pete_c
Guru
Yup; here trying very much baby steps to wean the house of the indirect halogen / zenon lighting. Today its all 120VAC and I am dimming it using the UPB switches. That said the EL lightiing has its place and while its everywhere; its only utilized for only its "glow". Many folks utilize EL for a sort of mood neon lighting type effect. But neon goes only so far.
Looking at LED lighting to replace the indirect halogen and zenon stuff. Recently in my outdoor landscaping endeavor did utilize the Kichler LED lighting. It is though very expensive. We installed some maybe 20 of these in a stone and rock garden. (IE: landscaper did and I wired them up). The wires to the little under the step Kichler LED lamps were easy to hide. But the cost was a bit high. (probably over $1000 to do your steps even purchasing the Kichler lighting at wholesale prices) - best to do a DIY LED lighting thing here.
http://www.moonlightdecks.com/Low-Voltage-LED-Under-Railing-Deck-Lights-and-Step-Lights.php
Having the open stair side you can easily do LV (LEDs or EL) with less gang boxes or maybe only one for all of the lighting of the steps. You can also just cut the stairs and insert boxes which I do not believe you were interested in.
Personally while in "testing" mode you can be less invasive testing say a strip of LED's as Work2Play has mentioned and a strip of EL lighting to see what "fits" best.
Here in the current home I have a "finished" set of wood stairs (and carpeted) going to the second floor; that said I would look at this endeavor one way while I have another set of stairs going to the yet unfinished basement and I would look at this endeavor another way (as I could really do anything with the electrical infrastructure). As dim lighting you might not even want to put switches on them; as mood lighting you might want switches on them and even maybe be able to change the colors in the switch boxes for moods.
In the old home I finished the basement in the 1980's and put in gang boxes with louvered lighting on the side stairs wall plus in wall sconces going down to the basement. This was all HV and did literally make the stairs daylight like. I did have two switches for the two different types of lightings (one double gang at the top and one double gang box at the bottom). The kids rooms all had multiple sets of X10 controlled lighting and at that time just had small table lamps which would dim down to some 20% and that worked for me.
Here to starting (very slowly) to play with wireless LED lighting which is color changing and dimmable via remote keypad. I am looking to DIY this initially outside and currently have one LED remote controllable light set up and it does work to create a landscaping lighting type mood. It can be utilized say for the holiday lighting stuff.
The technology changes are happening faster than I can keep up or it might be my age not able to keep up with the rapidly changing technologies.
Relating to quality; that in itself is another issue. I mean I changed my bimmer tail lights to all an LED (OEM'd it) in 2002 on my 2001 and all of the LEDs are still working fine.
That said I am seeing new late model vehicles (1-2 years old) with the "new" LED lighting and I have see a few now with burned out LEDs which really kind of looks tacky and tells me that the quality is substandard; but that is my opinion.
Looking at LED lighting to replace the indirect halogen and zenon stuff. Recently in my outdoor landscaping endeavor did utilize the Kichler LED lighting. It is though very expensive. We installed some maybe 20 of these in a stone and rock garden. (IE: landscaper did and I wired them up). The wires to the little under the step Kichler LED lamps were easy to hide. But the cost was a bit high. (probably over $1000 to do your steps even purchasing the Kichler lighting at wholesale prices) - best to do a DIY LED lighting thing here.
http://www.moonlightdecks.com/Low-Voltage-LED-Under-Railing-Deck-Lights-and-Step-Lights.php
Having the open stair side you can easily do LV (LEDs or EL) with less gang boxes or maybe only one for all of the lighting of the steps. You can also just cut the stairs and insert boxes which I do not believe you were interested in.
Personally while in "testing" mode you can be less invasive testing say a strip of LED's as Work2Play has mentioned and a strip of EL lighting to see what "fits" best.
Here in the current home I have a "finished" set of wood stairs (and carpeted) going to the second floor; that said I would look at this endeavor one way while I have another set of stairs going to the yet unfinished basement and I would look at this endeavor another way (as I could really do anything with the electrical infrastructure). As dim lighting you might not even want to put switches on them; as mood lighting you might want switches on them and even maybe be able to change the colors in the switch boxes for moods.
In the old home I finished the basement in the 1980's and put in gang boxes with louvered lighting on the side stairs wall plus in wall sconces going down to the basement. This was all HV and did literally make the stairs daylight like. I did have two switches for the two different types of lightings (one double gang at the top and one double gang box at the bottom). The kids rooms all had multiple sets of X10 controlled lighting and at that time just had small table lamps which would dim down to some 20% and that worked for me.
Here to starting (very slowly) to play with wireless LED lighting which is color changing and dimmable via remote keypad. I am looking to DIY this initially outside and currently have one LED remote controllable light set up and it does work to create a landscaping lighting type mood. It can be utilized say for the holiday lighting stuff.
The technology changes are happening faster than I can keep up or it might be my age not able to keep up with the rapidly changing technologies.
Relating to quality; that in itself is another issue. I mean I changed my bimmer tail lights to all an LED (OEM'd it) in 2002 on my 2001 and all of the LEDs are still working fine.
That said I am seeing new late model vehicles (1-2 years old) with the "new" LED lighting and I have see a few now with burned out LEDs which really kind of looks tacky and tells me that the quality is substandard; but that is my opinion.
