I am about to move into a 1930's house and am planning on gradually greening the property. My inital tasks are to get the house rewired as well as some timber, damp and structural work. Then the next two targets are likely to be the Bathroom and Kitchen.

So as I am getting the house rewired, I need to start thinking about lighting. For most rooms it is a simlpe case of puting normal energy saving light bulbs in. But what should I do in the Bathroom?

Halogen is better than normal lightbulbs but not as effecient as energy savers, LED looks promising but a lot of LED stuff does not allow you to replace the bulb, I have also heard talk of the need for an LED control box?

Any advice experience or suggestions in this area would be greatfully appreciated?

It looks like you can get an LED version of a GU10 Halogen Bulb which uses about 10% of the energy of the Halogen equivelant. So I might go for a normal downlight install and use LED GU10 bulbs in there place. But I don't seem to be able to find out if they are still ok for bathroom / shower use?

Couple of quick thoughts from my attempts in the past on kitchens and bathrooms:

Lighting - Consider day and night lighting. The Cree chip based LED lighting or Luxeon 2 based led bulbs, are good for general lighting, get blue white though. Our last bathroom used IP54 rated tiny LED spots (blue white) for night time use only (i.e. they were on by PIR trigger and were fine for night use) and used 0.1W in total - great for the kids getting up in the night and very simple to do up front. We use the same thing now in the new house for the stairs, landing and bathroom - stops the kids falling down the stairs and provides enough light to get about without turning the CFL lights on and off.

Water - Consider plumbing for grey water. Your could use grey water for flushing the loo, dishwasher and washing machine etc. Even if your not planning to go grey water from day one, it's near on impossible to retrofit without digging up floors etc. I ran a grey water circuit back into the loft which I initially connected back into the mains, but changed for a grey water tank later.

Ventilation - kitchen and bathroom produce nice amount of warm but humid air. A combined passive 'stack' to pull air from both sources is easy to put in day 1, but difficult to retrofit. Can't do it in my current house (too complex), but in the last one the bathroom and kitchen vented into the loft through a ridge vent. Not very efficient, but the plan was to do some form of recirculation of the warm air back into the house.

bit off topic the last couple of things, but good to plan up front

OK have had a look at various LED things on the interweb. The cree chip based MR16 bulbs do seem to pack more luminum. So this is looking light the go-er. Led does seem to be a growing technolegy at the moment with street lamps even being made LED and they seem to be forever getting more light from LEDs per watt of power put in. Maybe this is the future of enegry saving lighting?

Thanks for the other infos like the ventalation/heat recovery stuff I am looking into this as well.

I have tried looking into Heat Recovery and Ventilation systems and they seem to be saying all positives, cooler in the summer, hotter in the winter, better air quality, energy efficient and that they can be used for Bathroom and Kitchen air extraction.

Adrian, mentioned having a passive stack to ventilate the Kitchen and Bathroom. Can I passively vent this together with a Heat Recovery Ventilation system or would I need something that integrates the lot.

Also how much would this cost for an average 3 bed semi to be supplied and fitted and who can fit this kind of thing?

On the Nuaire Drimaster Positve Ventilation website http://www.nuaireforhomes.co.uk/drimaster365.shtml it talks about this doing "Heat Recovery" so I guess this is different from a Heat Recovery System and more suited to fitting into an existing home as they are only recover heat that has found it's way into the loft, rather than putting in specific duct routes in from rooms?

In the diagram it shows that it has a vent that goes to an outlet at the bottom of the roof. Does this need some kind of work to integrate it with eaves?

Price wise it sounds good, the ecosmart sounds interesting too. Let me know if my understanding is correct.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Peter A</cite>The Ecosmart has a duct going to the eaves on the elevation that is closest to north for summer cooling, would need some work there but providing you aren't in a three storey townhouse a ladder and a good head for heights should do the job, have fitted several Ecosmarts and monitoring them aswell, seems like a good product.</blockquote>

I don't suppose you are based anywhere near Kent? It would be great if you could fit one for me!

The ecosmart retails at £1536 eek. which Drimaster model have you been installing?

"Halogen is better than normal lightbulbs"

is this correct?
I thought they were worse. They seem to get very hot.

Another thing worth thinking about is that downlighters tend to involve cutting a big hole in your ceiling which (if its an upstairs bathroom) creates issues for air-tightness (damp bathroom air seeping into your loft is a particularly bad idea) and for insulation since there are problems with covering them with insulation. These aren't insurmountable but do create problems.

Well I have fitted Warm White 3 watt cree GU10 LEDs (3 in Bathroom, 6 in Kitchen), unfortunately one of the bulbs shipped was not a warm white and another had a brocken contector so I will be getting these replaced. Quite expensive at £15 a pop.

They look and function much as their halogen equivelents, giving of 120 Lumens per bulb, only two down points, they all have a very low level buzz to them and their is some color varation between the bulbs.

I have yet to turn them on when it is very dark, so I will comment further when I get the full set and can test them properly.

Good find - interesting product. I've been looking for something like this, so perhaps I'll give it a go and let you know what it's like.