Lighting & devices
Recessed lighting and LED retrofits in Woodside, NY
Downlights done well are almost invisible. Done badly they are a ceiling full of holes that makes every room look like a waiting area — and the difference is entirely in the setting out.
A recessed fitting is a hole in your ceiling, and holes are not reversible. That makes the setting out — how many, where, how far off the walls, how they relate to what is below them — the whole job. The fitting itself is a commodity.
We set out to the room: the perimeter distance that stops light dying in the corners, the spacing that avoids scallops on a wall you did not want grazed, and the relationship to whatever is actually beneath — an island, a table, a bed. Then we mark it, and you look at it, before anybody cuts anything.
Old houses have ceilings with opinions
Woodside houses are mostly plaster and lath, and plaster does not take a hole saw the way plasterboard does. It cracks if you rush it and it crumbles if the lath moves. That is manageable with the right approach and it is slower, which is part of why the price on this page is what it is.
Joist positions rarely cooperate with a nice layout either, and a fitting cannot go where a joist is. We find the joists first, adjust the setting out to work with them, and where a position genuinely matters we will tell you what it costs to make it possible rather than quietly moving the light six inches and hoping you do not notice.
There is also a fire-separation question in a two- or three-family house: a hole in the ceiling of one dwelling is a hole in the floor of another, and the rated fittings that address it exist. We raise this before it is an issue, because it changes what can be used.
The retrofit arithmetic, done honestly
Replacing old lamps with LED does save money. The saving is arithmetic and we will do it in front of you: your fitting count, the wattage before and after, your hours of use, and your actual rate per kilowatt-hour. Multiply and you have a number.
What that number will not be is a percentage off your whole bill, because lighting is a modest share of a household's consumption once heating, cooling, hot water and the refrigerator are counted. In a house that already has LED lamps in most fittings, a further retrofit pays back very slowly and we will tell you not to bother. In a commercial space with a hundred fittings running twelve hours a day, it pays back fast and obviously.
We do not sell anything that plugs into a socket and claims to reduce your bill. Those do not work.
There is no box that makes electricity cheaper. We do not sell energy-saving boxes, power-factor correction units, or anything else that plugs into an outlet and promises to cut your bill. A home meter bills real power in kilowatt-hours, and no device plugged into a receptacle changes how much of that your refrigerator, your dryer or your air conditioner uses. Lighting retrofits do save money, and the saving is arithmetic we will do in front of you with your own fixture count and your own rate — not a percentage off a marketing sheet. If the arithmetic does not pay back, we will say so, and you should not do the job.
Included as standard
What the job actually includes
Setting out marked and agreed
You see the positions on your ceiling before a hole is cut.
Joists located first
So the layout works with the structure, and we tell you where that costs something.
Rated fittings where separation matters
Particularly between dwellings in a two- or three-family house.
Consistent colour temperature
Across everything in one sightline. Mixing them is what makes a room feel subtly wrong.
Dimming that actually works
Fitting and dimmer matched. Mismatched pairs flicker and buzz, and it is not fixable afterwards.
Ceiling made good
Patched and ready for decoration. We do not paint, and we say so up front.
When to call us
Signs this is the job you need
- A room with one central fitting and dark corners
- A kitchen where you work in your own shadow
- A renovation opening the ceiling anyway
- Downlights that buzz or flicker when dimmed
- Halogen fittings still running, which are worth changing on heat alone
- A commercial space with a lot of fittings running long hours
Recessed lighting and LED retrofits — what it costs
- Per fitting installed on an existing circuit, ceiling made good.$210 – $390
This is the range this job actually lands in, not a headline figure. The low end is a straightforward version of the work; the high end is one with a hard access problem, an old service, or something that has to be opened up before anybody can be certain. We tell you which one you have after we have looked, and the written quote says where the price could still move and why.
Questions we are actually asked
Recessed & LED — frequently asked
How many downlights does my room need?
Fewer than you have been told, in most cases. It depends on ceiling height, the fitting's beam angle and output, wall colour and what else is lighting the room. A common living room ends up with four to six, not nine, and the difference is set-out rather than quantity.
Will a retrofit really cut my bill?
It will cut the lighting part of your bill, and we will calculate that with your own numbers rather than a percentage off a marketing sheet. If you already have LED lamps in most fittings, the honest answer is that it will not pay back and you should spend the money elsewhere.
Can you fit these in a plaster ceiling?
Yes — carefully, and more slowly than in plasterboard. Old plaster and lath needs a different approach or it cracks. It is entirely doable and it is part of why old-house work costs what it does.
Related work
Often needed alongside this
Lighting design
Deciding where light should fall before anybody cuts a hole in your ceiling. Usually fewer fittings, not more.
$650 – $2,400
Outlets & switches
Adding, moving and replacing devices — including the two-prong outlets an old Queens house is still full of.
$145 – $420
Fans & fixtures
Heavy fittings hung off a box that is rated to carry them, which is the part everybody skips.
$260 – $640
New circuits
A circuit for the window unit, the home office, the dryer or the workshop — run properly, rather than spurred off something.
$420 – $1,300Somebody who does the work will come and look
Book a visit
Telephone the shop and you will get an electrician rather than a call centre. For defined work — a panel, a charger, a lighting scheme — the quote is free. For a fault, the visit is the diagnosis and it is $165 for the first hour, credited against the work if you go ahead the same visit. Either way we will tell you on the telephone which one it is.