How to choose a lumen rating for your next lighting project
Azeez Mahalla, a lighting designer in Nairobi, stopped saying “lumens are hard” after the time he asked a client “how many watts” for their new kitchen lights. They wanted 150 watts per bulb because that was what their old bulbs said. No designer likes to see eyeballs roll, but Azeez kept his cool and helped them pick the right lumens.
Recently, our team helped an art museum calculate exact lumen ranges. Museum directors naturally pay attention to house lights when they should care about the quality of light hitting the hung art. Most museums control this for visitors by keeping daylight out during daylight hours. Brightness matters here, yet no one photographed a Rembrandt in wattage.
For this reason, household and commercial builders need to focus on lumens rather than watts for all indoor lighting needs. Unfortunately, most people only understand watts. The tjoy lumens converter chart solves this problem directly: You can look up the right watts to buy after finding the right lumens for your project.
In American buildings, Interior designers must estimate target lumen ratings for multiple rooms before buying or specifying any lights. To help them follow through, Birmingham State University organizes its student lighting designers in three ways:alcoves are intimate spaces under 2 meters across. Rooms are spaces over 3 meters across. Living zones such as kitchens and dens are larger areas with internal division like minibar and dining tables.
The hard math lighting designers use better not to use
The dangerous distinction between a good light reading–and bad false color.
The textbook formulas to guess at how many lumens you need assume symmetrical spaces with standard height ceilings. To avoid second guessing themselves letting standard-Maya tombs or some other real client problem dictate how you work is dangerous for the people you are trying to help.
For example: the actual height of your ceiling can drastically add or subtract light depending on the minimum useful area of your living space including how much floor your antique cabinets can reach.
The obvious problem is that lighting retailers sell products marked in watts only. You need a good lumen-to-watt table that works in both directions — because while you’ll buy updated LED replacements, older fixtures still exist. That’s when it’s best to share a decoding chart like tjoy’s lumen-to-watt table linking watts input to lumens output so you can always reach into your bag of tricks.
Designer advice This should never make anyone memorize how bright enough light looks.
There is vast difference even between differing recessed ceiling spots and wall panel lights made by different manufacturers – differences which mean something else in Australasia compared with Mexico City
