19
Mar 2013

How Much Light Do I Need?

The amount of light needed varies by room, tasks, age and several other factors. Except for kitchens, laundry rooms, bathrooms and other areas where tasks are performed you do not need lots of light in the rest of the house. Filling a room with light is more important than having high levels of light. That is what layers of light do, they help fill a room with light. Social interaction is enhanced by comfortable lighting whereas tasks require higher levels of lighting.


Comfortable Lighting for Dining


Generally speaking the amount of light that is needed for most tasks like cooking and for reading is around 50-60 footcandles (f/c) That is the amount of light needed on the work surface. Sewing requires more light and grooming a little less light. Social spaces like living rooms are OK at 20-30 f/c. It is important to remember that older eyes need more light to do see the as young eyes. A 50 year old needs about twice as much light as a 20 year old to see the same.

Higher levels of light can be achieved without glare, but care must be taken to choose the correct fixture and to layer the lighting in a pleasing way. Do not rely on just recessed or just under cabinet lights. Use a combination along with good ambient lighting.

Please visit my website, FoggLighting.com and follow me on twitter.
Follow @lightingfogg

18
Mar 2013

Layers of Light

Kitchen with Multiple Layers of Light

Most lighting designers consider layers of light essential to good lighting plans. In addition to providing adequate levels light, layers of light add visual interest to a room which makes the room a much more enjoyable space.

Layering lighting means adding several different effects of light, varying color, intensity and texture. These layers consist of task, ambient, accent, wall and decorative lighting. All these layers come together and lend themselves to good composition and to providing a focal point.

In the photo above you will see a kitchen that has eight or nine different layers of light. Task lighting is provided by recessed lights, ambient lighting is provided by the ceiling fixtures, the pendants as well as the ceiling fixtures provide the decorative lighting. The toe-kick lighting along with the up-lighting on top of the cupboards and the lighting under the island counter top provide great accent lighting. This is a terrific looking kitchen and the lighting is the reason. It is pleasing to the eye in addition to being functional.

Please visit us at FoggLighting.com. And be sure to follow us Follow @lightingfogg

17
Mar 2013

How We See Light

We do not see light directly unless we look directly at a light source. What we see is light that is reflected off a surface. If something appears brighter than something else it is because of the difference in contrast between the two objects. This is referred to as relative brightness and it is important to proper lighting design as we will discover in future postings.

Driving at Night

One of the most common examples of relative brightness is the automobile headlight. Have you ever been blinded by super bright headlights? That is because the eye’s pupil can not adjust fast enough when going from total dark to really bright. This is especially problematic for older eyes.

Reading is another example of relative brightness. Reading black type on white paper is much easier than reading navy blue type on blue paper. That is because the black/white contrast is much greater than blue/blue. Even in moonlight the contrast between black type and white paper makes reading possible.

Be sure to visit FoggLighting.com to see some really great lighting ideas. Follow me on twitter @lightingfogg.

16
Mar 2013

What is Light?

Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum of energy. It is a form of energy that we can see. Light is created when an energy source emits energy in the visual spectrum which is between 380 and 780 nanometers.

Incandescence at its Best!

Light is created in a number of ways. Incandescence is the most common way. Incandescence is burning. In an incandescent light bulb the filament is heated until it glows. This is true in the common A lamp as well as halogen and xenon light bulbs. Arc discharge is another way light is created as in fluorescent or High Intensity Discharge lamps. Arc discharge occurs when an electrical current is passed through a gas. Another relatively new way to create light is Solid State Lighting, better know as LED. Light is produced when electrical current passes through a semiconductor and light is emitted as a photon. 

Perhaps the best example of incandescence is the sun. The sun is an example of natural light. Daylight is sunlight reflected and diffused through the atmosphere. Moonlight is sunlight reflected. There is no single type of natural light. There are even some plants that give off light directly. They are luminescent.

It is important to know about light, light sources and qualities of light in order to more effectively design lighting for a home. Remember, from a previous post, the color you see is in the light source. If the light source does not have a full spectrum of colors, you will not see the colors that are missing from that light source. That is why early fluorescent and LED light sources did not render colors accurately; they were missing colors in the spectrum.

Please follow me on twitter @lightingfogg and please visit my website, FoggLighting.com to see some great fixtures. 

15
Mar 2013

Lumens, Footcandles and Candlepower

These are commonly used and sometimes misunderstood lighting terms. I will try not get too technical in explaining these terms, but these are terms with which you should be somewhat familiar.

Lumen – The quantity of light produced by a given light source. All light sources are rated in lumens. You will become more familiar with lumens because all the new light bulb packaging will have lumen information printed on it. This is part of the Government’s requirement to make consumers more energy conscious. The amount of lumens is not determined by the size of the light source. We do not actually see lumens as such. What we see are lumens reflected off a surface.


One Footcandle


Footcandles – The measurement of how much light falls on a surface. One lumen falling on one square foot of a surface is one footcandle. A footcandle was originally determined by placing a candle a foot away from a surface and measuring the amount of light on that surface. Footcandles (FC) are the measurement used to determine the light required for different tasks. As with lumens we do not see footcandles until they are reflected off a surface.

