Member Comments

We are in a modern (five year old) double glazed home and installed a heat pump in the living area a year ago. It never seemed to get on top of the heating needs and we had identified the 12 downlights, which were CA rated but not actually rated for abutted insulation so our electrician informed us, as the probable cause. We had planned to replace them with ceiling mounted conventional lights, which with so many were certainly going to look busy.
Dominic'c comments about the Foss Fozz)downlights look worthwhile following up, even though we may be looking at $1,000 to do so. I see they are able to be covered. (Hassle free installation for all scales of projects Rated: Class F ("no heatcan required and insulation can cover fitting"). We will continue look at reducing the number of lights, plastering and repainting the ceiling to tidy up. The cost to remedy is substantial but the savings and effectiveness should be worthwhile.
I hope this report gives impetus to our advisers, such as ECCA who had nothing I could find and local councils.

Why is there no mention of the fact that commercial covers are readably available for down lights that prevent heat loss and air movement from the roof space through to the room?
Some of the covers allow insulation to be placed up to them and the more expensive option allows insulation to be placed over it, insulating the entire ceiling.

We have replaced all the incandescent lamps in our house to 20W cool daylight CFL's as pictured in the review, (this type of CFL sits nice in the fittings and doesn't protrude), and find the light output is better and easier on the eyes. It has the added advantage of far less heat being generated by the lamps themselves and with the covers will allow us to place insulation over the entire ceiling area.
This solution has worked for us but may not suit everyone.

Although this article is interesting and informative, we feel it is not complete without mention of the down light covers.

I'm an electrician and have installed thousands of downlights and have always hated them. The worst are halogen dichroic's which can reach nearly 250 degree celsius - dangerous and prone to shutting off erratically when they get warm - they were never designed as domestic ceiling lights in the first place. But there are some excellent recessed alternatives now, for example Foss down lights that use 9 watt lamps, are only 50mm in height and can have insulation laid right over the top - fantastic! I have replaced all the old ones in my house. Though they are twice the price of halogen lights, there are no transformers and you don't need an electrician to replace the lamps!! And they look great. There is also a model of downlight designed for CFL's that has a clip-on diffuser that completely seals them. They are not common because they are a little dearer but if we had an proactive energy commission maybe more would be known. Feel free to ring my business during office hours 0800 287 452 for more info.

One has to wonder why, when the former Labour government were looking at requiring shower head restrictors to reduce the amount of water used in a shower that they never banned those ridiculous downlights. We have them in our house (they were put in before we bought it) and we are forever getting spiders drop through the lights. You can feel the wind blowing out the lights, and we must be wasting so much heat through the ceiling. And unless we get a builder in and have the ceiling completely redone, we can't very well remove them.

I haven't checked the air flow requirements but there is no mention at all of LED downlights. Are they that much better?

Thankyou consumer for 'at last' bringing attention to the public of a major problem of heat loss through recessed lights. We are involved with insulating homes for 20 years. Sadly about 80% of lights fitted into older homes are of poor quality. As a company we have been covering lights with large 10 litre buckets inverted over the lights with the insulation abutted to the sides. The results are quite dramatic in some cases. The buckets barely get warm over extended periods. At a cost of $1.00 a very cheap solution to a major heat loss problem. Further to your testing, there is the dynamic of strong outside winds which lower the ceiling pressures forcing air at considerable force up through the downlights especially if a window or door is opened to the outside. This has been evidenced quite dramatically in Newlands, Wellington. In summer the reverse happens with heat being driven downwards into the living space. Phil

Finally someone has caught on to how much energy is wasted by downlights. As far as I know the calculations that are used to work out the heat loss of a building don't consider downlight losses.