Comparing The Different Types Of Fire Rated Downlights

By getting a fire rated downlight you will help avoid the spread of any potential fires and lessen the danger of structural damage/collapse to your house. It is considered that fire-rated downlights are absolutely imperative to you if you have wooden joists in your home, as if caught on fire, would undoubtedly cause the collapse of your house. Fire rated downlights are seen as so important to you, that they a requirement for new structures as stated in Part B of the Regional Communities and Government Building Regulations 2000 (changed 2010). In addition to this, some fire rated downlights offer you with additional acoustic and moisture defense from ceiling to floor offering you a strong peace of mind fitting for your house.

What is A Fire Rated Downlight?

A downlight is a lighting fitting that is recessed into a ceiling, illuminating objects below. Downlights offer both outstanding space saving accent lighting as well as the perfect lighting coverage needed for task lighting.

A fire rated downlight is a specially crafted fitting which secures the versus the quick spread of fire thanks to either confining a bulb within a metal case or a specifically intended intumescent product that opens and broadens to enclose the bulb in the event of a fire. This differs none fire ranked downlights, which are efficiently just a hole in ceiling and won't protect versus the spread of fire. There are presently 3 variations of fire ranked downlight readily available to purchase.

Halogen Fire Rated Downlights

+ Cheap to buy.
+ Commonly readily available.
+ Instant start up.

- Very short life.
- High heat output - a prospective fire threat.
- High energy usage.
- Not eco-friendly.
- Old made - EU phasing the selling of these bulbs from Sept 2012.

2. Compact Fluorescent (CFL) Fire Rated Downlights.

+ Consume less energy than halogen.
+ Longer life than halogen downlights (usually last 10,000 hours).

- Not instantaneous start-up, can take 2 minutes to achieve complete brightness which can be annoying for you where job lighting is needed immediately.
- High heat output - even hotter than a halogen heat output so an even greater fire risk.
- Not very eco-friendly - although CFL eat less energy than halogen, they contain dangerous product to environment (consisting of mercury) which needs to be disposed of in waste disposal units.
- Already out of date with the create of higher quality LED downlights.

3. LED (Light Emitting Diode) Fire Rated Downlights.

+ Newest technology on the marketplace.
+ Longest enduring - average is 40,000 hours (4x that of CFL).
+ Eats the least energy from the three.
+ Greater colour options for the state of mind lighting your have actually constantly wanted - pick in between additional warm and comfortable white, warm and comfortable white, cool white and even colour altering LED downlights.
+ Saves you 90 % on your lighting expenses.
+ Low upkeep cost - 'fit and forget'.
+ Operate at low temperature level, meaning less of fire threat.

- High preliminary cost (although most save money on their lighting expenses exactly what they spent at first within 1-2 years).

LED downlights have become so energy efficient that the other options got legally banned in the EU and UK. With LED prices continuing to plummet and energy costs continue to rise, did we really need the government to step in?