LED Lighting for the Kitchen

Find out why lighting under the cabinet by itself is not sufficient lighting for your kitchen — you should also have ceiling lights. Get tips on replacing your incandescent lights with LED bulbs, which will provide a more efficient, better…

LESLIE: Don in Pennsylvania is on the line with a lighting question. How can we help you today?

DON: Now, we’re going to redo our kitchen ceiling this year and we have these 6-inch pot lights up in the ceiling.

TOM: OK. Yeah, the can lights?

DON: Yeah.

TOM: OK.

DON: And we were wondering if we would take them out, if we put the LED lights under the cabinets, if it would give us as much light.

TOM: No, I wouldn’t take them out. I would keep them in.

Now, one is for area lighting; one is for task lighting. So the LED lights that could go under the edge of the cabinet could give you task-specific lighting for food prep. And they also look darn cool when you dim them in a party or something like that.

DON: Yeah.

TOM: But I would keep the lights in the ceiling.

But by the way, you have a lot of options in the type of bulb that you can put in those ceiling lights. You could actually put in LED bulbs into those ceiling lights, too. And you may find the quality light is better than what you have with the incandescents.

DON: I mean take them out and put maybe like 4-inch ones in smaller ones or just leave the 6 ones in there?

TOM: I would leave them. I think that – I think you could use the 6-inch ones that you have. I don’t think that’s part of the project that’s going to give you a good return on investment. But if you change the bulbs out, I think you’ll find that that will make a difference.

Take a look at those Philips bulbs. I’ve got several of those now in my house, including in the kitchen, as can lights. They’re LEDs and we matched them up with Lutron dimmers where you can adjust the dimming range. And they’re super-bright and they cost a heck of a lot less to run than the incandescents. And they last a lot longer. We used to replace those incandescents all the time and these have been – I’ve never had to replace them and I think they say they last over 20 years.

DON: Where would you find the (inaudible at 0:17:54) on that?

TOM: You can get them at Home Depot.

DON: OK.

TOM: I know that I’ve gone there. They’re really interesting-looking, Jack. They’re the ones that look – they look like yellow. They kind of look – I always think they look like bug lights.

DON: OK.

TOM: But you’ll be amazed when the thing comes on how bright it is.

DON: OK.

LESLIE: And they’re super-efficient.

DON: Well, that’s what we’re looking for.

TOM: Alright, Don. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.