Apartment lighting design in Batumi: calculations, scenes and a plan for the electrician

What lighting design decides and when to order it

You need apartment lighting design in Batumi before the electrician starts cutting chases: the cable to each group is run and the switch boxes are set from its sheets. After plastering, a light fitting can still be shifted within reach of its outlet, but a separate switch rocker or a new point on the ceiling can't be added without cutting a chase.

The project decides how much light each zone needs, how it is switched on and where every point goes, with dimensions from the walls. How downlights, strips and tracks are installed from these sheets is described on the page about lighting installation by groups, and buying the models is covered in the section on choosing and installing light fixtures.

Calculating illuminance zone by zone

We calculate light in lux on the surface where it is needed: the worktop, the dining table, your face at the mirror. The number of downlights on the ceiling comes out of the calculation, not the other way round. We do the calculation in lighting design software, using a model of the apartment with the real ceiling height and wall colours: a light wall reflects far more light than a dark one, and a room with graphite walls needs more light fittings.

This is our practice for apartments, not a standard, and the figures can be adjusted to suit you: some people like a dim living room, while elderly parents need more light. The ratio matters more than the figures themselves. When the worktop is two or three times brighter than the rest of the kitchen, the eye is at ease; if the difference is five times or more, in the evening the kitchen looks like a stage in a dark auditorium.

Scenes and groups

We lay out the lighting in the project from everyday situations: what is on when you come home, cook, sit on the sofa in the evening or get up at night. These then become the groups and the switch positions. For a 1+1 apartment the table usually looks like this:

It works well when a room has two or three groups, each with its own job. If there are more scenes than can comfortably be kept on switch rockers, we plan for control from a phone or a wall panel and leave space for relays; there is more on this on the page about a smart home in your apartment.

Heights and reference points: what the electrician takes from the sheet

The electrician works from dimensions, not from a picture. On the ceiling plan, every light fitting is dimensioned from two walls or from the centre line of a piece of furniture. We position the pendant over the table from the centre of the table, not of the room, because tables rarely stand in the middle. Heights are given on the wall elevations from the finished floor level.

• switches by the entrance at 90–100 cm from the floor, on the door handle side;
• switches by the bed above the bedside table, at a height set by the chosen mattress;
• lights at the mirror either at the sides at face height or above the mirror and projecting forward, so that the light falls on your face and not down onto the top of your head;
• worktop lighting under the wall units, closer to the front edge, so that a gloss splashback doesn't reflect it as a row of dots;
• night lighting in the corridor at 20–30 cm from the floor;
• sockets for a floor lamp, a table lamp and shelf lighting, placed according to the furniture layout.

On the same sheets we mark the power supply locations with their access hatches and the load of each group. The electrician uses the load to choose the cable cross-section and the circuit breaker.

Colour temperature and light quality

We set the shade of white in the specification for a zone, not for each light fitting separately. In an open-plan kitchen-living room there is one shade for the whole space: if the worktop has 4000 K and the sofa area 2700 K, it shows at once where the zones meet. So for open-plan layouts we usually use 3000 K throughout, and get the extra brightness at work areas from higher output rather than a colder shade.

Besides the colour temperature, the specification records for each zone:

• the colour rendering index: at least 90 at the worktop, at the mirror and in the walk-in wardrobe, otherwise food, faces and fabrics look dull;
• the beam angle: wide for general lighting, narrow for a picture or a textured wall;
• glare control: above the sofa and the bed, downlights with a deeply recessed light source, so that you don't look straight into the LED when lying down;
• driver and dimmer compatibility, if the light is to be dimmable.

Ceilings and light: where to lower them and where not to

In Batumi new builds, the ceiling height to the concrete is usually 2.7–3 m. Built-in downlights need a stretch or plasterboard ceiling at least a few centimetres below the slab, and linear lights and recesses need even more space. So the project decides room by room where to lower the ceiling and where to provide the light another way.

We usually lower the ceiling in the corridor and hallway anyway: the air conditioning pipe runs pass through there, and the downlights go into the same boxing. In the rooms we often leave the concrete and provide the light with surface-mounted fittings and lamps plugged into sockets. How film and plasterboard differ when it comes to lighting is covered in the comparison of stretch and plasterboard ceilings.

For recesses with concealed lighting we draw a detail: the depth of the recess, the width of the slot, the position of the strip and the hatch to the power supply. Without a detail the recess is made by eye, and the strip either shines in your eyes or throws a harsh line onto the wall.

How the project reaches the electrician and procurement

The electrician gets a set of sheets: a light fitting plan with dimensions from the walls, a switch plan with group letters, a socket plan and wall elevations with heights. Before any chasing, the designer goes through the sheets with them room by room, on site or by video. The marking-out on the walls is checked by our foreman, who keeps these sheets together with the rest of the working drawings; with a third-party crew, the designer does this during a designer supervision visit.

The specification goes to procurement: model, quantity, wattage, shade of white, beam angle, price and delivery time. The evening look of a room is easy to check before buying on a 3D rendering with the same lighting.

How much apartment lighting design costs in Batumi

Lighting design for a 40–80 m² apartment costs from 720 to 1,080 ₾. The price includes the illuminance calculation, placing points and groups to suit the furniture, scenes, switch and socket positions, sheets for the electrician and a specification of models with brightness, shade of white and price. On the page about buying light fittings this is the same line, “Light fitting selection and lighting plan”. This is the designer's work only: the light fittings and their installation are paid for separately. For an apartment over 80 m² or a house, we price by floor area, at 20–30 ₾ per m².

To estimate the budget for the equipment, allow 55–100 ₾ per downlight and 200–385 ₾ for a mid-range chandelier or ceiling light. Fitting a downlight costs 38–54 ₾, and a plasterboard recess for concealed lighting 72–96 ₾ per linear metre, so every linear light shows up in the renovation estimate.

A project with recesses, tracks and dimming, where the ceiling needs details, costs more. An apartment with chandeliers, wall lights and surface-mounted downlights costs less, if the furniture plan already exists in the design project. The final cost is set once we have a plan with the furniture and the scope of the project is agreed.