I need some lighting help - ASAP.

Is this the only lighting you're planning for that whole room?

Don't know how many cans you need for that space (minimum), but 12 doesn't sound like enough... Whatever you do, make sure you split those out into many dimmer zones. You'll want to control the levels in the theater area much differently than others.

Jeff

Yeah, for a room that big 12 will not be nearly enough. I have 4 sconces and 8 cans in a 13.5 x 20 room and it works really well. I would guess that you would need at least double that amount. If you put them on "banks" of dimmers you won't have to worry about it because you can always dim them.

Good luck.

Regards,

RTROSE

Where did that info come from? LED vs. any other light source won't matter in terms of coverage from each fixture location. You need the right number of fixtures, and then adjust wattage accordingly.


Buy incandescent now, wait a year or two, those LEDs will be $10 (maybe! ) and you probably only used $100 of "extra" electricity in the meantime, while saving $1579 in bulbs in the meantime...

(I made those numbers up, but you can do the math - hours per day of usage * kW/h delta and so forth...)

Jeff

That will depend on the switch/dimmer and wattage of bulbs. You can get 1000W dimmers and 600W dimmers. Assuming the circuit has room for the load you could safely fit 13 75W incandescent bulbs on a 1000W dimmer (as long as none of the fins are removed from the dimmer). Removing the fins (as you would need to in a multi-gang installation) will decrease the dimmer's capacity.

I wouldn't space the cans out any further than a 6' x 6' grid. Dim them in a few zones. Get the regular incandescent/halogen cans for now, replace with LED lamps in a few years. Saying you need less LED fixtures is a myth. Look at the lumen output of both to make your decision- lumens are the measure of how much light the fixture produces. Even if the LEDs produce more light, you will still be limited by the light distribution of the cans. If you space them too far apart, you'll have bright spots directly below fixtures and dark spots between.

Look at the installation instructions on a Lutron Maestro dimmer for example. You have de-rate the number of watts the dimmer is good for when mounting multiple dimmers in a multi-gang box.