How much lumen do you need? Illuminate rooms correctly

How much lumen do you need in which room? How much light per square meter is optimal for the hall, bathroom, kitchen or living room? These questions arise when it comes to the correct lighting of your own premises. In this article you will find some recommendations for a sensible design of your lighting in the different areas of the apartment or house.

How many lumens do you need??

I have often been asked this question by readers. Especially when renovating, room lighting should often be switched to LED. When building a house, there is also the question of how much light should be installed in the individual rooms. Unlike in the commercial sector, there are none for your own four walls regulations for a minimum brightness in the individual rooms.

In this article you will find tips on how to configure the brightness for different rooms. These are based on personal experience and from the exchange with other LED enthusiastic people. However, the recommendations cannot replace professional lighting design.

How many lumens per square meter?

Lumen is the unit for the luminous flux and describes the brightness of an LED lamp. To determine the optimal brightness, it is not only the basic location and purpose that is decisive. The size of the room is also very important. That is why all of the following recommendations are in Lumens per square meter specified. So you can the lumens-values extrapolate based on the area of your rooms.

How much light for which room?

How much light output optimal lighting should produce depends on many factors. Basically, a higher light output than in living rooms is recommended for work or for activities with increased concentration. The colors of the furnishings also have a major impact on the perceived brightness. Dark tones of furniture, walls and floors swallow more light than a bright environment.

And of course it also depends on how you feel about how brightly you want to illuminate your rooms. When converting old incandescent or halogen lamps, you are used to their brightness in the respective room. You can use this as a starting point and convert the power of the lamps to their lumen value.

Many households have a wide variety of rooms:

Fortunately, not every room needs a different light output and a few gradations are sufficient. Below you will find some recommendations for the individual rooms.

Corridors and stairs

In corridors and on stairs, a brightness of 100 to 150 lumens per square meter is recommended. With angled stairwells, the light intensity should rather be a bit higher so that accidents do not occur.

My ceiling light in the hallway comes to almost exactly 100 lm / m², which ensures a pleasant brightness. I installed a wall lamp with 250 lm on a U-shaped staircase. Seen per square meter, these are even below 100 lm / m², but the light intensity is still completely sufficient.

living room

In the living room and all other living rooms, a brightness of around 100 lm / m² is recommended. This is a common reference for the backlight. My ceiling light in the living room only reaches about 75 lm / m². Thanks to the bright furnishings, the room is still perceived as very bright, so that the brightness on the LED dimmer is usually lowered somewhat.

In addition to the basic lighting, there are often other light sources in living rooms such as uplighters, illuminated cabinets or other decorative lighting. Depending on your needs, you can decide whether all lamps should be switched on or whether individual lamps should create a cozy atmosphere.

dining room

A brightness of around 100 lm / m² is also recommended in the dining room or dining area. A lamp installed directly above the table ensures a well-lit dining table. My ceiling light in the dining area is about 120 lm / m². This usually appears too bright, which is why the lamp is often dimmed.

kitchen

A light intensity of 250 – 300 lm / m² is recommended in the kitchen. This is much brighter than for normal living areas. This should ensure good “work lighting”. My ceiling light in the kitchen only achieves about 160 lm / m².

The light intensity is sufficient due to the bright interior, but it shouldn’t be darker either. As a support and for better light distribution, base cabinet lights can also be installed under the wall cabinets for direct lighting of the worktop.

bathroom

A light intensity of 250 – 300 lm / m² is also recommended in the bathroom. My lighting reaches about 220 lm / m² here. Favored by the bright furnishings, this appears optimal here. A combination of a ceiling lamp and a switchable illuminated mirror (cabinet) allows the desired brightness to be selected as required.

Workspace

A light intensity of 250 – 300 lm / m² is often recommended for workrooms. A high light intensity in connection with a high color temperature promotes concentration. The ceiling light in my study only reaches a little over 100 lm / m², which provides good basic lighting.

The combination with a desk lamp with adjustable brightness then ensures a reasonable light intensity, which can be adjusted depending on the situation.

Bedroom and children’s room

The same recommendations apply for bedrooms and children’s rooms as for the living room. A brightness of around 100 lm / m² is a good recommendation. Here, too, the ceiling lighting can be supplemented with a bedside lamp.

Storage room and cellar

It is difficult to give a general recommendation for basements and storage rooms. Whether you illuminate them more like living rooms with 100 lm / m² or rather with 250 – 300 lm / m² should depend on what and how often these rooms are used.

If there is even a hobby workshop on the premises, this should always be illuminated with 250 – 300 lm / m² in order to be able to work there in a concentrated manner.

Comparison table: lumens per room

The following table summarizes the above recommendations in brief.

Luminous flux recommendations for different rooms

room	Lumens per m²
Hallway and stairs	100-150
Living room, dining area	100-150
kitchen	250-300
Children’s room, bedroom	100-150
bath	250-300
Workspace	250-300
Storage room, basement	100-300
Hobby workshop	250-300

The decision for the correct lumen value is sometimes difficult, especially if there is no LED lamp in the household. If luminaires with E27 or E14 bases are installed, it is advisable to simply buy 2-3 LED lamps with different brightness. You can then alternately insert these into an existing luminaire to get a feel for the brightness.

Light recommendations for other scenarios

In the paragraphs above, you have received recommendations for indoor lighting. The following question about the design of the lighting has also often reached me.

How many lumens do you need to read?

No general recommendation can be given here. The eyes have to work hard when reading. So that’s one quality Lighting is very important for reading. The normal room lighting is rather unsuitable for longer reading. This emits its light over a large area, which is why only a small amount of light reaches the small area of a book page.

A directed light source is therefore always recommended for regular reading. This can be a separate reading lamp or a ceiling washlight with a separate arm with an integrated reading lamp. A reading lamp should produce a luminous flux of 350 – 400 lumens. This should be chosen so that its light only shines on the book and does not dazzle.

Conclusion

With the above recommendations, you can roughly estimate how much lumen is needed for which room. You can also proceed step by step, especially when switching to LED lighting for the first time. By purchasing only lamps or lights for a room, you can get a better feeling for the lumen values of the new lamps.

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