More Building Matters
When I more or less stumbled into residential lighting design about 10 years ago, I was surprised at the mess it had become. In shifting gears from commercial lighting design, where building and energy codes dictated watts per square foot and many other factors, and entering the far less regulated world of residential lighting, I felt like I was learning a whole new trade. I mistakenly thought it would be easy: just switch everything to LED, watch the power consumption drop, and call it a day. It wasn’t long before I was learning about all manner of lighting-related topics, from low-voltage wiring to circadian-rhythm disruption, and changing my approach as a result.
Residential lighting, particularly in the realm of green building, could be summarized by two often opposing goals: (1) provide great lighting for people and (2) minimize resource consumption during and after construction. On one hand, I want to create lighting that supports residents’ need for healthy light, which might mean more watts used in the morning and more layers of light, typically using nonrenewable resources like copper for infrastructure and coal or natural gas for electricity. On the other hand, I want to respect the environment and minimize impact on the planet, which is most easily achieved by using as little electric light as humanly possible. In effect, all electric light in our homes is the opposite of green.
Moreover, despite incredible advances in the science and technology and application of light, electric light in our homes has been on a gradual decline in quality since the advent of the compact fluorescent lightbulb. But there’s good news. A few simple changes can improve the lighting in your home today and can do so without breaking the bank or reverting back to inefficient incandescent bulbs. Here are five simple strategies you…
Weekly Newsletter
Get building science and energy efficiency advice, plus special offers, in your inbox.
This article is only available to GBA Prime Members
Sign up for a free trial and get instant access to this article as well as GBA’s complete library of premium articles and construction details.
Start Free TrialAlready a member? Log in
14 Comments
This must be one of those situations where ignorance is bliss. I installed "wafers" throughout my entire house and because I don't know any better I think my house is well lit and pleasant. I better stop reading about lights or I'll realize that I actually live in a cave.
You are not alone, Josh. I would love to see how your project turned out - and I would love to get you into a showroom/demonstration space that has both types of lighting. Most of the "pain" of wafer lights is subconscious and in our peripheral vision. I remember one builder who sat through a short demonstration in a learning center we designed and said "I have been doing my clients a disservice."
It's an interesting article that maybe should have been titled Lighting and Occupant Health, as it is oddly silent on the function of lighting to illuminate daily tasks, which seems to me to be its primary one.
Thanks for the comment, Malcolm. I am more and more focused on the human benefits of lighting; lighting daily tasks is sort of like the air we breathe - it is foundational and critically important, but the quality of air we breathe also has incredible impact on our daily lives.
David,
My confusion over the topic being covered unfortunately made my comment appear as a criticism of what you wrote - which wasn't my intent. I learned a lot from it.
No worries, Malcolm. I m grateful for the dialogue!
David,
Probably a couple of decades ago, FHB ran a really interesting article on integrating nighttime lighting into a house. The idea was to provide an alternate lighting source that allowed you to navigate the house without putting on the task lights you used when you were active earlier in the evening. Unfortunately in one of my purges I seem to have got rid of the copy I had.
In choosing bulbs, ones the have low flicker, that is steady light without invisible 120 Hz pulsation, can be better for avoiding headaches and eyestrain.
This was a brief, focused article, not a comprehensive overview. David provides a lot of valuable education through various platforms.
Here's a good lighting overview he wrote for FHB: https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2023/12/21/the-science-and-art-of-better-home-lighting.
Here are two BS+Beer Shows where he went into depth on lighting strategies:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/the-bs-beer-show-lighting-design-strategies
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/pretty-good-lighting
A member here shared more resources: https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/fine-homebuilding-protalk-podcast-with-light-can-help-you-founder-david-warfel.
David and his team designed the lighting for a home I designed, which is almost complete. I've designed dozens or maybe hundreds of lighting plans and think I'm decent at it, but working with David's team made me realize how much I don't know, and I learned a lot during the process. Soon I'll get to see the results!
Thanks, Michael! It is indeed difficult to summarize a profession in a single article. ;)
Just today I was re-reading what F. L. Wright wrote in "The Natural House".
"The best way to light a house is God's way - the natural way, as nearly as possible in the daytime and at night as nearly like the day as may be, or better...
"Ordinarily the house should be set 30-60 to the south, well back on its site so that every room in the house might have sunlight some time of the day...
"Proper orientation of the house, then, is the first condition ... There is, however, the danger of taking 'light' too far ... You must control light in the planning of your home so that light most naturally serves your needs without too much artificial production and consequent control..."
In my own residential work I've always considered it a design failure if ambient lighting is used during the day. The only daytime artificial lighting that is readily justified is for vision-critical tasks such as working at kitchen counters or reading. Ambient lighting during evening hours is best moderated, so that circadian rhythms are respected.
I also like to keep in mind that "lighting" works best when we focus on illuminating surfaces. It's the lit surfaces that are the ultimate goal. So place lighting where it can do that best. And then of course, be very careful with exterior lighting to avoid light pollution of the sky.
JGSG,
Picking up on your comments and David's about wafers, I've found that lights on walls often yield better results than those on ceilings. Portrait photographers have always known that, choosing to illuminate their subjects from the side, not above. That strategy also means less penetrations in ceilings, with their problematic air-sealing.
That’s something that amuses me when I visit my 93 year old father in South-West France farm country. In the old farm house where I grew up, and in and the more recent house my parents purchased when they retired 25 years ago (that house was built in the 80’s), neither the earlier owners nor my folks saw a need to upgrade from pigtail sockets. This is not unusual among nearby working-class neighbors and relatives.
These people are not wealthy, but purchasing a few basic ceiling light fixtures would not cause hardship and most households have handy people who could install those at no charge if they wanted to. They take pride in their sizable vegetable gardens. Different priorities, I guess.
David,
Great article. Three great points: put the light where it needs to be and shield the eyes. The third point and the one that really hit me is that, in a perfect world, you should need no additional lighting during the daytime, just use ambient light. I realized I did exactly that when I designed our last house and have almost done that with our current house.
We are building our retirement home and already use Alexa switches although haven't branched out much into smart bulbs yet. Theoretically, we can exclusively use smart bulbs thus obviating the need to have dimmers or three/four way switches.
A- Would that save more than a few hundred dollars off an electrician's bid for, say, a 2000 ft2 typical house?
B- Assuming good quality smart bulbs were used, what would be the green implications of this approach? Less copper wire, fewer wall switches, less complex switches, etc
C-The main downside I can think of is that one may have to memorize a name for each light bulb although one could work around this to a large extent by grouping lights. Example: "Alexa, turn on living room tabletop lights."
D- What would you do if you were building your own house? Traditional wiring as if there were no smart bulbs, use 100% smart bulbs or blend the two??
Log in or become a member to post a comment.
Sign up Log in