Kitchen Lighting

The centre light or down lighters should give enough light to enable safe navigation over the floor and give general illumination. The main working areas are divided into four areas.

The cooking range should be lit directly from above and if a cooker hood is fitted and comes with its own lighting system this will be sufficient for the illumination of the work area. In the absence of a cooker hood, a pair of recessed ceiling eyeballs or wall spots would provide suitable lighting. The position of the eyeballs should be in front of where you would normally expect to stand and wide enough to prevent shadow when working with your hands over the appliance.

The Kitchen sink is likely to be missed out of the lighting system, but poor lighting in this area can cause real problems in the hygiene department. Consideration must be given to the safety aspect of any fitting that is used in the area as not all fittings are safe when located in a potentially wet environment. (Please refer to drawing  Fig 1.)  Ceiling spotlights located in front and to each side of the sink will provide enough light for washing up and food preparation.

In most cases the working surfaces have wall cupboards fitted above them and under unit fittings would be a sensible choice. Warm white will give a more relaxed effect but the contrast and colour will suffer as a consequence.  The type of lighting source can be fluorescent, halogen, or LED powered units. (Dark work surfaces will absorb the light but this does not have much effect on their function as the food will normally be cut on a chopping board and put on to tableware.) In the absence of wall cupboards and under unit lighting, overhead lights suspended from the ceiling could be utilised over the full length of the work top either in a single or multiple units.

The breakfast bar can use a multiple light fitting, suspended from the ceiling over the bar. A rise and fall light could be an alternative option.  There a number of very attractive fittings featuring Halogen, LED, and Fluorescent light sources for this application. The light quality is not so crucial in this area and warm white lamps can be considered as this will engender an ambience.