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  • #8764

    We’ve recently had our lights modified in our common hallway so that they would “comply” with “Australian Standards”.  Previously the lighting was warm and pleasing to the eye.  The lights that have been changed to are LED (which is great as they reduce power consumption) but they are cold and the ones that are installed are very bright.  Does common hallway lights need to be on some standard where they are of some brightness/luminosity?  This, to me, is curious because I’ve been into several newer luxury apartment blocks, recently, where all have had “mood” lights which are much darker than the lights we had previously.  The “mood” lights are pleasant and creates quite a nice atmosphere when placed appropriately.  We joke about our lights being that of convenient store standard… not quite but it’s up there!

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  • #18137
    Whale
    Flatchatter

      Light illuminance is measured in Lux, and the amount of light perceptible by the human eye is measured in lumens.

      In your Plan’s hallway, the amount of perceptible light is influenced by a number of factors including the height of the ceiling, the colour of the walls / floor, and the spread of light emitted by the light fixture; complicated!

      The use of LED fixtures further complicates matters as the spread of light is quite narrow, the colour of the light differs (e.g. “cool” or “bright white”), the wattage figures quoted don’t easily relate to fluorescent or incandescent globes, and manufacturers quote vastly different Lux figures for fittings of the same wattage.

      In all those circumstances I probably shouldn’t do this, but …. the standard for hallways where people need just enough light to move around safely (possibly your quoted “mood” lighting) is around 40 Lux, the number of light fixtures necessary to produce that can be calculated from the formula (Lux level * area) / lumens per fixture, and for a hallway that’s 3m wide that’s around one (1) 15W LED downlight each 3m of its length.

      I think I’ve given myself a headache, but if you’re really concerned about your Plan’s new hallway lighting perhaps approach your Executive Committee about having the actual illuminance professionally assessed against the 40 Lux (approx) required. 

      #18158
      Sir Humphrey
      Strataguru

        Two separate ratings for lighting are the light intensity (lux) and the colour temperature (cool white, warm white, daylight). The two are not linked. You could have dim cool white or very bright warm lights. It seems that you might have cool white LED lights installed where ‘warm white’ might have been more pleasant. 

        We have the same issue with some path lighting. Warm white is much nicer but some cool white globes have been installed. It’s not a big problem but when globes die we will try to replace with warm ones. 

        In this case, perhaps it would be worth buying a couple of warm LED lights to try. Keep the cool ones as spares in case of failures. If people like the warm ones make a point of buying those. Perhaps there is somewhere less sensitive where the cool ones could go till they wear out. 

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