LED RECESSED LIGHTING STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY from PROGRESS

David Kawauchi, Electrical Marketing Manager

Recessed downlights (commonly known as “high-hats” in the industry) are among the most popular lighting fixtures in new and remodeled homes. A typical new home has more than 20 of these fixtures with 350 MILLION currently installed in U.S. homes. On average, 20 million are sold yearly.

Installing LED (Light Emitting Diode) recessed fixtures saves money in energy costs by utilizing less electricity than standard incandescent and fluorescent lamps. LED’s are six times as efficient as incandescents and 15% more than fluorescents. Coupled with the fact that LED’s last more than 25 times longer than incandescents, the use of LED recessed lights creates tremendous savings on energy use and maintenance costs.

PROGRESS LIGHTING offers this “state-of-the-art” technology in their series of recessed fixtures and matching LED trims. These have an anticipated life of up to 50,000 hours (based on 70% lumen maintenance) where incandescent lifespan is 800-2,000 hours and the average CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) lasts 6,000-12,000 hours. They also have superior dimming capability – gradual dimming to 20% of full output – when used with a 3-wire low voltage electronic dimmer on 2-wire circuits.

PROGRESS has LED trims for its two most common recessed fixtures – 6” and 4” openings. The model #P8071 trim (6”) has 9 LED lamps that run on 12 watts and provide a lumen output equal to a 65watt BR30 lamp and the #P8026 trim (4”) runs on 11 watts with a light output equivalent to a 50 watt R20 bulb, so both offer much greater efficiency over incandescent lamps. Both are UL classified for wet location applications and are available in five colors. Neither trim contains any mercury so disposal is not a problem and can be used for both new and old-work jobs.