Sizing the systems
Recessed lighting calculator
A 14 × 12 kitchen takes nine fixtures in a 3 × 3 grid, 4.7 ft apart, and costs about $1,985 in a finished ceiling or $1,265 before the drywall goes up. But the two rules everybody quotes — half the ceiling height apart, and enough lumens for the room — give different answers in almost every room, and in a living room they differ by more than three to one. This page gives both, draws the layout, and says which one we would build.
Written and edited by Pablo Ruiz Quintero
Last reviewed 2026-09-17 · Nothing you type leaves your browser
The room
Two numbers decide everything: the floor area sets how many fixtures the light needs, and the ceiling height sets how far apart they can be. They do not always agree, and this page shows you both answers rather than picking one quietly.
The longer wall.
The shorter wall.
Half the ceiling height is the maximum spacing — 4 ft here. It is the oldest rule in the trade and the reason a tall room is harder to light, not easier.
The brightest room in most houses, and the one where under-cabinet lighting does the work the cans cannot: a can in the ceiling lights the back of whoever is at the counter.
The middle size, and increasingly the default in new work — nearly the output of a 6 in with a smaller hole in the ceiling.
A hole cut in a finished ceiling, cable fished across joists in the dark, and the fixture clipped from below. Roughly double the labour, and the reason two quotes for the same room differ so much.
Attic or insulated ceiling. Decides whether the housings have to be IC rated.
An LED-rated dimmer. On a grid sized for uniformity it is not a luxury, it is the control that makes the count right.
Tick this if the lights are not going onto an existing circuit. It is a fixed cost and it dominates a small job.
Used only to pick a regional labour rate. It stays in your browser.
Fixtures
9
3 × 3 · 4.7 ft apart · 2–2.3 ft off the walls
48 foot-candles, against the 35 this room wants
168 sq ft needs 5,880 lumens, and a 5 in fixture gives 900 — so the arithmetic asks for 6.5 of them.
The two rules disagree
Neither is wrong. One chases even coverage, the other chases light level, and in most rooms they are not the same number.
| Rule | Fixtures | Gives | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spacing | 4 × 3 = 12 | 64 fc | Never more than 4 ft apart, so the pools of light overlap and no wall gets scallops. |
| Light level · | 3 × 3 = 9 | 48 fc | The 35 foot-candles this use asks for, rounded up to a grid that can hold whole fixtures, at 4.7 ft apart. |
We have gone with 9. Packing the ceiling to the spacing rule would put 64 foot-candles into a room that wants 35 — even, and also far too bright. The trade-off is 4.7 ft between fixtures against a 4 ft maximum, which will read slightly uneven on the walls.
The layout, to scale
The electrics
- Connected load99 W
- Fixtures per 15 A circuit130
- Housing ratingIC rated, airtight
- Total output8,100 lm
LED changed the arithmetic here completely. 9 fixtures at 11 W is 99 watts. The same ceiling in 65 W halogen would have drawn 585 W, and a 15 A circuit would have carried 22 fixtures instead of 130. That is why a can layout that was unthinkable in 2005 is routine now.
Shopping list
- 5 in fixtures, remodel, IC rated and airtight
900 lm and 11 W each — 8,100 lumens over 168 sq ft9 fixtures - Dimmer, LED rated
99 W of load on it, which is nowhere near a dimmer's capacity — the rating that matters is that it is made for LED, not the wattage1
What it costs
National average. Fixtures, cutting in, fishing the cable and trimming out. Drywall patching beyond the fixture holes, painting and any switch relocation are separate.
$221 a fixture, all in. The same room on open ceiling (new construction) would be about $1,265 — that single question is most of the spread you see in published prices for this work. If the ceiling is coming down anyway, this is the moment: see drywall and attic insulation, because IC-rated cans and blown insulation are the same trip into the attic.
Worth knowing
- 9 fixtures in a 3 × 3 grid, 4.7 ft apart and 2.0 ft off the walls. The count comes from the light the room needs; the grid only distributes it.
- There are two defensible answers and they differ. For even coverage the spacing rule wants 12 fixtures — 4 × 3, none more than 4.0 ft apart — but at 900 lm each that is 64 foot-candles in a room that wants 35. We recommend 9, because that is the light level the room asked for. The honest cost of that choice: 4.7 ft between fixtures against a 4.0 ft maximum, which will read as pools rather than a wash, and may scallop the walls.
