The column where you get to put your lighting questions to the head of the Ovia lighting business, Mike Collins, and his team of technical experts.
Domestic lighting is very subjective as individual taste, style and expectations can vary considerably. As lighting designers, we’re always working towards adherence to the relevant lighting guides, recommendations and standards.
With domestic lighting we’ll use a general guide and then put more emphasis on the communication with customers and managing expectations. Uniformity of illumination is something that we would consider to be very important. The more uniform the light distribution the better the illuminance and less likelihood that there will be pools of lighting.
The first stage would be to establish the level of illumination required for the application being considered. This is based on the room type and function, for example a kitchen or dining room. Once we have this, we’d suggest a downlight with a generous beam angle of 40˚ as a minimum. The Inceptor Omni V2 comes in either 40, 50 or 65˚ variants. The key to avoiding pools of light is to place the correct number of downlights to meet the target level of illumination in a symmetrical manner.
The Scolmore App is a great tool. It features a lighting number calculator that is simple to use and extremely effective. Ovia also offers a free lighting design service to provide expertise on choosing the right products and solutions for a range of projects.
Thanks to Neil Edgerley at WNE Services, for this month’s question. As is the case with every question we publish, a special edition Ovia travel mug is on its way to him!
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