Kitchen downlighters - ceiling void full of insulation. plastic pipes, venting

[zippy]

Hi, partly through a job to fit 18 mains voltage downlighters to kitchen. They are fire-rated and designed for low energy lamps.

Trying to avoid taking up floors above as house is new and the floor boarding is squares of chipboard type material that is tongue & groove on all edges and nailed down so a real pain to remove. Working from below, located all joists and marked out positions of all holes and drilled out.

Having drilled out, the ceiling void above is full with insulation, and also plastic water piping and various sections of venting from the extractors in kitchen and downstairs toilet.

Now worried about heat build-up around the sections of the downlighters within the void. Can move away the insulation from around the holes, but unsure about the palstic water piping and very thin plastic venting.

Have ensured at least 3 inch clearance from any joists, but was wondering about all the other stuff up there and what clearance it may need as some of it will be difficult to move without a lot of work.

Seen thermal caps on the web that seem to sit on top of the downlighters and are sealed with mastic.

Anyone have any advice they can give me on how to proceed?

Regards

 

[zippy]

Damn those child slavery laws!

LOL ... cunning plan to employ missus as labourer for the day!

 

[DaveyD]

Child bride? Chilling

 

[wade88]

How about just spraying some fire rated expanding foam through the gaps? Will hold everything nicely in place and thermally protect the other bits, only problem would be rectifying any problems in the future....hacking through cubic feet of foam could be a pain

 

[telectrix]

My sister has a flat roof above her kitchen, she said her lights suddenly flash and then blow an MCB. When I looked I found old type down lighters (no fire protection). The GU10 50W halogen bulbs had melted the supply cables, dead short line to earth.I had a look at LED down lighters today, they sure are bright and no way as hot.I'm deciding on the best thing to do, buying a complete unit is expensive but you can get dimmable bulbs at half decent prices but I'm not sure which is the best brand.

try this site. iv'e used them. 3watt LEDs at £8 + VAT.Importer and wholesaler of the latest LED lighting products

 

[mogga]

hALER DO A DIMMABLE EVOLVELED depends where you get them prices vary around £40 a fitting + govs cut as for wades suggestion of foam heat disipation would be NIL as Iv said before FIRE RATED doesnt mean FIRE PREVENTION or FIRE PROTECTION these fire rated fittings are designed to stop the spread of fire and still require area round them for heat disapation Id also argue against thinking that fitting CFL lamps will absolve you of any problems arising as we have all seen 100w lamps fittted in 60w rated batten holders and knowin the light output of CFLs I wouldnt trust mrJones not to go stick in gu10s when the mrs says the lights are dim can you get brighter ones?

 

[wade88]

Are those really unhappy faces at my suggestion?! haha, now im sad

 

[i=p/u]

just rearrange the lights, most state you need 100mm to dissapate the heat. i had same problem while back when working from below but was my first time and on the last line of two a waste pipe came right beside fittinganout a 10mm gap, i put heat reflective tape on the pipe and with no problems yet. but cant help myself to keep checking. for piece of mind i would re arrange layout before you go any further. remember 100mm either way is what most say. you could use exspensive low power lamps/bulbs but they could just replace them with cheap HOT ones. i guess your learning like myself and cracking on with jobs, but do it right and start how you finish.

 

[zippy]

Thanks folks for all the help. Managed to get the pipework out of the way by making small wooden legs with a plastic pipe snap-clip screwed onto one end ... snapped clip onto the pipe and then pushed leg up through hole and slid it (well missus did!) well out of the way of hole ... this got all pipework well clear of fittings. Did similar for venting just using wooden legs that spanned ceiling to floor above and pushed venting well clear of fitting. Overall pain in the proverbial ... but as there was so much crap up there it would have been difficult to re-design and find any locations that were problem free. For 3 of the runs ... had to pull all of the insulation out of the 65mm holes ... again ... missus came into her own <grin> ... not a nice job though ... will be scratching for a week!