feel free to bang on about it, there are lots of clever folk here (& thicko's ..."me" ) ask away I do, it's what makes this such an interesting place to be
Well, this might look like a cross-post from the greenbuilding forum, but that was a few weeks ago:
We're in the process of rebuilding an old cottage , in effect a new build as everything is coming down and going back up again, and we need a lighting solution for all of it. We would likely want a range of spots, downlighters, wall lights and striplights - with dimmers in most if not every room. We're drawn towards LED lights as a technology because of it's energy efficiency, although appreciate that some LEDs are more efficient than others.
Bearing this in mind, that we're looking for the most energy efficient/long term cost effective lighting, so need a solution or technologies for us to look at.
Most of the lighting would want to be warm white, with a possible exception for strips under the kitchen worktops which could be a "whiter" white.
My personal preference would be to use low a number of drivers/transformers somewhere centrally in the house and then run everything (controls and lights) from that on the low voltage side, rather than wire the house for a normal 240v lighting and use 240v dimmers and bulbs with individual 240v drivers built into them - however I am not sure if the technology or choice or price/performance is ready for this type of system yet.
We are not really interested in crazy colour changing gadgets to choose one of 65,000 colours, and would ideally used mostly wired connections rather than battery operated/wireless ones from an energy efficiency point of view, but not adverse to an occasional remote control
If it came with some control system that I could hook a PC up to somehow then that's an added bonus - and even more if the wiring used could be used for other things (so cat5 or similar floodwire the place for example and send audio, cctv, lighting control, whatever over the wiring if required)
To give you an idea of scale, the place is pretty small. 2m ceiling heights and downstairs rooms are:
Kitchen (3.5m x 3m) opening to diner (3.5m x 2.5m)
Lounge (3.5m x 3.5m)
Utility/Hallway (2.5m x 3.5m)
shower/WC (1m x 2.5m)
upstairs:
landing/office (2.5m x 3.5m)
bathroom (2.0m x 3.5m)
bed 1 (3.5m x 3.5m)
bed 2 (3.5m x 3.5m)
Any advice on systems, gadgets, technologies or "things to avoid" would be much appreciated
