Tips For Designing A Lighting Plan For Your Home
If you are talking with your electrical design engineer because you need to figure out the electrical plan for your home, he or she has likely asked you what your ideal lighting plan is. The reason for this is if you want overhead lighting or lighting that is underneath your cabinets, the electrical design engineer is going to need to know this ahead of time. Here are some tips for designing a lighting plan for your home so that your home can be comfortable.
1. Start With Task Lighting
Make a list of all of the rooms of your house in a document on your computer. Then, underneath each list, add a bulleted list of all of the tasks that you are going to be doing in each room. For example, you know that you're going to need to be watching anything that you have on your stove top and cutting vegetables in your kitchen. You know that you're going to be working on the computer in your office. You know that you're going to be applying makeup in the bathroom. Once you have all of the tasks listed, go through each one and figure out if you are going to need specific lighting. Essentially, anything that is being done in an area where your common light sources could be blocked will need task lighting. Anything that requires detail will also likely require its own form of lighting. Once you have these figured out, grab a floor plan of your home and mark each of the areas that will require task lighting with some sort of symbol.
2. Add Your Ambiance Lighting
The next thing that you need to do is add your ambiance lighting. This is the lighting that you will need to have to illuminate the walls and ceiling if you so desire. This is important because it will allow you to set the overall tone of each room. Mark where you want the ambiance lighting on the floor plan using a different symbol than the one you used for task lighting.
3. Figure Out Where Downlighting is Really Necessary
It's very common for people to go overboard on the downlighting, which can create a harsh environment. Once you have your ambiance lighting and task lighting set up, talk to your electrical design engineer and see how much downlighting he or she recommends. Show him or her your floor plan and he or she will be able to identify the few places where you are missing this crucial form of light.
For more information, talk to a company like Albarell Electric Inc that specializes in electrical design.
