Finished basement lighting - LEDs cans?

[joseywales]

Man...there's been a lot going on in our house these year. We are in the process of finishing the basement. We have a suspended ceiling with fluorescent lighting, but are changing out the ceiling. I hate the lights, due to radio interference, lifetime (short) of the bulbs, and the overall look. So, if we're changing the ceiling, I'm thinking of changing out the lights as well.

Our basement breaks down into 4 zones: TV area, pool table (hopefully), and a craft and hair salon area (need "true" color lighting), and general purpose lighting.

Each area has it's own switch and the general purpose lighting is on a 3-way, so they are the lights that get turned on 90% of the time.

My plan is for LED cans, with dimmers. Ceiling is just under 7 foot high - long story that began when Moe, Larry, and Curly built this house. There's also a 6 foot wide, 10" deep soffit, that divides the basement, so light from the TV zone can't bleed over much into the other areas and vice versa. I basically treating the sections as 3 separate rooms.

Questions:

1 - for the general lighting, does it make sense to have a dimmer on the 3 ways? The only time those lights would be dim is if someone is watching a movie, at which point they could simply turn them off and use other dim lights.

2 - What are the most sensible wattage or lumens for these purposes?

3 - Running with a can every 6sqf, I come up with 75 lights. The 3 sections are: 163sqf, 163sqf, and 125sqf. Man, 75 lights sounds like a lot. But I'd rather have too much and use dimmers. Is it possible my ceiling is just too low for these lights? It doesn't seem like the light will spread enough, requiring more lights.

4 - Can't really hang a pool light, ceiling is less than 7', so the cans will have to provide the light.

5 - As opposed to cans everywhere, should I consider some LED panels? Perhaps above the pool table? Maybe the salon as well. Maybe I just install LED replacement bulbs in the existing fluorescent panels and use cans in the TV room, for a better look and atmosphere?

 

[MushCreek]

Where did you get one can for every 6 sq ft? We have 8 cans in our kitchen, working out to 22 sq ft per can. It's almost too bright in there! We can do most tasks with just 4 of them on. In our garage, we have 4 cans for 360 sq ft, and it's plenty of light for general walking around, although you couldn't do detail work at that level.

 

[joseywales]

Where did you get one can for every 6 sq ft? We have 8 cans in our kitchen, working out to 22 sq ft per can. It's almost too bright in there! We can do most tasks with just 4 of them on. In our garage, we have 4 cans for 360 sq ft, and it's plenty of light for general walking around, although you couldn't do detail work at that level.

I’ve used a couple different calculators and am getting different answers. One issue is the low ceiling. The lower the ceiling, the smaller the cone of light. The light just won’t have space to spread out.

Kitchens and area for target lighting require nearly double the number of lights.

 

[seanc_mt]

Not sure if this helps but i have a 660 sq ft apartment in my shop and it has 16 LED can lights TOTAL. Everything is on smart switch wifi dimmers. Seems plenty bright in every room.

 

[joseywales]

My nephew and I solved the problem. He's a contractor and will buy a $hitload of LED lights. We'll hook up what we think makes sense and go from there. Once we're done, we'll just return the rest. Each room has a purpose, so not only will the lighting demands vary, each part of the ceiling has different challenges, so we won't always be able to put a can exactly where we want it. So, a bit of trial an error should get it done.

 

[b-boy]

I just finished a basement remodel. I did LED can lights as well. My ceilings are a little over 7 ft. I have 3 rooms for a total of ~650 sq ft.

My main room is about 300 sq ft. It has 12 lights - 9 6-inch and 3 4-inch.

My laundry room is about 175 sq ft and has 5 lights - 4 6-inch and 1 4-inch.

My bathroom is about 175 sq ft and has 5 lights - 3 6-inch, 1 5-inch and 1 fan/light combo.

Everything is on dimmers. I generally keep them at about 50% because they are way too bright at full power. I have 1 3-way switch with a dimmer.

 

[RTUmark]

I ran a line on smaller 3" cans right now the center of the soffit area you describe. Prevents the darkness under that area.

