any californian actually have a motion sensor in the bathroom....

[vash]

....to shut off lights? i have to install one to meet code. i guess i will have to keep waving my arms during those really long, not enough fiber sitting spells.

and they make the sensors really stupid looking. i bet most people take them out after the inspector signs off final inspection..because i have never ever seen one in a cali home.

[pete3799]

They monitor your movements in CA.?

[vash]

Originally Posted by pete3799

They monitor your movements in CA.?

thanks..i am so gonna use this line on the inspector monday. hehehehhe.

[Tobra]

How much trouble is it to uninstall, just a light switch, right?

[vash]

all part of the master plan..

i'm hoping i dont even have to take it out of the packaging. i just want to say, "opps, here it is..i'll put it on..can you sign here?"

then return that thing. i think it was $30.

[kanadary]

never heard of that. i thought the only mandatory items in the bathrooms were those ground fault outlets. i use one in the garage cause i always forget to shut off the lights when i'm in there.

[island911]

The better ones have adjustable time-out settings. And they dim for 30 seconds or so, before going off.

That's what I have.

The down side is that "full bright" is about 15% dimmer than the old on/off switch. -so I installed 15% more lamps.

I do have a cheap one in the shop. Great since I'm often carrying something into the area. Not great if I forget to switch it off auto, and on to "ON:" :Arm waving:

[Hugh R]

I'm about ready to install one in my 83 y/o MIL's bathroom. She lives with us and I don't think she understands that light switches are a two way thing.

[Chuck Moreland]

This is the nanny state gone-wild. The nanny knows you are not capable of making good lighting decisions on your own, so they have been made for you.

The code for lighting dictates exactly what type lighting and switches you can have in every room and exterior lighting too.

My favorite is the requirement for a florescent fixture in the bathroom. Never mind the florescent fixtures look like crap.

You're thinking you'll just put a CFL in a in a regular light socket, it's florescent and uses the same power. Problem solved right in a perfectly reasonable way, right? Wrong.

Nanny knows you will misbehave, and it's too easy to replace it with a non-CFL when the inspector leaves. The bathroom fixture has to be a purpose made florescent with built in ballast.

Most people don't know about this code, until they do an addition or build. you then discover lighting decisions are no longer yours to make.

This is called title 24 and somehow this got passed in 2005 with little public awareness. If people knew this was going on, it would have never passed.

here it is:
http://cltc.ucdavis.edu/images/news/Title24/lighting-design-guide-version-2.pdf

[tabs]

I have had one in my Bathroom forever...but it ain't because of no codes...its the fumes that I let off that shorts out the light..

[look 171]

Ca title 24 suck a big one. No Vash, you must have it install during final inspection. The other way to go is to have flor. light or LED. the latest the the greatest. LEDs are about $40 bucks for the bulb on those little recess light. I have just guted a house now that has 3 baths and a huge kitchen. the dumb architect called for LEDs through out. We have over 75 recess lights through outthe house If we use a regular low voteage halogen lamp, that would only be $4.00 per bulb. That's a lot of money.

Oh, just so you know on other part of your remodel in your future, we can no longer use a regular recess light housing that accepts a screw on flor. bulb. The cheap ones that cost $3.00 at the market. they have to be flor. light specific which cost about 4 times a much.

Jeff

[EdT82SC]

Originally Posted by look 171

Ca title 24 suck a big one. No Vash, you must have it install during final inspection. The other way to go is to have flor. light or LED. the latest the the greatest. LEDs are about $40 bucks for the bulb on those little recess light. I have just guted a house now that has 3 baths and a huge kitchen. the dumb architect called for LEDs through out. We have over 75 recess lights through outthe house If we use a regular low voteage halogen lamp, that would only be $4.00 per bulb. That's a lot of money.

Oh, just so you know on other part of your remodel in your future, we can no longer use a regular recess light housing that accepts a screw on flor. bulb. The cheap ones that cost $3.00 at the market. they have to be flor. light specific which cost about 4 times a much.

