FAQs: How to Choose a Good Under Cabinet Lighting?

Choosing the right under-cabinet lighting requires some consideration. There are many styles of LED lights and each has its own benefits and drawbacks, so it's necessary to understand your needs before making a purchase decision.

For example, when you are looking to highlight an area of the room instead of lighting up everything under the cabinets, it's important to choose a light that is directional. When you want uniform illumination across the countertop surface, go for more uniform lights.

How Much Light Do You Need?

Before making purchase decisions or selecting the style of the light, you need to think about how much light you need. If you can see in your current space what you are trying to do in the new space, take measurements of your present lighting setup and write down how many lumens each fixture provides. Then, when shopping around for under-cabinet lights find out watts per foot that the fixture provides.

Using these numbers, you can calculate the total lumen and wattage in your current configuration and then in your new one. This will allow you to see if you need more lighting in the new cabinet or if it will be sufficient enough. Doing this calculation will let you know that you are not accidentally buying too much LED light for your cabinets.

Is the Lighting Directional or Uniform?

Some under-cabinet lights are directional, which means they cast light in only one direction because of their lensing system; others are non-directional and cast light equally in all directions. Depending on what you need to accomplish with the lighting, you may want either one or the other so it's important to understand the differences and how they work.

Directional lighting is great for highlighting a specific area of the room, such as on top of a kitchen island or under a dining room buffet where you want the light to come from one, small source. If you want uniformity across the countertop surface, choose directional lighting instead.