Range hood ruins energy remodel!
I installed this Broan hood in our kitchen this summer: http://www.broan.com/products/product/qp230ss30-under-cabinet-range-hood—stainless-steel-350-cfm-67f44207-4f68-41fa-a2b2-ac92c3a95835/tab/overview
It has some nice attributes, mainly a nice, quiet, 100CFM low setting that works perfectly well for most things.
However, it has (4) MR16 50-watt halogen bulbs. Running 200 watts of light in one task area is stupid, given that I can light the entire room with about 64 watts. There are three brightness settings–I have not yet measured to see what the hood draws on the various settings, but I bet it’s not small.
I had expected to replace these with LED versions, but the hood has a sort of built-in electronic dimming, and I have no idea how to determine which if any LED MR16s will work with the internal electronics of the hood. I’ve already been through some travails trying to match various other LED bulbs in the house to dimmers, and I don’t want to waste money on trying bulbs with this hood, especially since I don’t have MR16s anywhere else.
Anyone know how to solve this? We like the light from the hood and want to use it. I have to buy LED stuff remotely and have it shipped here, so buy/try/return is hard to work.
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Replies
David,
Sounds like a predicament...
Personally, I would just leave the lights off.
For task lighting, instead of trying to retrofit LEDs into the existing electronics (with all the consequent trial and error headaches) maybe you could simply mount some low voltage LED puck lights somewhere under the hood?
I wonder if one of Broan's cfl fan hood light assemblies could be transplanted to work in this hood?
Personally, I'd prefer Lucas' approach, though.
Could you not simply use one of the four halogen bulbs?
Depending upon the manufacturer the dimmable LED MR16 lamping is probably not an issue. However I expect the lamp life may be significantly diminished. After all, the manufacturer has designed the lamp and LED heat sink for an ambient temperature that you will be exceeding. Also are the lamps exposed? Off the top of my head I do not believe I have seen any LED MR16 lamps that did not state that they were NOT to be used in an enclosed fixture.
I would check with Broan about using 35 watt lamping in lieu of the 50w supplied (dropping the total to 140w) and not worry about it. How many hours a week would you expect to use the hood lights? I doubt you would ever see a payback from switching to LED lamps.
Take out two of the lamps and use the remainder sparingly.