ᐅ Preliminary electrical planning

Hello everyone,

our building permit/planning permission application is with the city, and we are working on the details for the construction planning.

The appointment at the kitchen showroom is tomorrow 🙂 and our architect said we should already think about the ceiling lamps and spotlights, as these need to be included in the rough construction planning.

However, we are unsure about the hallway and staircase areas.

We have planned a concrete staircase with spotlights on one side of the steps (every 3 steps). Is that enough as stair lighting, or is a ceiling light also necessary?

And for the corridors on the upper floor and attic (bedrooms to bathrooms)? Would low-level wall spotlights with motion sensors, with or without ceiling lighting, be recommended here as well? Or should other types of lights be used? In any case, we want subtle lighting with motion sensors for nighttime.

And what kind of lights do you have in your entrance areas?

We look forward to many suggestions and thank you in advance!

milkie 🙂

But you really should upload the floor plan again now – we don’t have your design clearly in mind at the moment. The position of the stairs and hallways also matters... Otherwise, we might end up recommending recessed floor-level spotlights, and you might want to cover the walls with cabinets 😀

Here are the floor plans. No sloped ceilings or similar features in the hallways.

milkie 🙂

Hello milkie,

We also installed LED spotlights in the wall for our staircase. However, we see this lighting more as a design element – while the stair treads are well lit by the spots, the rest of the space is only softly illuminated. That’s why we also planned for a ceiling light fixture in the stairwell in case we need very bright light there.

In your hallways on the upper and attic floors, I wouldn’t completely give up on having a ceiling light source either.

We faced the same issue but ended up choosing a completely different approach:

In the hallway ceiling, we installed a conventional light fixture that provides good overall illumination.

For nighttime, we installed outlets with integrated LED strips that automatically turn on and off via a built-in dusk sensor – these outlets are in the hallway and bathroom on the attic floor, so there is a nightlight along the way to the bathroom. The power consumption is likely negligible due to the LED technology.

Best regards,

Dirk

Thanks, that’s a good idea. 🙂
Do the LED strips then stay lit continuously? Or do they also have a motion sensor?

milkie 🙂

Yes, the LED strips stay continuously lit in the dark. However, their power consumption is only 0.25 W.

In my opinion, with such low power usage, a motion sensor is not cost-effective.

Regards,

Dirk