- If you want the even ceiling AND the right light level, the answer is not fewer fixtures further apart. It is the 12-fixture grid with lower-output trims: 500 lm each instead of 900, or the same trims on a dimmer held around 54 per cent. That costs more to install and it is what a lighting designer would draw. Nobody publishing a price per fixture will tell you this, because it is a specification question and not a pricing one.
- The grid delivers about 48 foot-candles against the 35 this use wants. The arithmetic asked for 6.5 fixtures and a grid cannot hold a fraction of one, so it rounds — and a dimmer takes care of the difference in the direction that matters.
- Finished ceiling (remodel): A hole cut in a finished ceiling, cable fished across joists in the dark, and the fixture clipped from below. Roughly double the labour, and the reason two quotes for the same room differ so much. The same room the other way would be about $1,265 against $1,985. Every published price for this work averages the two, which is why they are all so wide.
- There is insulation above this ceiling, so the housings have to be IC rated — rated for insulation contact. A non-IC housing needs 3 in clear all round, which means somebody has to go up and hold the insulation back from every single fixture, and it never stays back. Specify IC and airtight, so the fixtures do not become 9 holes venting the house into the attic.
- 99 watts total. The code limits a continuous load to 80 per cent of the circuit, so a 15 amp circuit carries 1,440 watts rather than 1,800. With LED fixtures nobody reaches it — the limit that bites is the switch, not the wire. At 11 W a fixture, one 15 amp circuit carries 130 of these — so the 9 here sit comfortably on one. The same ceiling in 65 W halogen would have drawn 585 W, and a circuit would have carried only 22 fixtures instead of 130.
- LED dimmers have a MINIMUM load as well as a maximum: a dimmer rated from 10 watts will flicker on a single 9 watt fixture. It is the commonest complaint about a new LED installation and it is a specification problem, not a fault.
On this page — 8 sections
- 01How many recessed lights you need, and why two rules give two answers
- 02Spacing, and where the ceiling-height rule quietly fails
- 03Where they actually go, which is not a grid on a plan
- 04What it costs to install recessed lighting
- 05IC rated, airtight, and the reason cans ruin attics
- 06Circuits, watts and dimmers after LED
- 07Four, five, six inch and canless
- 08What goes wrong
How many recessed lights you need, and why two rules give two answers
The short version
- The count comes from the light, not the area. Area × foot-candles ÷ lumens per fixture. A workshop needs one fixture per 16 ft²; a bedroom, one per 66.
- The spacing rule is a separate question. Ceiling height ÷ 2 is a maximum for even coverage, and in most rooms it asks for far more fixtures than the light level does.
- They disagree in almost every room. In a living room the rule wants 20 and the light wants 6. Everyone else publishes one number and does not say which question they answered.
- The method is most of the price. Nine fixtures are $1,265 in an open ceiling and $1,985 in a finished one — 57 per cent more for identical fixtures in an identical room.
Every guide to recessed lighting gives you one of two rules, and never mentions that there is another one. The first is arithmetic: work out how much light the room wants and divide by what a fixture gives. The second is a rule of thumb from the trade: never put fixtures further apart than half the ceiling height.
Both are correct. They are also answers to different questions — one is about level and the other is about evenness — and in most rooms they give wildly different numbers.
fixtures = (area × foot-candles) ÷ lumens per fixture
- area
- the floor area in square feet
- foot-candles
- what the room is for — 35 in a kitchen, 18 in a living room, 15 in a bedroom
- lumens per fixture
- what one fixture puts out — 900 for a typical 5 in LED
Worked through — A 14 × 12 kitchen is 168 ft². At 35 foot-candles that is 5,880 lumens, and at 900 lm a fixture, 6.5 of them — which rounds to a 3 × 3 grid of nine, at 4.7 ft apart.
Illuminating Engineering Society, IES Lighting Handbook — recommended illuminance for residential spaces · checked 2026-09-17
Spacing, and where the ceiling-height rule quietly fails
Divide the ceiling height by 2. That is the furthest apart the fixtures should be: 4 ft on an 8 ft ceiling, 5 ft on a 10 ft one. From the wall, half that again.
The rule works because light from a recessed fixture arrives as a cone, and a cone spreads with distance. Put the cones close enough that they overlap at working height and you get a wash. Put them further apart and you get pools with shade between them, and arcs of light down the walls — scalloping, which is the visible symptom.
