4). With these dimmable LED lights, I can set the
mood in the room with less energy consumption and I wont need the Christmas
lights for this purpose anymore.
Changing the current lamp with a LED lamp, Acculamp A Series (Appendix 5),
will lead to saving on energy consumption since it is one of the most used light
fixtures in my living space.
Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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Living Room:
The living room is the area we spend most of our times together in the house.
Since the activities involve eating, having conversations and watching TV, different
light levels are required throughout the day. The shape of the living room is a
regular rectangle without many obstacles, thus I decided on implanting six recessed
luminaires on the ceiling, above the couches, this way the light fixtures wont be
distracting. The recessed unit that will be used will be Philips frame kit Lycaster LED
5, IC, Frame-In Kit (Appendix 3) with the PAR20 from TCP Elite Designer PAR series
(Appendix 4). This will provide a low glare fixture with dimming option and an
aesthetic feature to the room and a spacious feeling.
Kitchen:
Two main issues that have to be solved in the kitchen area are the misplaced
general lights and lack of task lightings such as under cabinet and in cabinet light
fixtures.
The reason why I would like to have under cabinet and in-cabinet lighting is
that they will reduce the general lighting required in the kitchen area. For the in-
cabinet light fixtures, I decided to use LED 1.25 Watt- Recessed Mini Visor Light Kits
by Pegasus Lighting Company (Appendix 6). These mini LED light kits are highly
beneficial in energy consumption with such wattage as low only 1.25 watts. Also
provide a visual aesthetic inside the cabinets with a great CRI of 85 and color
temperature of 3100K, which corresponds to warm white color.
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For the under cabinet lighting, I picked another LED fixture MIC100 Micro
Under cabinet LED by Philips (Appendix 7). Just like any other LED fixture, this task
light is also providing low wattage such as 10 watts and it is very beneficial while
using the counter tops while cooking or preparing food.
In order to solve the general lighting problem in the kitchen, I decided to use
recessed light fixtures on the ceilings since it gives a sense of space and the kitchen
area is already small. These recessed lights will be placed in the main kitchen area
and the small section towards the back of the kitchen. This solution will give access
to lighting in the back corner and make it a part of the living space instead of a dark
corner. For this manner, I picked a Philips frame kit Lycaster LED 5, IC, Frame-In Kit
(Appendix 3). The LED lamp that will be used with this recesses fixture will be
PAR20 from TCP Elite Designer PAR series (Appendix 2). These down lights are
available for dimming, have long life and high CRIs.
Bathroom:
Bathroom lighting during the day is provided by the 36x72 window placed
inside but during the nighttime the surface mounted general light is not enough. As I
did in every other room, I decided on using two Philips frame kit Lycaster LED 5, IC,
Frame-In Kit (Appendix 3) with the Acculamp Alebr30 lamps (Appendix 8) since
they are products made especially for kitchen and bathroom lightings. One of them
will be placed right above the shower, providing light source while showering and
the other will be placed in the middle of the bathroom.
Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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Next step is the addition of over the mirror lights as task lighting in the
bathroom. For the best result I decided on two surface-mount luminaires on both
sides of the mirror to get even amount of light from both sides. The luminaire I
decided on using are two up lights mounted side ways, UnicOne Micro by Philips
(Appendix 9) with two Acculamp Alebr30 lamps.
Reflectance of the surfaces
As stated in the Current Usage section, the reflectance of the ceiling and the
walls are very low relative to a regular residential place. In order to increase the
effectiveness of the light fixtures, I decided on using Sherwin Williams 7757 High
Reflective White interior paint. Since all the general lights will be dimmable, using
dimmed light with this new paint on the surface will be still effective as a general
light source.
As a result, all these improvements that have been decided on are increasing
the effectiveness of the lighting systems in my living space drastically. The main
points that have been improved are:
The energy consumption is decreased with the switch to LED lights
and dimmer controls,
The addition of task lights are making activities like cooking, using the
cupboards and shaving easier,
More control on the lighting levels, giving chance to set mood in each
room separately,
Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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Even though the initial cost is very high, the cuts from the electric bills
and new lamps will have drastic effects economically.

















Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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APPENDIX:

1. GE Lighting Incandescent A19, 60W
2. SR150LED120 LED dimmer
3. Philips frame kit Lycaster LED 5, IC, Frame-In Kit
4. PAR20 from TCP Elite Designer PAR series
5. Acculamp A Series
6. LED 1.25 Watt- Recessed Mini Visor Light Kits by Pegasus Lighting Company
7. MIC100 Micro Under cabinet LED by Philips
8. Acculamp Alebr30 lamps







Project 1: Your Home Experience - Real World Exploration of Lighting
September 17, 2014

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GE Lighting
Incandescent A19, 60W