Classical Chandeliers Blog

Looking through an interior design magazine I noted distinct luck of design flair for chandeliers.  I am passionate about chandeliers (and being a chandelier distributor I should be) I tend to look perhaps more than other at chandeliers and their expression as an architectural feature.  There are many consideration to take into account when choosing a chandelier and one of the big factors is the ceiling itself.  Don’t take me wrong, I always say to my customers that the chandelier has to be exactly what they want as they will be spending time with the chandelier of their choice more than anyone else.   Also that a chandelier is what they feel it is, for example if you they feel that a chandelier is old fashioned than it is old fashioned because their perception of that particular chandelier makes them feel so.  The big but however is the need of the room.  I have seen fantastic contemporary  chandelier on a beautiful old ornate ceiling rose.  This marriage of two beautiful objects just did not work, sort of like Heather and Sir McCartny.  I am all for complimenting old with new and there are people very successful within this design area but only a few  and far apart.  Read more...

Have you ever thought how much energy your chandelier consumes? Well if it is quite a big one with say 18 bulbs and you are using 40watt candle bulbs then it will consume a massive 720 watts and if it has 24 bulbs you are approaching 1 kilowatt!!! That is a lot of energy which is not only expensive in electricity, this means that it will be generating a significant amount of heat. That may be fine on a cold winters night but you do not really want a massive heat lamp in the centre of your room in the mid summer. So what do you do about it?
One solution is to fit a dimmer which will allow you to regulate the electricity flow and not only reduce the brightness of the chandlelier but also reduce the energy consumption to an acceptable level. However, a word of warning, make sure that you fit one that will take the total wattage of your chandelier when fully lit otherwise you will burn the dimmer out and it will stop working.
Another solution is to wire the chandelier on two separate circuits with say half the bulbs of one circuit and the other half on another. This can often be easily achieved with a two tier chandelier where you can wire the top tier on one circuit and the bottom tier on another. Then by using a two gang switch you can have three different illumination levels, by switching one or the other of the circuits on or the two together. Now clearly you will need the the additional wiring in the room to accommodate for this, so if you have a new build or you are undertaking a renovation why not get the extra circuitry installed.
Both of the above solutions solve the problem but do not addres the root cause, that is, that the bulbs consumer too much electricity. To significantly reduce your consumption the best solution if to fit energy saving bulbs. Now you can select halogens which save approximately 30%, or compact fluorescent lamps which save approximately 80% but the best solution is to fit LED bulbs which will save you around 90% in electricity consumption. An example is to use a LED candle bulb which will only consume 3W and give a power output of around 25watts. Now your 24 bulb chandelier will only consume 72 watts. Problem solved.