Poorly spaced recessed lighting can make rooms look shadowy, overly bright and unevenly lit. It doesn’t matter how many recessed lights you have if the spacing is off.
When the lights are too far away, the room ends up with alternating dark and light patches. When the lights are too close, the glare and spots of intense brightness make the room uncomfortable to be in. Several factors all affect spacing.
Quick Takeaways
Long story short, there are a few basic factors to remember when determining spacing:
- Recessed lights usually have 4 to 6 feet of space in between each light.
- A basic equation for determining spacing is ceiling height ÷ 2 = spacing distance.
- There should be 2 to 3 feet of space between walls and recessed lights.
- Task or spotlight lighting needs tighter spacing than ambient or general lighting.
- Incorrect spacing wastes energy and makes rooms look terrible.
General Rule for Recessed Lighting Spacing
Find the height of the ceiling and divide it by two to get the spacing. So, if your ceiling is 8 feet high, lights would need to be spaced 4 feet apart; a 10-foot ceiling would need lights spaced 5 feet apart.
However, this is just a general rule that you use to start determining spacing. You need to look at a few other factors for a more complete picture.
Factors That Affect How Far Apart Recessed Lights Should Be
Ceiling Height
The higher the ceiling, the more the light will spread when it hits the floor. Lower ceilings need tighter spacing to avoid creating shadows between the circles of light. Higher ceilings need wider spacing to avoid creating overly bright areas.
Light Output (Lumens)
The brighter the bulb, the more space it will cover in the room. Thus, brighter lights can have more space between them.
If you’re using LED lights, remember to look at the lumens on the bulb packaging. Watts no longer matter for those as the wattage of the bulb doesn’t control brightness like it did with the older incandescent bulbs.
Beam Angle and Trim Type
In addition to lumens and ceiling height, you have to look at the beam angle and trim type. The beam angle can be narrow or wide; the narrower the beam, the smaller the circle of light that eventually reaches the floor. Narrower beam angles need tighter spacing.
The trim type can be reflective, adjustable, concealed and more. Depending on which trim you choose, you may need tighter or wider spacing for the lights.
Purpose of the Lighting
Finally, there’s the purpose of the lighting. Task or spotlight/accent areas need closer, brighter lighting. For example, a kitchen counter workspace benefits from brighter light aimed at the targeted space. That brighter cone of light gives you a little more visibility as you work on chopping or other details.
General areas don’t need bright spotlights, so the spaces between lights can be wider.
Recommended Recessed Light Spacing by Room Type
Kitchen
Kitchens often need both tight and wide light spacing. For the room in general, the basic spacing guidelines work very well. The lights provide the brightness you need to see everything in the room.
However, islands and counters where you do a lot of cooking prep work need just a little more light, so you have an easier time seeing the details in what you’re doing. Those areas should have tighter spacing for recessed lights.
Living Room
Recessed lighting in a living room can follow a grid layout or a perimeter layout. These are what they sound like; lights in a grid pattern, or lights placed around the perimeter of the room. The lights have to be angled slightly differently in each layout.
Grid layouts create very even lighting but do require careful placement. Perimeter lighting can create a feeling of openness, but it can leave the center of the room a little darker if the room is big.
One issue with grid lighting is that you sometimes end up with a line of lights running down the center of the room. That’s called the runway effect, and it doesn’t look that great. Speak with an electrician or a lighting company to adjust the layout to remove that “runway.”
Bedroom
You don’t want harsh lighting in a bedroom. General bedroom lighting should be more relaxed, and wider, looser spacing between recessed lights is often more appropriate. However, bedrooms often look a lot better with a central light source, rather than individual cans scattered around the ceiling.
Bathroom
Bathrooms can have general spacing for recessed lighting, but like kitchens, they have work areas, namely the counter and sink. Those areas benefit from tighter spacing to create a brighter zone.
Do be aware that the fixtures and bulbs you use in the bathroom have to be suitable for use around moisture. Never substitute a general light fixture from another part of the house as those might not have the necessary moisture resistance.
