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Can Lights - New Construction and LED Question

Posted on 8/18/15 at 8:20 am
Posted by Rev1897
NOLA
Member since Dec 2008
782 posts
Posted on 8/18/15 at 8:20 am
Anyone out there have any experience with 6" recessed lighting?

We are building our new house and the plans call for 58 can lights. Rather than just buy them from the local lighting place (St. Charles Lighting, $32 for the setup which includes the standard 6" can and an LED bulb) we are exploring online and in the big box stores.

Anyone have any recent experience? Also, seems like most of the can light setups today involve an incandescent can with an LED converter. Any experience with these?
Posted by TigerRob20
Baton Rouge
Member since Nov 2008
3732 posts
Posted on 8/18/15 at 8:40 am to
$32 sounds like a fair price. I know that I paid around $24 for just the LED bulb/trim that I bought at Home Depot (they could have come down over the last 18 months though).

I replaced all of the incandescent recessed lights in my house with those, as well the new can lights we had installed. They are great and put off no heat like the other lights we had.
Posted by Ice Cream Sammich
Baton Rouge
Member since Apr 2010
10116 posts
Posted on 8/18/15 at 8:53 am to
I just had 2 installed in my house last week. I knew nothing about what I was doing and went to HD and purchased 2 enclosed new construction cans. They were mispriced at $8 each and I was happy.

After further investigation, I realized I should have bought remodel cans and just called an electrician.

If there is a moral to this story (big if), its to go to HD and hope to find the cans for $8 each.
Posted by ruzil
Baton Rouge
Member since Feb 2012
16947 posts
Posted on 8/18/15 at 10:36 am to
I have that same set up in my new construction. Nice white light, long life and looks great.

I went totally led with the exception of 3 chandeliers that I will replace with led if possible.

I hate changing bulbs especially in can lights.
Posted by NOLAGT
Over there
Member since Dec 2012
13542 posts
Posted on 8/18/15 at 1:43 pm to
I just built and had 88 6" cans and went all LED. The thing with LEDs and any light is the CRI value of the bulb if color accuracy matters. A standard incandescent bulb has a 100 value. Most of the LEDs have a 80 value (also CFLs). What that does it washes out the color of everything. I personally dont like it...I like the look of incandescent bulbs. There are some high CRI bulbs that score 93 and looks pretty much like a incandescent bulb. I went with the Feit enhanced LED bulbs BR40 16w and love them! I have run them for almost a year now and only replaced one so far. I got them from earthled.com and paid 5 bucks to cover all the bulbs for 5 years.
Posted by Kajungee
South ,Section 6 Row N
Member since Mar 2004
17033 posts
Posted on 8/18/15 at 8:42 pm to
As manager of an electrical contractor we have installed 1000s of LED fixtures from recess cans to pole lights over the last 5-10 years or so.
The light, efficiency, and long life is all great. However we have had issues with some fixtures, even the top of the line stuff. One problem I see is the technology is advancing so fast whats out there today will be obsolete tomorrow. alot of the fixtures, and mostly the residential recess cans are not made to be repaired, once it goes out you replace the whole fixture. So 3 years from now when one fixture fails and you can not get an exact replacement when happens when you have 8-10 or more matching cans in the room, and one you cant match. For that reason I think using standard incandescent recess cans with R30 LED replacement lamps may be the way to go.
Posted by VetteGuy
Member since Feb 2008
28309 posts
Posted on 8/19/15 at 7:18 am to
I just put regular cans in and purchased dimmable LED bulbs from Amazon.

Note the difference between dimmable and non-dimmable LED bulbs. The LED bulbs look like regular flood bulbs. Phillips is the brand, IIRC.
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