Where it fails is on a tall ceiling, and it fails in the opposite direction to the one people expect. A 12 ft ceiling allows 6 ft spacing by the rule, but light falls off with the square of the distance: the same fixture 12 ft up delivers a quarter of what it delivers from 6 ft. So a high room needs more output per fixture and a narrower beam, not simply more space between cans. The rule is silent on this, and it is the commonest reason a vaulted room comes out dim after a layout that followed every published instruction.
4 ft
8 ft ceiling
Maximum spacing, 2 ft from the walls
4.5 ft
9 ft ceiling
The most common new-build height
5 ft
10 ft ceiling
And about 1.5× the lumens per fixture
6 ft
12 ft ceiling
Where the rule alone stops working
Illuminating Engineering Society, IES Lighting Handbook — recommended illuminance for residential spaces · checked 2026-09-17
Where they actually go, which is not a grid on a plan
The calculator draws an even grid because that is what general lighting is. But three places in a house get a fixture put over them by default and should not, and one place gets missed.
Before anybody cuts a hole
- Mark every joist across the ceiling. A fixture centre landing on a joist has to move, and moving it after the hole is cut is a patch you will see forever.
- Not over the bed. The one place in the house where somebody spends hours looking straight up at the ceiling.
- Not over the bathroom mirror. A can above a mirror lights the top of a head and throws the face into shade — that is what vanity lights are for.
- Not over the dining table. It shadows every plate. The table gets a pendant, and the cans go round the perimeter.
- Over the kitchen worktop, about 24 in out from the wall, so the light lands on the surface and not on the splashback or the back of whoever is working.
- Check what is above before you commit: ductwork, a plumbing stack, a recessed joist hanger. Fishing cable is the slow part and an obstruction is what makes it slow.
- Wet-rated trim over a shower, and check the local rule on a fixture above a bath.
- Think about the switching now. Twelve fixtures on one switch is one lighting scene; split into two groups it is three.
What it costs to install recessed lighting
Nine fixtures in a finished 14 × 12 kitchen ceiling come to about $1,985 — $221 a fixture, with an LED-rated dimmer and no new circuit. The same nine before the drywall goes up are about $1,265, or $141 each.
That is a 57 per cent difference for identical fixtures in an identical room, and it is the single fact that explains why every published price for this work is quoted as a range wide enough to be useless. They are averaging two different jobs.
| Open ceiling, new construction | Finished ceiling, remodel | |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $32 each | $42 each |
| Labour per fixture | $95 | $165 |
| Nine fixtures, all in | $1,265 | $1,985 |
| Per fixture | $141 | $221 |
| The cable run | Stapled to joists in the open | Fished across joists blind |
| The hole | None — the ceiling is not up yet | Cut to the trim, and it has to miss the joists |
| Making good | Part of the drywall job | Usually yours, and not in the quote |
Two things move the number after that. A new circuit is a fixed cost of roughly $300 to $800 and it dominates a small job — six fixtures with a new circuit can cost more per fixture than twelve without one. And the state you are in moves the labour by up to about a fifth either way, which the calculator applies from your ZIP; the fixtures themselves cost the same everywhere.
What is not in any of these numbers: painting, drywall repair beyond the fixture holes themselves, and moving a switch. On a remodel those are frequently the items that turn a tidy quote into a job.
MaterialsEstimator, Recessed lighting fixture and installation price survey · checked 2026-09-17
IC rated, airtight, and the reason cans ruin attics
A recessed fixture is a hole in the ceiling. In a top-floor ceiling it is a hole between the heated house and a cold attic, and warm air goes up through it all winter.
Two separate ratings deal with two separate problems, and they get conflated constantly. IC rated means the housing can touch insulation without overheating. Airtight means it does not leak air. A housing can be one without the other, and you want both.
A non-IC can needs 3 in of clearance all the way round. That is a requirement somebody has to satisfy forever — every time insulation is topped up, every time anybody walks up there. It never survives. Specifying IC is not belt and braces, it is the only version of this that is still true in ten years.
National Fire Protection Association, NFPA 70, National Electrical Code — Articles 210 and 410 · checked 2026-09-17
Circuits, watts and dimmers after LED
This used to be the constraint that shaped a layout. It is not any more, and the size of the change is worth seeing written down.
A 15 amp circuit at 120 V carries 1,800 watts, and code allows 80 per cent of that for a load running three hours or more — so 1440 watts. At 11 W an LED fixture that is about 130 of them. The same ceiling in 65 W halogen was twenty-two.
