Lighting – What to look for when buying recessed lights

Great question! My wife and I were examining laminate flooring a little while ago too. Not all of them are alike -- here are some things to consider.

• Check the warranty. Cheaper laminate will usually have a shorter warranty with more conditions (e.g. 10 - 15 years only protecting factory defects). More expensive laminate will usually cover more conditions for a longer time (e.g. 25 years+ covering factory defect, normal wear and tear, fading, staining, denting and water resistance). Keep in mind that these are examples -- every manufacturer is different.

• Find out details of how a sample is made A lot of laminate flooring is now treated with Aluminum Oxide which protects it against scratching and denting. More expensive laminate may have more coatings. If you're expecting heavy foot traffic or have animals with nails, you might want to take it into consideration. For answers to questions like this, you might need to contact the manufacturer directly.

• Thickness varies Laminate thickness can vary anywhere from 5mm to 12mm. The thicker laminate can feel more stable and supposedly be less likely to have problems with humidity changes.

• Joint integrity varies Not all laminate flooring interconnects in exactly the same way. Some joint connections can withstand weight and water leaks better than others. Name-brand manufacturers claim to have more experience with this. Be sure to check how the pieces fit together.

-M

I personally would abandon them for something with better requirements - there's a reason that IKEA stuff is low in price, and that reason is compromises. For instance, the GORM shelving units are strong and flexible, but take a while to assemble and are kinda ugly.

In this case it looks like the compromise is the required spacing. My guess is that the heat load they produce (especially the temperature of the fixture itself) is high enough that they need the extra space to cool (a different, more expensive, fixture might have some other way to ditch the heat that would require less space).

That said, any engineer worth his salt (and his lawyer) isn't going to skimp on the required spacing. It's very likely that you could get away with shaving a few inches off of it, but there are no guarantees if you start violating the spacing requirements.

The biggest worry in my mind would be that if something went wrong (even if it had nothing to do with these fixtures), the insurance company would balk because these fixtures were installed 'improperly'.