# Uneven hallway placement



## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

As a rule of thumb, the distance from the wall to your first fixture should be half the distance between fixtures. If you try to get perfect spacing, obstacles will drive you nuts. The best thing is to plot it on the floor and then shoot it with a lazer plumb. Usually close is good enough.


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## mitch65 (Mar 26, 2015)

wafer downlights that we use can be put below floor joists or rafters, they are thinner than the drywall as long as there is room to get the driver in the hole past the joist, you are good to go.


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## !Tom (Dec 8, 2013)

I know about the rules of thumb, and I know about slim options (customer prefers pots), I guess my question is: in a 20 foot hallway with 5 pot lights lined up, is a discrepancy of up to 1 foot in spacing due to obstructions going to look bad?


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

!Tom said:


> I know about the rules of thumb, and I know about slim options (customer prefers pots), I guess my question is: in a 20 foot hallway with 5 pot lights lined up, is a discrepancy of up to 1 foot in spacing due to obstructions going to look bad?


IMO yes, you are right, those discrepancies will look like a random spacing, make it something symmetrical, and really it's better to just take the rafter layout into account when you decide how many lights you are going to use. 

If necessary I'd ask the owner which they'd rather, a change order for a couple extra lights and even / symmetric spacing, or stick with the original and live with an irregular layout.


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## !Tom (Dec 8, 2013)

Thanks for the reply, I'm not very "arts and crafs" so it's hard for me to imagine. it's possible I could make it work with less lights. So do you think it would also look bad if I had it symmetrical from the middle of the hallway, but the middle 3 being closer together then the farthest 2?


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## 3DDesign (Oct 25, 2014)

Five lights in a 20 ft hall wall places them on 48" centers. That's brighter than I would plan. Usually in a hall, I use 64" centers. Will that work? Instead of five lights, use four. 
I use 48" centers in the kitchen.


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## !Tom (Dec 8, 2013)

Yeah I agree it's too much. I finished a room and I thought they were going to want more lights added once they saw out but they said it was perfect.. arts and crafs, arts and crafts.


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

!Tom said:


> I know about the rules of thumb, and I know about slim options (customer prefers pots), I guess my question is: in a 20 foot hallway with 5 pot lights lined up, is a discrepancy of up to 1 foot in spacing due to obstructions going to look bad?


Nobody will notice ezcept other electricians.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

!Tom said:


> Thanks for the reply, I'm not very "arts and crafs" so it's hard for me to imagine. it's possible I could make it work with less lights. So do you think it would also look bad if I had it symmetrical from the middle of the hallway, but the middle 3 being closer together then the farthest 2?





99cents said:


> Nobody will notice ezcept other electricians.


I don't think the eye picks up slight differences in spacing, like you don't have to worry if you have to move a light an inch. But something like this would be immediately obvious to anyone that looks. 

Visitors to their home may never pick it up, and maybe the homeowner wouldn't either, but if the homeowner walks through inspecting your work, they will see it and depending on how fussy they are and what kind of mood they're in they might get riled up over it. 
@3DDesign 's idea is best, it might lay out without obstruction with four lights, if not four lights is much easier to move into a symmetrical arrangement that doesn't look odd than five lights. And you don't have to ask for an extra. 

Either way IMO the most important thing isn't the "arts and crafts" as you say it's getting the customer's approval before the fact rather than hoping they don't complain after the fact. I am more one to ask for permission than forgiveness.


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

It's only a hallway. If you have an 8' ceiling, you can stretch that out to three fixtures. The greater the distance between fixtures, the less noticeable the discrepancies. Two things to keep in mind - you get more light bouncing off the walls in a hallway and LED's stay brighter longer. The old incandescants had about half lumen output at end of life.


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## daveEM (Nov 18, 2012)

Yeah, as 99 says 3 lights are plenty for a 20 foot hallway. 

I have a 20x13 foot TV room With one pot (65 watt equiv. LED) at the 6 foot mark on the 20 foot length. Lights up 1/2 the room. 7' 3" ceiling height. The darker half holds the giant TV. :biggrin:

5 pots in that 3 or 4 foot wide by 20 foot hallway will light her up like operating room.


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## !Tom (Dec 8, 2013)

Ok that's some good advice, thank you, I will re think it.


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

sometimes, instead of worrying yourself about layout, you just need to slam it in (leaving a little slack just in case), light em up after the rough, and say to the client:

"this is the best I could do, because of the framing. I lit it up so you could see before you closed it in. If you want to adjust it, tell your framer where to redo his work. thanks"

or, if the GC is a lower extremity,

"I roughed these in as close as I could to the plans, but the framing was fooked. If it doesn't fly, I'll try to make the change order light so you don't have to change your drawers when you read it"

just my 02


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## ptheriot72 (Apr 11, 2018)

Have you considered using smaller pots? Maybe four inch should give you just enough play to make them close enough where they aren’t noticeable. Or fudge one of the outer ones. If number one is four foot from the start and number five is three isn’t that noticeable as long as there is equal distance between them. 
Keep in mind if the hall is long enough to have five of them an inch or so here or there isn’t noticeable either. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

5 lights in 20 feet? Is it a hallway or a prison yard? Holy cow.


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