led

LED with remote color changer

I personally like xenon or halogen they are full spectrum, led is not, usually 85 CRI

is xenon more yellowish than LED? I think the yellow light would make the orange tiles pop out more

yes it is warmer generally

you can get less white or less blue led's and that is what i'd go with in your situation. i think you have thought your project through enough to know what you want to achieve as a final look and that is all good....

I found the xenon lights burn out too quickly!?

Every home we are doing, we do LED against cabinets for heat--Xenon and Halogen get really hot with use. They have indicators such as warm white (which you might consider, or Calvin count, like someone said 2700 or lower. We use tiny profile bars from a company in Florida--manufacture and mounting can be counted on, everytime.

The Kelvin rating tells the color of the light. Three thousand and below will give a warm white. Halogen and xenon light (a more pure white) are about 3500K. 4000K and higher is a blue white light (sunlight). All led bulbs and fixtures these days have a Kelvin rating on the packaging. Choose fixtures with diffusers, so that you do not get little spots of light that will be mirrored in your countertop. Then you have to choose whether to have separate or internal drivers (transformers). Good fixtures are expensive, but will pay off in terms of longevity of the bulbs, low cost to operate, and minimal heat output.

Carol Will is right on all the reasons, besides heat factor to use LED's, they are more spendy at initial purchase, but for all the pros you get, it is definitely worth it. She mentions types of drivers--generally the most expensive part of an LED set up and biggest pain is the external driver, which also can give off heat, and you cannot "bury" them, in spite of their rather large size, in case they fail at some point. I forgot to mention, that is the reason we use the ones we do in every house--getting ready to order 3 more kitchens' packages for uplight and undercounter light worth of them today, is that they require no driver--they are direct to 110 (internal driver).

Mil-Ron, who is the company in Florida that you use for the profile bars and what's the lead time? Thanks!

@mil-ron- what is the name of the company in florida please?

Brodwax. Been there multi-generations since the 40's. Grandson owns now. Turnaround, depending on shipping you are willing to pay for, is days--I have to have it that way to keep my clients' homes on schedule to completion.

What a coincidence! We just bought LED under-cabinet lights yesterday. Sam's Club, GE package of 2, for $36. You can connect up to 6 together if you have long upper cabinets that need lighting. I understand the warm yellow preference. That's what we've always had and I didn't care for the "coldness" of extra-bright white. Wrong. Yes, it's a bit startling, at first, but we had replaced 5 - 50w small halogen bulbs on an over-the-sink light fixture a few weeks before. Wasn't keen on them at first, but was drawn to the cost savings - 50 watt vs 7 watts, and NO HEAT. Very soon we enjoyed the truer light that seemed to cast a wider swath. Upon reflection, we realized that recipe reading/measuring and other tasks were much more difficult with the warmer lighting. We also bought 4, 4 foot LED shoplights from Sam's Club to replace the old fluorescent ones for the garage ($35 per). Putting those up today!

LED. I'm in agreement with everyone who's suggesting it. In many cases that choosing the higher Kelvin temperature (in my case about 3500 to 4000) ideal. I don't have undercounter lights yet, but I have been replacing all of the lightbulbs throughout the whole house. I have found that my preference for the warmer look of incandescent lightbulbs is changing. I like the brighter cleaner look, I like the lower running costs, and I definitely like the fact that the light bulbs are not hot. The fact that they can last 20 years, and give a nice, clean pure light, are all advantages over any incandescent, halogen, or xenon light bulbs. YMMV

I've seen led tape lights and under counter lights that come in warm white and cool white options. (as well as other colors). Many are also available with tracks and frosted lens options to get a clean finished installed look and minimize the "dots of light" look led can have. Led products are rapidly changing so you may find exactly what you want in warm white led's with a little research. ( just spotted some on amazon, so they are around) .

The easiest way to decide is to purchase LED and incandescent plug-in fixtures and see for yourself which light you prefer after you try both in your kitchen. While I normally prefer halogen, I found warmer (3000 K) LED provide a "cleaner" look for my kitchen, and their casting of a whitish light makes my counters appear cleaner. (But this is purely subjective). Another welcome feature of LED is that they do not raise the temperature in a kitchen that tends to get hot due to cooking, running the dishwasher, and a fridge that also generates external heat.

Manufacturers: Please provide more LED bulbs and fixtures at the (white light) 3100 - 3200 Kelvin temperature!

@Mil-Ron Custom Construction, I'm curious as to which fixtures from Broadwax you selected for uplight, and which ones for under cabinet lighting. I see that they have many options, including puck lights and linear fixtures as well. I am planning to update my kitchen, and was thinking of using pucks under cabinets (I'm currently using rope leds over cabinets, and 2-3 light led linear fixtures under cabinets). Thanks for the input!

I'm sorry I said lumens it is really Kelvin for warm or cool - on the ribbon for example you have 6500K cool and 3100K warm white - on others LED light bulbs will find even with 2700K. I hope this clarify.

Thank you all for the useful and awesome comments--we finally decided to go the LED route, and settled on Commercial Electric LED slim lights from Home Depot. They came in at $36.00 ea for a 24" unit, and installed really easily under the new cabinets. The lighting is just the way I wanted, and it's not that "white light" I was thinking it would be.....

What a lovely kitchen! The LED lights look so pretty and give it warm and inviting feel. Congrats on a job well done....whats for dinner?

Looks perfect! Thanks so much for sharing your decision and "after" pics! So many times, people forget to do this or are just so done with their project from the stress of it, they just take a vacation from Houzz at that point...and inadvertently leave us all hanging. I can totally relate to that, but so appreciate you posting the solution to your dilemma.