Hallways and Entryways
Narrow areas like hallways and entryways do well with linear spacing, placing lights down the center of the space. Each light may be closer to the wall than the basic spacing formulas normally require, but they should still be 4 to 6 feet apart from each other. The goal in these spaces is to avoid gaps in light so that people can clearly see where they’re going.
How Far Should Recessed Lights Be From Walls?
In general, recessed lights should be about 2 to 3 feet from the walls of a room. Placing them closer than that can create harsh, bright light along the walls, resulting in glare.
Moving the lights away from the wall gradually reduces the harshness. A couple of feet of space can still provide a nice accent for art, while 3 feet away can turn the harsh light on the wall into a softer, more pleasing glow.
Common Recessed Lighting Spacing Mistakes
If you’re not used to calculating recessed lighting spacing, it’s easy to make a few common mistakes:
- Forgetting about the beam angle: That’s not something you usually have to deal with for lamps, but it really does affect how recessed lighting looks.
- Thinking all rooms are the same: Customize those lighting layouts to each room. If you don’t, your home isn’t going to feel very comfortable.
- Spacing lights without taking furniture placement into account: If you place a sofa under one of the lights, whoever sits there is going to have a harsh light shining right down on their head.
- Using too many lights or overly bright lights in small rooms: Unless you have a specific reason for adding so much light to a tiny space, all you’re doing is creating a distressingly bright area.
- Not working dimmers into the equation: If you want to have lights on dimmer switches, that’s going to affect the overall presentation of the room.
DIY Planning vs. Professional Layout Design
How much of this planning can you, the homeowner, do yourself? You can identify areas where you’d like more light, such as over kitchen islands or by artwork. You can also sketch out where you plan to have furniture or dimming lights.
But exact spacing and load calculation, placement, installation and code compliance is best left to electricians. If you’ve never calculated any of that before and have never worked on major re-wiring jobs, you run a very high risk of placing something incorrectly or of using the wrong type of fixture.
All of that needs to be fixed, and if you have to have an electrician uninstall lights and redo wiring, that’s going to be very expensive. Better to have an electrician do it from the start so that the job is done correctly.
FAQ: Recessed Lighting Spacing Questions
How far apart should recessed lights be in an 8-foot ceiling?
Those lights should be 4 feet apart in general. 8 ÷ 2 = 4. Other factors may change the spacing.
Can recessed lights be spaced too far apart?
Yes, they can. If you miscalculate the ceiling height or use lights with narrow beam angles, for example, you could end up with too much shadowy space between areas of light.
How many recessed lights do I need for a room?
The number of lights you need varies. The type of room, the ceiling height, the lumens — everything discussed previously affects the number of lights you need.
Should recessed lights be in a straight line or grid?
Again, this depends on the size and purpose of the room. A hallway could handle a single line of lights. A kitchen could not and would do better with a correctly calculated grid or perimeter lighting, plus task lighting.
Do LED recessed lights need different spacing?
Not necessarily. The ceiling-height formula is the same no matter the energy type. But the lumens can make a big difference. That’s where you want to consult with an electrician.
Is recessed lighting spacing different for sloped ceilings?
Somewhat, yes. The spacing still follows the general rule of half the ceiling height, but the ever-changing slope makes calculating the exact spacing a little more difficult. You’ll also need special fixtures that allow you to angle the bulbs so that they’re not beaming light directly at walls and windows.
Need Help Planning or Installing Recessed Lighting? Call Mister Sparky of Pompano Beach
If you want accurate spacing for recessed lights, you’ll want professional installation. Electricians can ensure that the wiring is adequate and that moisture-resistant and insulation-safe lights are installed in the right places.
They know how to adjust the lights and layout to create balanced lighting that’s safe to use. And if you have other light fixtures that you want to install, the electrician can install those, too.
Don’t rely on guessing games to figure out where recessed fixtures should go. Good installation means safe, comfortable lighting. Call Mister Sparky of Pompano Beach, FL, to have a licensed electrician create the layout for and install your lights. We offer same-day service when possible and want your home to look nice.