Lets talk downlighters.......

[mm289]

So the excitement of rebuilding the house continues , now need to sort out lighting in the bathroom, ensuite, landing and hallway.

So for context.......upstairs the ceilings are plasterboard between exposed beams mostly, with the loft space above which will have rockwool insulation laid between joists. Downstairs the plasterboard has a small gap (100mm) to the bottom of the floorboards above

I want to go mains LED rather than faff with transformers and realise I need IP65 for the bathroom but some questions...

1. Fire rated or not - whats the benefit/requirement (being an old farmhouse with lots of exposed wood modern building regs on fire related don't often apply)

2. Insulation "hats" for the ones that go through to the loft, or downlighters with insulation covers/supports - needed for LED or just a gimmick - some say they are OK for fitting in insulation, some say not - how do you tell

3. Seems to be lots of difference on connections, basically planning to run switched line to first one in run and daisy chain to the others

4. GU10 LED or fixed/non replaceable?

Any other pearls of wisdom on fitting these?

Cheers,

Paul.

 

[brightspark]

anything with a room above needs to be fire rated attics needn't be but I use them anyhow, I prefer the separate bulbs as the none replaceable are a fair bit dearer specially if they pack in . .led hardly get hot and only need an inch or so clearance round them from insulation . fire hoods aren't needed as there already fire rated I use these all the time https://www.energybulbs.co.uk/produ...MI47WHs-2k3gIVRIjVCh0vPwCFEAQYAyABEgJEGvD_BwE I also use enlite bulbs they have a 60 degree light spread where as most are only 36. you can get other makes but the connectors on some of them are small and you cant get 2 pieces of 1.0mm cable in to radial wire them in . bulbs come in 3 colours warm white . daylight . and cool white. I presume you have rcd protection on the lighting circuit as it will be needed for the lights in the bathroom mains voltage . in January new regs all luminaires no matter where fitted need rcd protection

 

[mm289]

Interesting, i didn't know about the RCD for bathroom, but do have a spare RCD protected circuit I can use, but that's really helpful to know before I reroute all my cables in the loft - At the moment all the light circuits in my 2 boards are on the non RCB side, so just hanging of the switch, presumably if I shift stuff around after Jan I can replace my MCB's with RCBO's?

Good info on the bulbs, I hadn't clocked that the light spreads were different

Re insulation clearance, does the 1" or so mean you cut the insulation around the light or just lay it over?

I am having my electrician come in and do 2nd fix and check/Part P everything but it saves a lot of time and money being able to get the first fix done right so appreciate the help

Cheers,

Paul.

 

[brightspark]

if insulation is just loose laid just push it away from the lights leaving a gap all the way round or over if its kingspan or similar just cut a section out so the light fits with a gap round .its not critical as long as there's a bit of airspace

 

[Paulbarrett]

We pretty much use JCC v50 for everything at the moment, cover all bases.