ᐅ Lighting design on the ground floor – Are there any planning guides or resources available?

Hello everyone,

Our builder needs information for structural reasons about where we want ceiling lights and possibly spotlights in each room.

Even though we are somewhat familiar with the subject, we are having trouble with this. How did you approach it? Is there a good planning tool or guide? Unfortunately, there is hardly anything on this topic in the search function.

Well, we faced the same problem.
Some people hire a lighting designer for this and pay thousands of euros.
We took a very practical approach and first looked at three houses with spotlights from friends and talked to them about it a bit.
Then I asked a friend who is a master electrician. He gave me some rough guidelines.
If I remember correctly, he said: About 80cm (31 inches) away from the wall, and the distance between the spotlights should be between 90cm and a maximum of 130cm (35 to 51 inches).

I used these values as a reference and then thought about how bright each room needed to be (bathroom/kitchen, for example, brighter than a hallway). So for brighter rooms, I installed more spotlights closer together, and for “darker” rooms, the spots were spaced further apart and fewer in number.

At first, I installed 3W LEDs everywhere, keeping in mind that if a spot didn’t provide enough light, I could always replace it with 5W. I adopted the beam angle from friends, who, in my opinion, had achieved the best results.

We also considered where, for example, tall wardrobes would be placed. In these cases, we positioned the spots further away from the approximately 80cm (31 inches) distance from the wall.

Result: We are extremely satisfied. I only replaced the 3W with 5W in the utility room.

We also had to plan the entire ground floor on paper because the halogen fixtures were embedded in the cast-in-place concrete ceiling. The structural engineer was satisfied with the information that we would install recessed ceiling spots there. He wasn’t concerned about the exact locations.

readytorumble schrieb:
Well, we faced the same problem.
Some people hire a lighting designer and pay thousands of euros for it.
We took a more practical approach and first looked at three houses with spotlights installed by friends and talked with them a bit about it.
Then I asked a friend who is a master electrician. He gave me some general guidelines.
If I remember correctly, he said: about 80cm (31 inches) away from the wall, and the distance between the spots between 90cm to a maximum of 130cm (35 to 51 inches).

I based my setup on those values and then considered how bright each room needed to be (bathrooms/kitchens, for example, should be brighter than hallways). So in brighter rooms I used more spots with smaller spacing, and in "darker" rooms the spots were further apart and fewer in number.

At first, I installed 3W LEDs everywhere, with the option in mind to switch to 5W if any area turned out too dark. I simply adopted the beam angles from friends who, in my opinion, had achieved the best results.

We also took into account where tall wardrobes, for example, would be placed. In those areas we spaced the spots further than the approximate 80cm (31 inches) from the wall.

Result: we are extremely satisfied. I only swapped the 3W spots with 5W ones in the utility room.

For the ground floor, we had to plan everything thoroughly on paper since the halogen fixtures were installed in the in-situ concrete ceiling. The structural engineer was only informed that we would be installing ceiling spots there; the exact placement didn’t concern him.

What beam angles did you use in the different rooms?

I’m currently considering mainly 110° beam angles since the spots will only be in hallways and utility rooms. Does that really spread the light much wider?

The 30–40° angles seem more suitable for spot or accent lighting only, right?

I found a formula online for calculating this (“should” be calculated based on room brightness, ceiling height, and distance to walls).

However, I don’t know anyone I could ask to review my calculations.

We still have an appointment with the electrician for this.

In our current apartment, we don’t use 110° spots, maybe I should buy one to test.

I no longer have the beam angle memorized, sorry.

Recessed spotlights in concrete ceilings are very expensive and are no longer really necessary! With halogen lights, where the fixture and reflector have a high profile, a correspondingly deep hole had to be drilled into the ceiling. Okay, but who still installs halogen downlights these days?

In the LED age, it is sufficient to install a 24V wiring system with enough outlets. Then, 24V LED surface-mounted spotlights can be attached. LED panels are only a few millimeters thick; to allow for plug-in installation, they usually come in a housing about 1cm (0.4 inches) high, but no additional height is needed. So, they are "almost" like recessed spotlights, even though they are surface mounted. This saves a lot of money compared to traditional recessed spotlight installation. The 24V transformer can then be quietly hidden somewhere in a nearby utility or technical room.

We faced the same many questions ourselves.
I initially calculated based on the formula often found online, but in the end, contrary to the calculation (60-degree beam angle), I installed dimmable LED spots (230 volts, about 3.5 cm (1.4 inches) flat) with a 110-degree beam angle. In my opinion, the difference between 40 degrees and 110 degrees beam angle is quite significant.
I also ordered several spots "to choose from" and picked the best ones. It’s not only the beam angle that matters here, but also the color temperature (Kelvin value) and personal comfort.
Otherwise, I recommend arranging the spots in a visually pleasing way (symmetry, given distances).
Then nothing should really go wrong.

Good luck