Jeff

I've been looking at the LED lights because of the impending outlaw of the incandescents. I hate fluorescents, and most of the LEDs are pretty lame too, but some of the newest are very good. We have 32 recessed PAR40 floods in the house with 65 watt bulbs. Cree makes a 10.5 watt replacement that dims as well as incandescents, are slightly brighter, are supposed to last > 30X as long as the incandescent (50,000 hours vs. 1500 hours), and the bulbs have a color rendering index of 92. To give you an idea of what that means, incandescents have a CRI of 97, and a typical fluorescent is around 82. I REALLY like these bulbs except for the $50 price, but if they really last 30X as long, then the $50 price is much cheaper than $120 for 30 incandescents. Add in the energy savings, and these bulbs are a bargain.

I bought four of these so far to change out one room, but I will wait for the incandescents to burn out to replace all the others. Since these bulbs are still very new the prices have been dropping pretty quickly, and the quality is getting better. I have seen one LED bulb that has a CRI of 94. A couple years ago the CRI on the LEDs was down in the 70s, with a really bad looking bluish light.

In our bathroom we have 3 6" cans, the same size as fit the PAR40 bulbs, but instead of the Edison base, these cans take a 9W fluorescent bulb with really dim, ugly light. So now I think I will swap these out for the cans with the Edison base so I can put the Cree LED bulbs in them.

[look 171]

Like most people, if you just want general light, that fine. The issues with all of the energy saving lights are that you have no control of bulb angle, can't aim them. For example, in a small bath, we normally install a 15 degree spot light above the sink and another aimed at the wall where a picture or painting will be hung. We narrow the beam just large enough to cover the sink with very little spill over onto the counter. Another flood behind a shower trim just to have some soft light inside the shower. With all the other bulbs, you do not have that choice. You get just light. That's not what most of my clients want. It is all in the design, placement, and the type of lights used that make a room come together nicely. Especially in the bath and kitchen. You want some dark areas in there and light up area where you want attention to be drawn as soon as you walk into the bath. The lighting should be comfortable, bright, but not intense and draw your attention to a certain areas.

If you swap out the big 6" lamps, you might look into the little 4" cans. Halo makes a great HT99 housing that can be use with LED bulb/trim in one. I just think the little 4" cans look much better then the 6" Not as much light output compare to the 6", but do you really need that much in the bath?

Jeff

[VaSteve]

I put one in my own bathroom in Virginia. Wife couldn't ever remember to turn the light off. ^ bulbs burning all day. No thanks.

[djmcmath]

A government that can tell us what kind of light switch to install must be powerful indeed. Not to be parfy, but this is exactly the kind of governmental parentalism I hate.

[URY914]

So in the middle of the night when you need to take a whizz and DON'T want the light to come on, it will. In the middle of the day when there is enough light to see, the light will now come on. Smart.

[peppy]

A friend of mine had them installed in a public restroom in Virginia. (department store) A lady was taking a bit of time and the lights went out, she jumped up and her car keys fell out of her pocket and into the auto flush potty. Bye bye keys, she was a few hours from home.

[look 171]

I always joke about the danger with this kind of set up by the state. I am thinking about law suite, Many of the master baths we build have a separate enclosed toilet. After you are done in there, you come out of the door and the motion detector does not sense motion due to inference (happens all the time). You are walking in the dark and trip over something, loose a few teeth or break a few ribs in the process. How big will that law suite be? Same with a public bathrooms, it shuts off when you are in the can. come out to pitch darkness and hurt yourself.

[island911]

Originally Posted by URY914

So in the middle of the night when you need to take a whizz and DON'T want the light to come on, it will. In the middle of the day when there is enough light to see, the light will now come on. Smart.

again, it depends on which" switch" you buy. (and how you use it) For me, I dim the (motion sense) lights down before sleeping.... . some, I just turn off. => no night bright surprises.

[Evans, Marv]

The light switches in my bathroom have motion sensors built in. After you turn them on and leave, they shut off automatically after a while.