The Room Lighting Kit

The LED Boom method for lighting a room right the first time: measured on the room you already have, bought for the light that is lost on the way, and fitted inside every label on the fixture and the dimmer

Our Room Lumens Calculator multiplies a room's area by its foot-candles, which is the light that has to land on the room. Bulbs are rated for the light that leaves them, and shades, fixtures and walls absorb part of it on the way. Bought straight from that number, a 200 square foot living room aimed at 15 foot-candles gets four 800 lm bulbs. In the kit's worked example that is exactly the room already there, and a light meter puts it at 7.25 foot-candles, under the bottom of the living-room range. The Room Lighting Kit measures your room's own share of its bulbs' light in one evening (five lux readings through our converter), then turns the foot-candle range into whole bulbs. In the worked example the share is 0.45, the room needs 6,667 lm of bulbs, and its four existing sockets with 1,600 lm bulbs land 14.4 foot-candles, inside the range, with no new fixture. It then checks each bulb's actual draw against the socket's label and the dimmer's LED rating and minimum load, keeps one color temperature per view, and ranks your old bulbs by payback so the long-burning ones go first. Every figure is computed by our own calculators; the room, readings, ratings and prices are examples, the foot-candle ranges are rules of thumb, and electrical work stays with a licensed electrician where required. Included: 23 printable pages, seven steps, a room plan card, a fixture and dimmer card, a swap list, reference tables and a quickstart, plus a personalised sheet worked out from the numbers you enter in our calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the kit, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Range Rule: the foot-candle range for each room, its lux, and the lumens that must land
• The Measured Share Rule: five readings that show how much of your bulbs' light reaches the room
• The Whole Bulb Rule: lumens to buy for the losses, counted in whole bulbs against the range
• The Socket Label Rule: brighter bulbs in the sockets you have, inside each label and enclosed rating
• The One Tone Rule: everything in one view within 500 K, checked in kelvin
• The Dimmer Rating Rule: dimmable bulbs, loaded between the dimmer's minimum and its LED rating
• The Hours Rule: old bulbs ranked by payback, the long-burning ones first and the rest at burnout
• Working pages: a room plan card, a fixture and dimmer card, and a swap list
• Reference tables: lumens per 100 square feet by room, and what each bulb draws by efficacy
• A quickstart and the safety floor: labels, enclosed fixtures, dimmers and when to call an electrician

The kit picks up where the free Room Lumens Calculator leaves off. It gives the lumens that have to land on a room, but bulbs are rated for the light that leaves them, and shades, fixtures and walls absorb part of it on the way. The kit measures that share in your own room with the Lux to Foot-candles Converter, turns the foot-candle range into whole bulbs, and fills the sockets you already have before counting new fixtures. It checks every bulb's actual draw from the Lumens to Watts Calculatoragainst the fixture's label and the dimmer's LED rating, keeps one tone per view with the Color Temperature Guide, and puts your swaps in payback order with the LED Savings Calculator. The kit changes bulbs and plugs in lamps: installing or replacing a fixture, switch or dimmer, and any wiring, is electrical work that in many places must be done by a licensed electrician. Never exceed a fixture's maximum wattage label, use enclosed-rated bulbs in closed shades and dimmable bulbs on dimmers, and switch off anything that flickers, buzzes or runs hot. The foot-candle ranges are rules of thumb, and the kit makes no health claim about any color temperature. The worked figures and prices are examples; your own replace them.