So the circuit almost never limits the count now. What still costs money is whether a circuit exists at all: running a new one back to the panel is a fixed several hundred dollars regardless of how many fixtures hang off it.
1440 W
15 A circuit, usable
80% of 1,800 W, continuous load
~130
LED fixtures on it
At 11 W each
~22
Halogen fixtures on it
At 65 W each — the old planning limit
$300–800
A new circuit
Fixed, and it dominates a small job
National Fire Protection Association, NFPA 70, National Electrical Code — Articles 210 and 410 · checked 2026-09-17
Four, five, six inch and canless
| Size | Lumens | Watts | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 in | 700 | 9 | Small and discreet. Needs closer spacing for the same light, which is why a 4 in layout uses more fixtures and often costs more installed than a 6 in one. |
| 5 in | 900 | 11 | The middle size, and increasingly the default in new work — nearly the output of a 6 in with a smaller hole in the ceiling. |
| 6 in | 1100 | 13 | The traditional can. Most output per fixture, most visible from below, and the reason ceilings from the 2000s look like a runway. |
| Wafer / canless LED | 1000 | 12 | No housing at all — a thin disc with a junction box that pushes up into the ceiling. It is what most remodel work uses now, because it fits where a can will not. |
The counterintuitive part: the smaller fixture usually costs more installed. A 14 × 12 kitchen takes nine 5 in fixtures or six 6 in ones, and the price of this job is driven by holes and labour rather than by the fixture itself — so nine smaller cans come to about $1,985 against $1,364 for six larger ones.
You are paying for the look. Which is a legitimate thing to pay for, but it should be a decision rather than a surprise on the invoice.
| Housing and trim | Canless / wafer | |
|---|---|---|
| Depth needed above the ceiling | 6–8 in | About 1 in plus the junction box |
| Hole size | Sized to the housing | Smaller — often 4 in for a 6 in look |
| When the light fails | Change the lamp or the trim | Replace the whole fixture |
| Changing the look later | New trim, housing stays | Not possible |
| Typical use now | New construction | Most remodel work |
What goes wrong
01Using a fixtures-per-square-foot rule
It is the most repeated rule in this subject and it has no basis. A workshop needs one fixture per 16 ft² and a bedroom one per 66 — a four-fold difference driven entirely by what the room is for. An area rule averages a workshop and a bedroom and gets both wrong.
Instead — Multiply the floor area by the foot-candles the room is for, then divide by the lumens of one fixture. It is one more step and it is the only version that survives contact with a bedroom.
02Following the spacing rule in a dim room
Half the ceiling height is a maximum for even coverage, not a target. Applied to a living room it puts 64 foot-candles into a space that wants 18 — even, and also floodlit. If you want the even grid, lower the output per fixture; do not just fill the ceiling at full lumens.
Instead — Take the count from the light level, or keep the rule's grid and drop to a lower-output trim. What you should not do is fill the ceiling at full lumens because a rule of thumb said four feet.
03Cutting holes before finding the joists
A fixture centre that lands on a joist has to move, and by then the hole exists. Mark the joists across the whole ceiling first and shift the grid a few inches if you need to — nobody will ever notice three inches; everybody notices a patch.
Instead — Mark every joist across the whole ceiling, then shift the grid a few inches to clear them. Nobody will ever notice three inches; everybody notices a patch.
04Non-IC housings under insulation
They need 3 in clear all round, and that clearance lasts exactly until the next person goes into the attic. It is a fire requirement being enforced by hope.
Instead — Specify IC rated wherever there is any chance of insulation above, which on a top floor is always. It costs a few dollars a fixture and it is the only version still true in ten years.
05Forgetting airtight, which is a separate rating
IC rated and airtight are not the same thing and a housing can be one without the other. Ordinary cans in a top-floor ceiling vent house air into the attic all winter, and you have just installed a dozen of them on purpose.
Instead — Ask for IC rated AND airtight, in those words, and seal round each housing at the drywall. A canless fixture with a sealed box is the easy way to get both.
06A non-LED dimmer
The old kind is designed to load a filament. On an LED drawing a tenth of that you get flicker, a buzz, or a lamp that cuts out at half. Thirty dollars, and the commonest complaint after a retrofit.
Instead — Fit an LED-rated dimmer and check the fixture maker's compatibility list, which most of them publish. Thirty dollars at the outset against a callback.
