Under Cabinet Lighting With LED Strip Lights
Placing warm, attractive LED light under a cabinet can dramatically affect the overall appeal of any room. It sends a beautiful ambient glow from an otherwise unused space, in addition to providing useful direct light to counters and workspaces. But is this an easy, do-it-yourself installation? And why is it so important to use LEDs for under cabinet lighting?
First of all, it’s important to note that installing under cabinet lighting with LED strip lights is a simple DIY project. Sometimes called “tape lights”, these small adhesive-backed strips can be trimmed to any desired length and simply attached to the bottom of a cabinet. LED strip lights come in various tones, colors, and brightness levels, and can even be attached to a dimmer. The strips themselves are very low profile, and will not require drilling into cabinets.
Aside from being visually superior, LED lights come with all sorts of extra benefits. You’ll see a major increase in energy efficiency, as LEDs consume only a fraction of the energy used by incandescent and fluorescent lighting. They also produce no extra heat, meaning they’re cool to the touch and further increase energy efficiency. Contrast this with other under cabinet lighting systems that can heat the contents of the cabinets to which they’re attached, not to mention raising overall room temperature. Finally, LEDs last significantly longer, so you’ll save on replacement costs in the long run. Flexfire’s UL Listed UltraBright™ and ColorBright™ series LED strip lights last up to 50,000 hours, meaning 10-15 years of use under normal conditions.
As a final important benefit to homeowners, LED lights contain no mercury, the highly toxic element found in fluorescent bulbs and tubes. Accidents happen, and when a fluorescent bulb breaks the exposed mercury presents a serious health risk. This is not a problem if you use durable LEDs for under cabinet lighting – there’s no mercury, and strip lights have no fragile glass components to break.
Choose one of our convenient Flexfire LEDs strip light kits to suit the appropriate brightness, length and color of your under cabinet LED strip lighting project:
