# Outside soffit wafer lights



## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

So I’m looking at a project where the customer needs lighting around her house. It’s very dark outside and the neighborhood doesn’t have many pole lights outside. I’m thinking about using some 4” wafers in her soffit.

Definitely don’t want to over power everything and make it look like Fort Knox. Probably looking for a good medium between landscape lights and flood lights. Something that didn’t overpower but lights the perimeter over the house nice and softly.

Never used wafer outside, so I want to make sure its not overkill… Whatcha guys think?


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## Forge Boyz (Nov 7, 2014)

Do it, but put them on a dimmer. That way she can do Fort Knox if she wants, but can also dial it back.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Do it. I have , it is terrific. Also put in a GE smarty pants dimming z wave switch and your customer can control the lights while she is away from home using her smarty pants phone. And while at home she can control the same lights using her smarty pants Alexa. 

Welcome to the New World Order . It only gets better and better.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Keep them away from bedroom windows or use shields.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Forge Boyz said:


> Do it, but put them on a dimmer. That way she can do Fort Knox if she wants, but can also dial it back.
> 
> Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk


This is why I’m thinking 4” instead of 6”. A dimmer is not a bad option, but since it’s outside lights, I was thinking more of a time clock scenario.

Also, how do you space lights on soffits? Every picture I’ve seen that another contractor has posted, the lights are usually placed between windows and the spacing is almost never symmetrical.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Here’s some pictures from a guy that I stole off Facebook. Looks like a mix of landscape lighting and some soffit wafers. I’m only looking at the wafers on this project.

** DISCLAIMER - if this is your work, I’m not bashing, I’m actually very impressed and just trying to learn here. (You never know who hangs out here…) **

My point is - how did he come up with the spacing? I think it looks good, but how would you be able to figure that out without having already done this before?


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## Forge Boyz (Nov 7, 2014)

I prefer visual centering. Look for elements of the structure to center the lights on. It is less important to have them strictly equidistant apart than to have them appear to be centered on the house.
ETA: soffit recessed lights are a wall wash lighting. One of the reasons to center between windows is that there be a cone of light on the wall, and it doesn't look good to have that off center of structural elements

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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Forge Boyz said:


> I prefer visual centering. Look for elements of the structure to center the lights on. It is less important to have them strictly equidistant apart than to have them appear to be centered on the house.
> 
> Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk


What about corners?

With interior recessed lights I often space them off corners of a room.


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## Forge Boyz (Nov 7, 2014)

MHElectric said:


> What about corners?
> 
> With interior recessed lights I often space them off corners of a room.


Center between a window and the corner. It is just the end of the wall. The pictures you posted illustrate this well.

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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Forge Boyz said:


> Center between a window and the corner. It is just the end of the wall. The pictures you posted illustrate this well.
> 
> Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk


Ok, so that works for small spans, but what about long spans? Like that 2nd picture with the 3 lights on the left. How did he come up with that spacing? It’s different than the spacing on the right side of that window.


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## Forge Boyz (Nov 7, 2014)

MHElectric said:


> Ok, so that works for small spans, but what about long spans? Like that 2nd picture with the 3 lights on the left. How did he come up with that spacing? It’s different than the spacing on the right side of that window.


Divide it up like you would any other large area for lighting. Take the number of lights, double it, and divide the distance by that number. It is a bit of an art. Sometimes you just stand back, look at it, and do what seems to make sense. Aim for a common distance between the lights but don't get hung up on them having to be the exact distance between them.

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## backstay (Feb 3, 2011)

The left lights are spaced on 4. Four spaces with 3 between the lights and the 4th split half on each end. Say forty feet, 40/4=10. So 10 between the lights and 5 on each end. If you’re asking why not spaced on 3 or 5, then look at all the lights and see that he probably did a rough sketch and kept working the spacing until he got something that worked all the way around. You would want the spacing as close to the same all the way around to look the best.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

I am not sure but it looks to me like the wafers on the left in the picture up high are a narrower dispersion pattern than the ones down below, which makes sense. They are not looking for a full wall wash on that side, the two story brick face.


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

splatz said:


> I am not sure but it looks to me like the wafers on the left in the picture up high are a narrower dispersion pattern than the ones down below, which makes sense. They are not looking for a full wall wash on that side, the two story brick face.
> View attachment 170775


Might well be an illusion, but the dormer soffit lighting looks like a higher Kelvin temperature also.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Now the spacing - don't get me wrong, the lighting looks nice. The spacing doesn't catch your eye which means it's not horrible. But once I noticed this spacing, it would aggravate me. Now it may be that there's some unseen structural obstruction underneath and getting them spaced evenly would have been too hard. 

Adjusting the spacing around the windows makes sense to me because it's going to be a lot more noticeable inside and it's not eye catching from the outside, especially with a wall like this. The windows are not spaced evenly and geometrically so trying to space the lights that way doesn't make sense. 

Still, I'd have spaced the lights from the left wall to the bathroom window evenly - one third the distance between the lights, and half that from the left wall to the first light. But again since nobody looks at this and says "wow the middle light there is off to the left" it wouldn't have mattered much.


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## dspiffy (Nov 25, 2013)

IMO the narrower the beam pattern, the better. Less glare, less light in windows.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

splatz said:


> Now the spacing - don't get me wrong, the lighting looks nice. The spacing doesn't catch your eye which means it's not horrible. But once I noticed this spacing, it would aggravate me. Now it may be that there's some unseen structural obstruction underneath and getting them spaced evenly would have been too hard.
> 
> Adjusting the spacing around the windows makes sense to me because it's going to be a lot more noticeable inside and it's not eye catching from the outside, especially with a wall like this. The windows are not spaced evenly and geometrically so trying to space the lights that way doesn't make sense.
> 
> ...


Your post describes my exact thought process. With lighting, you want things to be symmetrical.

The outside of the house seems like there’s more hurdles to work around than inside the home. Windows, rooflines, doors, garage doors, 2nd & 3rd stories, the list goes on and on.

But with most of the pictures Ive seen people post on Facebook, rarely do the soffit lights seem to all line up.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

….


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## nrp3 (Jan 24, 2009)

I think if you want it to be comfortable to come home to or feel safe, I don’t that’s a bad look. That house looks well lit, some of the spacing not being equidistant I can’t criticize because I don’t know what fixture is being used and what obstacles to installation the installer faced.


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## Steve Loew. (Feb 8, 2021)

macmikeman said:


> Do it. I have , it is terrific. Also put in a GE smarty pants dimming z wave switch and your customer can control the lights while she is away from home using her smarty pants phone. And while at home she can control the same lights using her smarty pants Alexa.
> 
> Welcome to the New World Order . It only gets better and better.


Well, the New World Order Sucks.................and imprisons us all..........


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## nrp3 (Jan 24, 2009)

If you are going to do the smarty pants thing, consider Caseta. Old school dummy like myself has managed to make it work with apps beyond just wireless pico and and switch.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

nrp3 said:


> If you are going to do the smarty pants thing, consider Caseta. Old school dummy like myself has managed to make it work with apps beyond just wireless pico and and switch.


With installations like that do any of you tell the customer to purchase what they want? 
That way they're not calling you every time some server is down.


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## nrp3 (Jan 24, 2009)

I have RA2 at home and works flawlessly (for what little I have connected to it, it was an experiment). The one Caseta system I installed that was more than just the Pico and switch, that the customer wanted the app, has worked fine. Trust me, he'd bust my balls if it was problematic.

It's not that Lutron is the only thing out there, it's established and it works well. There is support and I have sales guys to lean on. I also know when to quit too. No Homeworks stuff.


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## Viggmundir (Sep 13, 2019)

I don't generally go all around the house, but I will often do wafer lights in overhanging soffits by entrance doors (covered porch for example), instead of a wall light by the door. For a 2' overhang I would do a 4" wafer light. For a covered porch area where it may be 4'-8' covered, I will often go to 6" wafer lights. For spacing I will do what feels right (Lol, so helpful I know!). Usually something like double the # of lights as X, with X between the end of the area and the first light, and 2X between fixtures. For only 2 fixtures I don't like them at 25%, so those I tweak to 29%ish. It's always somewhat of a speculation game as to centering fixtures on doors and windows. It depends on how evenly those are spaced on the building.

For the pictures you posted, those high lights on the left wall bug me, the spacing isn't even.


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## joe-nwt (Mar 28, 2019)

2" wafers have been more than sufficient for the installs I have done.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

joe-nwt said:


> 2" wafers have been more than sufficient for the installs I have done.


Does Juno make 2” wafers? I’ve never seen them at the supply house.


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## Quickservice (Apr 23, 2020)

MHElectric said:


> So I’m looking at a project where the customer needs lighting around her house. It’s very dark outside and the neighborhood doesn’t have many pole lights outside. I’m thinking about using some 4” wafers in her soffit.
> 
> Definitely don’t want to over power everything and make it look like Fort Knox. Probably looking for a good medium between landscape lights and flood lights. Something that didn’t overpower but lights the perimeter over the house nice and softly.
> 
> Never used wafer outside, so I want to make sure its not overkill… Whatcha guys think?


Excellent idea. I have done it and put them on a X-10 switch so the home owner could fire them up remotely. It is funny how the names of things vary with time or from place to place, around here these were originally only known as *flat panel *LED's.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

What are you guys doing on the portions of homes than have an eve? All the pictures I’ve seen where a soffit light gets installed on a surface where it’s not 90* to the ground, seems to look very odd.


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## joe-nwt (Mar 28, 2019)

An example.


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