07Cans over the bed, the mirror or the dining table
Straight into the eyes of somebody lying down; the top of a head with the face in shadow; a shadow on every plate. All three are default placements on a plan drawn as a grid, and all three are wrong.
Instead — Move them to the perimeter and give those three places their own light — a bedside lamp, vanity lights either side of the mirror, a pendant over the table.
08Lighting the whole room from the ceiling
Everything lit from one direction at one intensity reads flat and institutional. Recessed is the fill layer. The character comes from lamps, pendants, under-cabinet strips and wall washing, and it costs nothing to plan for now.
Instead — Treat the cans as fill and plan one other layer now: under-cabinet, a lamp circuit on a switched socket, or a wall wash. It costs nothing at this stage and everything later.
09Comparing quotes without asking about the ceiling
An open ceiling is $141 a fixture and a finished one $221. If one quote assumed the drywall was coming down and the other did not, you are not comparing two prices for one job.
Instead — Ask each quote whether it assumes an open ceiling or a finished one, and whether making good is in it. Then you are comparing two prices for one job.
- 01Measure the room and the ceiling heightFloor area sets how many fixtures the light needs. Ceiling height sets how far apart they can be. These are two different questions and they give two different answers.
- 02Decide what the room is forA kitchen wants about 35 foot-candles and a bedroom 15. The number you pick here moves the count more than anything else on the page.
- 03Work out the count from the light, and the grid from the roomArea times foot-candles gives lumens; lumens divided by the output of one fixture gives the count. Then divide the room into that many equal zones and put a fixture at the centre of each.
- 04Check the spacing against the ceilingCeiling height divided by two is the maximum. If the layout is wider than that, you have chosen light level over uniformity, and you should know you have chosen it.
- 05Find the joists before you cut anythingA fixture centre that lands on a joist has to move, and moving it after the hole is cut is a patch. Mark every joist across the ceiling first.
- 06Keep them off the walls and off the furnitureHalf the spacing from a wall. Not over a bed, not over a mirror, not directly over a dining table.
- 07Check the circuitAdd up the watts. LED has made this almost a formality, but a new circuit is a fixed cost that dominates a small job, so find out before you price it.
IC-rated cans and topping up the insulation are the same trip into the attic — and the sealing has to happen before the fill goes down, because after it nobody seals anything underneath it for a generation.
Attic insulation- Foot-candle
- One lumen landing on one square foot. It is the unit the whole trade sizes light in, and it is what a room specification actually says — a kitchen wants about 35, a bedroom 15.
- Lumen
- Total light a fixture puts out, in every direction it throws. It replaced watts as the number that matters, because an LED and a halogen of the same brightness differ five-fold in watts.
- Spacing criterion
- The trade rule that fixtures should be no further apart than the ceiling height divided by 2. It is about even coverage, not about how bright the room is, and the two are different questions.
- Housing
- The metal can above the ceiling that holds the lamp, carries the wiring connection and takes the heat. A canless or wafer fixture has none — just a driver box and a thin disc.
- Trim
- The visible ring and reflector at ceiling level. It sets the beam, the finish and whether the fixture is rated for a wet location, and on most systems it can be changed without touching the housing.
- IC rated
- Rated for direct contact with insulation. A non-IC housing needs 3 in clear all round, which means somebody has to hold the insulation back from every fixture forever.
- Airtight
- A housing sealed so it does not vent house air into the attic. A row of leaky cans in a top-floor ceiling is a row of chimneys, and it is the commonest thermal fault in a retrofit.
- Wafer or canless
- A thin LED disc with a separate junction box, pushed up into the ceiling with spring clips. It fits in shallow ceilings where a can will not, and it is what most remodel work uses now.
- Beam angle
- How wide the cone of light is. A narrow beam throws further and pools harder; a wide one washes. On a high ceiling the beam matters more than the spacing.
- Scalloping
- The arcs of light and shade a row of fixtures casts down a wall when they are too far from it or too far apart. It is the visible symptom of getting spacing wrong.
- Wall wash
- A trim aimed to throw light sideways onto a wall rather than straight down. Used deliberately on art or a feature wall, it is the fix for a room that would otherwise read as a grid of dots.
- Remodel housing
- A housing designed to go into a ceiling that is already finished, clipping to the drywall from below rather than nailing to a joist from above. It costs more and it takes about twice as long to fit.