Candlepower – The measurement of the intensity of light in a specific direction. A candela is a unit of candlepower. Candlepower is generally used to describe the light distribution of directional light bulbs like an MR16 or a PAR30. The amount of light on a surface is determined by dividing the candlepower of the light source by the distance squared (the inverse square law). The ratio is 4:1. Thus the further away the light source, the less light strikes the surface by a factor of 4.

Please visit my website, FoggLighting.com to see a great selection of lighting fixtures.

12
Mar 2013

Why Use a Lighting Designer

Why would you want to use a lighting designer to help you with your lighting? That is a question that you should consider if you are building or remodeling. There are several valid reasons to engage a lighting designer.

A lighting designer has been trained and has had experience in how a space should be lit. We have had experience both in the classroom and on the job. Lighting designers are familiar with all the different light sources and fixtures and can match them to the tasks being performed. Most of all, a lighting designer is working with you and for you to help you avoid making a mistake that you might regret later.

It is your home. You spend a lot of money on decorative accents, furniture, kitchen counters and bathroom tile. You deserve to have the lighting to enjoy all these features of your home. That is where a lighting designer provides a great value.

11
Mar 2013

Light Sources Part III – Halogen

People ask me all the time about halogen light bulbs. Most of the questions are: Do they get hot? Yes they do get hot. Halogen lights bulbs are a form of incandescent lighting, and all incandescent light bulbs get hot. However halogen bulbs operate at higher temperatures because the gas inside the glass enclosure is under more pressure that regular incandescent light bulbs.

A Typical Halogen Light Bulb.

Because the halogen gas inside the capsule is under high pressure the capsule must be made of a hard quartz glass. They are sometimes referred to as quartz halogen. You should not handle the quartz bulbs with bare hands as the oil from your skin can shorten the life of the halogen light bulb.The filament of all incandescent light bulbs is made of tungsten. Halogen light bulbs have a longer life that regular incandescent bulbs because of something called the halogen cycle. During the halogen cycle tungsten is evaporated away from the filament and combines with the halogen. Then in a chemical reaction the tungsten is deposited back onto the filament and that extends the life of the light bulb. Halogen light bulbs can be smaller in size than other incandescent light bulbs so you find them in mini pendants and other small light fixtures. They also produce a pleasant white light usually about 3000K.

MR16 Halogen Directional Light Bulb.

Another popular halogen light bulb is the MR16. They are used in many track heads, recessed lights and landscape lights. The are a “mirror reflector” light bulb hence the name MR. The number 16 is the diameter of the face of the bulb. It is a directional light bulb that focuses a beam of light onto an object or work surface. This a very useful light bulb for lighting art, kitchen counters and other applications where a directional light source is needed.

Halogen bulbs in different shapes, beam spreads and lumen output are a necessary for tool for a lighting designer’s bag of tricks. Remember always pick the light bulb first then the fixture to house it. Different light bulbs do different things. You want to match the lighting task with the proper light source. That is what I do as a lighting designer. Please visit my website, fogglighting.com.

10
Mar 2013

A Sunday Factoid

Lighting accounts for only 5% to 7% of the total electricity usage in the average American home.

9
Mar 2013

Light Sources Part II – Fluorescent & CFL

Fluorescent lighting has gotten a bad reputation over the years because lots of people associate fluorescent lighting with flicker, bad CRI and cold color temperature. All that is valid because fluorescent lighting had all those qualities a few years ago. But most of today’s higher quality  fluorescent tubes and CFL’s have overcome all those problems. They use better ballasts to prevent the flicker and they use good phosphors to improve both CRI and color temperature.

Fluorescent lighting is almost as efficient as LED and it is about 4 time mores efficient than incandescent lighting. One drawback is the mercury that fluorescent light bulbs contain. Another drawback to fluorescent lighting is that it can not be dimmed as easily as LED or incandescent, but there are dimmable ballasts available for both CFL and tubular fluorescent light bulbs.

A typical CFL.

All fluorescent light bulbs are a hollow glass tube which is coated on the inside with a rare earth phosphor and filled with a gas that contains mercury. Fluorescent light bulbs have a ballast, either integral to the light bulb or enclosed in the fixture, which converts AC current to high frequency and applies that current to the glass tube. The current excites the gas in the tube which causes the phosphor coating the inside of the glass to glow. The quality of the light is directly related to the quality of the phosphor. Cheap phosphors result in poor CRI and bad color temperatures whereas more expensive phosphors produce pleasing high CRI light. There is a reason good quality is more expensive.

Pictured here are two different CFL’s
and two sizes of fluorescent tubes.

CFL’s have become more commonplace over the past few years. Some fit into regular screw-in sockets and some have dedicated sockets with different pin configurations. Most of the ones that screw in have their own ballast while the ones with the pins rely on the ballast in the fixture. More and more fixture manufacturers are producing fixtures that require the pin base because they meet the Government’s requirements for energy efficiency and also meet standards for LEED certification.

Fluorescent is a great light source and is much more affordable than LED. It is not recommended for use in exterior fixtures in cold climates because it takes a few minutes for fluorescent lights to warm up to full output on a really cold day.

9
Mar 2013

Honored to be Featured

Hot of the Press.
We have been featured on Celia St. Onge’s recent blog.

Celia is owner of Celia Bedilia an interior design firm. Celia is a wonderful designer who creates beautiful spaces. We are proud to be able to work with Celia. Be sure to visit Celia’s Blog.

Please visit my website when you have a chance.