Lighting up your home! – Part 1

Featuring warm white accent lights to provide a comfortable and soothing atmosphere.

Welcome to the first out of three parts of our home lighting guide! This has been simplified for easy reading, and we hope you will learn a thing or two. We will concentrate on LED lights, as they are energy saving with a much longer lifespan, as compared to conventional forms such as fluorescent and halogen lights. LED lights are low maintenance if replacements are needed, and they will help you save on utility expenses as well.

First up, we will cover some key technicalities that might aid your planning for home lighting fixtures:

1. CCT – Correlated colour temperature
– Warm white 2700K – 3000K – used in homes, high end shops, hotels and residences
– Cool white 4000K – used in offices
– Daylight 6000K – 6500K

2. CRI (Colour Rendering Index)
– Measure of how true the colour rendered by the light source as compared to an incandescent source
– CRI 80 is acceptable

3. SDCM (Standard Deviation Colour Matching)
– Measures the deviations of LED colours
– High end installations – 3 or lower
– Acceptable range – 5/6
– The lower the SCDM, the higher the price of the LED source

4. Luminaire lumens
– Amount of light emitting from the fixture
– Luminaire lumens is usually lower than lumen output due to light loss from the lens/diffuser

5. Lux level
– Lux measures the brightness of a surface
– General lighting for a bedroom – 200-300 lux
– Area where tasks are to be performed – at least 500 lux, higher lux required for children and the elderly