- Continuous load
- A load expected to run for three hours or more. Code says a circuit carries no more than 80 per cent of its rating for one, which is why a 15 amp circuit is worked out at 12 amps.
Common questions
- How many recessed lights do I need?
- Multiply the floor area by the foot-candles the room wants, then divide by the lumens of one fixture. A 14 × 12 ft kitchen is 168 ft²; at 35 foot-candles that is 5,880 lumens, and at 900 lumens a fixture that is between six and seven — call it nine in a 3 × 3 grid, which is what the spacing then wants. A 20 × 14 living room at 18 foot-candles needs only six.
- How far apart should recessed lights be?
- No more than half the ceiling height, so 4 ft on an 8 ft ceiling and 5 ft on a 10 ft one. That is the maximum for even coverage, not a target — and in a dim room the light level will often ask for fewer fixtures than that rule allows, which means accepting wider spacing on purpose.
- How much does it cost to install recessed lighting?
- About $1,985 for nine fixtures in a finished 14 × 12 kitchen ceiling — $221 a fixture, all in, with an LED-rated dimmer and no new circuit. The same nine fixtures in an open ceiling before the drywall goes up are about $1,265, or $141 each. That single question is most of the spread you see in published prices.
- Why is recessed lighting so much more expensive in an existing ceiling?
- Because the labour roughly doubles. In new construction the housing clips to a joist in the open and the cable is run with a clear view of everything; the fixture is $32 and the labour about $95. In a finished ceiling somebody cuts a hole, fishes cable across joists blind, and clips the fixture from below — $42 and about $165. Every price you read online averages the two, which is why they are all quoted as such wide ranges.
- How many recessed lights per square foot?
- There is no such number, and this is the question that produces the worst layouts. Fixtures per square foot depends on what the room is for: a workshop needs one per 16 ft² and a bedroom one per 66 ft², a four-fold difference driven entirely by the foot-candles the room wants. Work from the light level, not from an area rule.
- What size recessed lights should I use — 4, 5 or 6 inch?
- Six inch gives the most light per fixture, so you need fewer; four inch is more discreet, so you need more. A 14 × 12 kitchen takes nine 5 in fixtures or six 6 in ones. Counterintuitively, the smaller fixture often costs more installed, because the price is driven by the hole and the labour rather than by the fixture. Five inch has become the default in new work — nearly the output of a six with a smaller hole.
- Do recessed lights need to be IC rated?
- Wherever insulation touches them, which in practice means any top-floor ceiling. A non-IC housing needs 3 in clear all round, and that clearance never survives the next person who goes up there. Specify IC rated and airtight together — the airtight part matters just as much, because ordinary cans vent house air into the attic all winter.
- How many recessed lights on one circuit?
- At 11 W an LED fixture, a 15 amp circuit at 80 per cent carries about 130 of them. The limit is effectively gone. The same ceiling in 65 W halogen would have been about twenty-two fixtures a circuit, which is why older layouts were planned around the panel and new ones are not.
- Should recessed lights go over the bed, the mirror or the dining table?
- None of the three. A can over a bed shines into the face of whoever is lying in it. A can over a mirror lights the top of a head and throws the face into shadow, which is what vanity lights exist to fix. A can over a dining table casts a shadow onto every plate, and the table wants a pendant. Recessed lighting is a background layer; the places people actually look need their own light.
- Do I need a dimmer for recessed lights?
- On any layout laid out for even coverage, effectively yes — it is the control that makes a generous count the right count. It has to be an LED-rated dimmer: the old kind was designed to load a filament and will flicker or buzz on a fixture drawing a tenth of what it expects. Budget around $85 fitted for the pair of parts and labour.
- Is canless or wafer lighting as good as a real can?
- For general lighting, yes, and it is now the default in retrofit work — it fits in ceilings too shallow for a housing and needs a smaller hole. The trade-off is that the light engine and the trim are one unit: when it fails you replace the whole fixture rather than a lamp, and you cannot change the trim style later.
- Can I install recessed lighting myself?
- Cutting the holes and fitting the fixtures is within reach of a competent DIYer. Fishing cable across joists in a finished ceiling is the hard part and it is where the time goes, and making the connection at the panel is licensed work in most places. The material is around a third of the cost here — the rest is the two skills that are worth paying for.
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About the author
Pablo Ruiz Quintero — Editor
Editor of MaterialsEstimator. Decides which documents count as a source, what every default value is, and where the line sits between what the reader parses and what the engines compute.
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