Lighting Units
We can’t get much further talking about residential lighting before we take a look at how we measure light. Here’s a few words you’ll need to know to make the rest of this page make sense.
1. Lumen
A lumen (symbol lm) is a measure of the total amount of light visible light emitted by a source in any particular direction. That’s keeping it simple. For a more precise definition Wikipedia can tell you more about what a lumen is.
2. Lux – the metric system
Lux is a measure of illuminance which basically means it’s a measure of how much light there is over a given surface area. One Lux (lx) is equal to one lumen per square meter.
1 lx = 1 lm/m2
3. Footcandle – the imperial system
Footcandle is also a measure of illuminance for those of you who prefer to work in feet. One Footcandle (fc) is equal to one lumen per square foot.
1 fc = 1 lm/ft2
Lighting Calculation
Step 1 : Find out how many lux or footcandles you need
The lighting table below tells you how many lux or footcandles you need in each room or for various tasks. I’ve also thrown in some examples of moonlight and daylight for interest.
The values given in the table aim to assure safety, comfort and charm. There are times when more light may be available such as when there is bright sunlight spilling through a window or when more light is desirable such as for a small task.
| Activity | Lux | Footcandles |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Sunlight | 32000–100000 | 2300 – 9300 (approx) |
| Daylight (not sun) | 10000–25000 | 930 – 2300 (approx) |
| Full moon (clear) | 1 | 0.1 |
| Kitchen ambient | 108 | 10 |
| Kitchen task | 538 | 50 |
| Dining | 54 | 5 |
| Living Space | 54 | 5 |
| Living Space (task) | 323 | 30 |
| Desk lighting | 431 | 40 |
| Bedroom ambient | 54 | 5 |
| Bedroom reading | 431 | 40 |
| Bedroom dressing table | 431 | 40 |
| Bathroom ambient | 54 | 5 |
| Bathroom task | 323 | 30 |
| Laundry | 323 | 30 |
| Circulation | 54 | 5 |
| Sewing | 538 | 50 |
| Garage/Workshop | 108 | 10 |
| Small detailed task | 1076 | 100 |
We’re going to work out the amount of light required for a kitchen.
Using the table above we can see that we need
- 108 lux (or 10 footcandles) for ambient lighting
- 538 lux (or 50 footcandles) for task lighting for food preparation
Step 2: Work out how many lumens you need
⇒ Ambient lighting in the kitchen
In this step we need to work out the area of the kitchen.
Let’s say we have a 4m x 3m kitchen we multiply these two numbers together to get an area of 12 square meters.
To get the number of lumens we multiply the lux requirement from step 1 by the area.
This gives us 12 x 108 = 1296 lumens.
If you’re working in feet, calculate the area in square feet and use the footcandle value from the light table.
⇒ Task lighting in the kitchen
Here we’re going to work out the surface are that needs to be lit for food preparation.
Let’s say we want to residential lighting the countertop which measures 4m x 0.6m. That makes the area 2.4 square meters.
To get the number of lumens the calculation is 2.4 x 538 = 1291 lumens
If you’re working in feet, calculate the area in square feet and use the footcandle value from the light table.
Step 3: Work out how many led bulbs you need
The number of lumens that a led light bulb emits is usually labelled on the packaging.
⇒ Number of led bulbs for ambient lighting
Let’s say we were going to use a fluorescent light source for the ambient lighting. Fluorescent tubes that emit 800 lumens each are available. One tube wouldn’t be sufficient, but two tubes would give 1600 lumens which would be plenty for our 1296 lumen requirement.
⇒ Number of led bulbs for task lighting
Let’s say we want to use LEDs for the under the cabinet lighting and we’ve found a led bulb we light which gives out 350 lumens.
So we need 1291/350 = 3.6 which means we need 4 of the led bulbs to light the countertop.
That’s it – we’re done!
Summary
Here’s a summary and a calculator to help you.
- Use the light table to find out how many lux or footcandles you need.
- Calculate the amount of lumens you need. Multiply the area in square meters by the lux, or the area in square feet by the footcandles.
- work out how many bulbs you need. Divide the number of lumens by the number of lumens delivered by each led bulb.
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Email: sales@lightideled.com
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Skype: lightide
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Tel : +86-755-8383-7000
Edited by Jack
2016/12/11
