Under Cabinet Lighting

USES
Typically, you’ll find under cabinet lights used as kitchen light fixtures. Whether you’re mixing, shredding, slicing, or dicing, having task lights in the kitchen creates a space where cooking is easier and more enjoyable. Under kitchen cabinet lighting can also be a nice accent to your decorating scheme.

However, under cabinet lights are not just for kitchen countertop lighting. The bright, focused illumination from an under cabinet light’s slim profile is also ideal for offices, work stations in hospitals or doctors’ offices, bookcases, shelving, and more. Basically, under cabinet lighting excels as an application in any area where you need task lighting and want the look to be contemporary and subtle. So, whether you need LED under counter lights for a kitchen or some other space, we have what you are looking for.

Make sure to check out our installation video of Emily, one of our employees, and her husband installing our most popular under cabinet light in their kitchen.

Heard of these light fixtures by another name, and wondering if you’ve come to the right page? Under cabinet lights are also regularly referred to as under counter lights, undermount lights, under the cabinet lighting, task lighting fixtures, kitchen under cabinet lighting and under cupboard lighting.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY
If your main priority is to find the light fixture that uses the absolute minimum amount of electricity, you’ll want to check out our LED under cabinet lights. You’ll find light fixtures that use as little as 5 watts of electricity.

Efficiency is a general term that can be measured in a few different ways. For example, you might compare the amount of light output per watt of energy consumed. In fact, the term for that is efficacy. Our fluorescent under cabinet lights have the best rated efficacy out of our selections, so we consider them to be incredibly efficient as well. These under cabinet lighting options deliver impressive light output while consuming very little energy.

Keep in mind that using a dimmer will maximize efficiency of your under cabinet light fixture as well. If you select a xenon light fixture and install it with dimmer switches, you’ll decrease your energy use significantly, while adding an under counter lighting feature that enables you to control the ambiance!

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HEAT
If you’re installing your under kitchen cabinet lighting directly beneath kitchen cabinets storing perishable food, you have to consider heat output from the light fixtures. Here’s the deal: LED light fixtures are cool to the touch. Next on the heat output scale is fluorescent under cabinet lights, which also give off very little heat. Xenon lights are a little hotter than fluorescent but still cooler than halogen - the hottest type of under cabinet light. We actually do not sell any halogen undercabinet lights for this reason.

INSTALLATION
We know you don’t want to compare apples to oranges when it comes to installation difficulty ratings for undercabinet lighting. That’s why we’ve created an easy guide for our entire selection of under cabinet lights. At the bottom of the Description tab on each product page you’ll find an “Installation Difficulty” graphic with wrenches to represent ease of installation for all under cabinet lighting options. We try to be conservative with our rankings, so we err on the side of giving extra wrenches for products that are slightly more difficult to install. There’s nothing worse than getting stuck with a headache of a project that you thought could be completed in a couple of hours! Here’s the scale:

1 Wrench - It doesn't get any easier than this
2 Wrenches - Pretty easy
3 Wrenches - Somewhat easy
4 Wrenches - Requires some effort but not a great deal of effort
5 Wrenches - Will take some time or patience or professional expertise

Check out our Installation Assistance section on each of our product's page Description tab for more resources online that may be helpful. Also, feel free to use our Contact Us form or call us on our toll-free number.

Here’s a short video showing an installation of our Xenon Line Voltage Thin Under Cabinet Task Lights. Note that these light fixtures were plugged into an outlet behind the refrigerator. Plug-in kitchen under cabinet lighting is a great option for renters that cannot install permanent fixtures.

One more thing about installation: We usually recommend that under cabinet kitchen lighting be placed as close to the front/face of the cabinet as possible. This is a matter of personal preference (in the video, the installation is closer to the back wall), but if you’re looking for the best task lighting for food preparation in the kitchen, the front of the cabinet will give you the brightest illumination for countertops when installing under cabinet lights.

On the other hand, if you’re installing under cabinet accent lighting for decorative illumination - perhaps inside a cabinet over a piece of artwork - you should center the light fixture over the artwork or decorative piece.

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LIGHTING QUALITY
We are often asked which fixtures produce light that’s similar to incandescent lighting. Did you know that xenon lighting is a type of incandescent light source? The only distinction between the two is that there is a little bit of xenon gas incorporated into the glass envelope of a xenon light bulb. That gas helps lengthen the lifetime of the light fixture. Essentially, xenon light fixtures are incandescent lights that have been engineered for increased efficiency. You can also find the familiar warm glow of an incandescent light bulb in warm white fluorescent light or warm white LED lights. Look for color temperatures of 3200K or lower.

For those of you with granite countertops in the kitchen, you may be wondering about how the under cabinet lighting will reflect. Unfortunately, granite is a highly polished surface; so you are going to see a reflection of the light fixture no matter what. The best way to minimize the reflection is to ensure your light fixture has a lens over the light bulbs.

Move your cursor over the image below to turn on the under cabinet lights and see how they provide both excellent task lighting for your kitchen counters and attractive accent lighting for your backsplash.