 

[engineer2]

I have 18 cans in a 500 sqft basement family room on two dimmers. Each can has an LED flood that is equivalent to a 65W incandescent. About 2.3 Watts/sq ft. That's about twice what current lighting standards are. I like it bright. The only time we run it at full brightness is for cleaning, dusting, maintenance.
Watt/sqft standards have been going down in order to save energy, and because LEDs consume less power.

 

[frankd]

1 - for the general lighting, does it make sense to have a dimmer on the 3 ways? The only time those lights would be dim is if someone is watching a movie, at which point they could simply turn them off and use other dim lights.


3 - Running with a can every 6sqf, I come up with 75 lights. The 3 sections are: 163sqf, 163sqf, and 125sqf. Man, 75 lights sounds like a lot. But I'd rather have too much and use dimmers. Is it possible my ceiling is just too low for these lights? It doesn't seem like the light will spread enough, requiring more lights.

I have dimmers on just about every light switch. I see no reason why you wouldn't want to put a dimmer on a 3-way circuit but keep in mind that you can only use one. Can't have a dimmer on both of the 3 way switches (for the same light) unless you get one of those kits that has a master/slave dimmer. It think those start at around 50 bucks.

the number of cans seems high. My living room is about 300sq ft and I have 6 LED high hats (6 inch diameter each) and with the dimmer at it's brightest setting....my wife and I both find the room to be too bright.

 

[joseywales]

I have dimmers on just about every light switch. I see no reason why you wouldn't want to put a dimmer on a 3-way circuit but keep in mind that you can only use one. Can't have a dimmer on both of the 3 way switches (for the same light) unless you get one of those kits that has a master/slave dimmer. It think those start at around 50 bucks.

the number of cans seems high. My living room is about 300sq ft and I have 6 LED high hats (6 inch diameter each) and with the dimmer at it's brightest setting....my wife and I both find the room to be too bright.

Thanks. It's actually a 4-way. I forgot we had 3 switches for the basement. I'm going to slap a dimmer on one of the switches though. I'm getting concerned not only about brightness but color. Also, I hear the LEDs can be noisy, but it's random? I know incandescents on dimmer can be noisy sometimes, but LED are reported to be noisy all the time?

 

[joseywales]

After closets, etc., 661 Square feet is the actual measurement of ceiling. We began with 20 cans, 65W. It's pretty good. The low ceiling is causing some shadows. Such as the stairway for instance. I also have two more 65W LED lights at one end of the soffit. So when all light are on, it's 22. That should be good enough, but we'll need floor lighting to prevent the mild shadows if it bothers me that much.

I don't hear any noise from the light.

Best of all, all radio interference in the garage and upstairs radios is gone!

 

[Beegs]

Anyone have a link to the can light? Getting ready to do our basement...

 

[joseywales]

My nephew used Commercial Electric from Home Depot. They could be the least expensive, because the ceiling and lights were an unplanned upgrade and he might have been keeping costs lost. All I know is no radio interference and they seem to throw enough light.

I will say this. I used the Halo LED retrofit for two exiting eyeball lights I had. They had flat and eyeball and I went with eyeball. $10 vs $35, which seemed a bit of a ripoff, but it was two lights and I'm in the home stretch. Anyway, what I realized is that my existing eyeball lights were not correct for the cans they were in. I was never happy with the fact that they didn't sit flush on the ceiling and now I know why. After more time than I car to admit of cussing and trying to get other retrofits with springs in, I realized that springs won't work in these cans. The Halo lights come with springs or metal braces that press against the side of a can that doesn't accept springs. These worked much better, but the cans still tended to moved, while I installed them. I ended up shimming the sides of the can to make it stay in place. These two ans were installed years ago, during the soffit build, so I don't have any overhead access to them. If I did, i would have replaced them yesterday.

 

[b-boy]

I used regular HALO cans with LED bulbs. It was a much cheaper option. Plus, if one fails, finding a replacement bulb will be easy.

 

[joseywales]

I used regular HALO cans with LED bulbs. It was a much cheaper option. Plus, if one fails, finding a replacement bulb will be easy.

Can you show a link or model #?