Hi everyone, I'm building a new home and trying to make it as green as possible without sacrificing design. The house will be full of recessed lighting much like this photo (http://cdn.decoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Eliminate-any-dull-corners-with-evenly-placed-recessed-lights.jpg) I believe those are Halogen GU-10 bulbs. My questions are: 1. Are there any comparible LED GU-10 lights (light colour / lumens) on the market today at the 50W GU-10 as in the picture? 2. I am scared to install LED lights at a potential uptick and not like the light colour. Will it be possible to install Halogens and then simply swap the bulbs out to led in the future?

I couldn’t open the document so I don’t know exactly what you are looking at.
The first question though is What is above the recessed light? IF it is an attic or cathedral ceiling, you need to have a plan in place for dealing with the recessed light. They tend to be big air leaks as well as large poorly insulated spots. If there is conditioned space above it, no problem.
You can certainly use sealed LED recessed fixtures. What you need to do is figure out what lighting temperature you like, and install those. They are usually expressed in °Kelvin Basically the easiest way to do it is to go down to the orange box store and buy identical led lights, in multiple temperatures and see which ones you like. Most people seem to like warm white which is around 3000°K Plan on paying about 50$ each per unit Home Despot sells ecosmart units, which are rebranded (Cree I think) they seem to be a good bet.
IF you have cathedral ceilings, recessed lights are almost always an energy penalty as it is usually hard to get enough insulation over the top of them. At a minimum, you want to use AIRTIGHT IC rated recessed fixtures.
Stay away from the GU-10 fixtures if possible, these are rare in LED's so the bulbs are more expensive.

Cheers,
Eric

The "sea of stars) recessed downlighting is way overdone, and fairly low efficacy at any luminosity level due to the glare factor: The bright spots surrounded by a field of darker/duller ceiling causes your pupils to narrow a bit, which means it takes a higher ambient light level overall to achieve the same visual acuity.

The way to improve that is by uplighting- brighting up the ceiling, which lowers the contrast between the hot-spots and general field, or to eliminate the hot-spots altogether, using only uplighting.  A lighting cove running full length of the room on one or more walls 18-24" below the ceiling for both a wall-wash & ceilng  effect (or in a vaulted ceiling for ceiling-only) with dimmable linear T8 or T5 fluorescent tubes or dimmable LED strip lighting can deliver even very high ambient light levels or "mood lighting" ambient levels with zero glare.  You can then use downlighting as accent or task lighting where needed.









Dimmable LED strip lighting for coves comes in various lenghts, and is designed for the fixtures to be linked:



There is a range of 4'  T8 & T5 strip lighting fixtures out there too- somewhat more bulky than the LED fixtures, but not difficult  to accommodate.

If doing a wall cove it's useful to orient the fixture with the tubes/LEDs at least 3" away from the wall to get a reasonable non-shadowy wall wash effects on textured or not-so-perfectly flat walls.

As long as the cove fixtures are above eye level and shielded from shining downward by the lip of the cove the wall & ceiling become the diffuser of the light. There is some efficiency to be gained out of using  "high efficiency white" ceiling paint,  but it doesn't have to be titanium white by any means. Eggshell or matte finish is preferred to  high-gloss, since with super-glossy ceilings it's possible to introduce a bit of glare from the reflection.

I agree with Dana concerning the problems with recessed lighting. Had a basement with recessed lighting, and it resulted in poor illumination of the room, especially with no natural light coming through windows.

I also agree with Eric Anderson that using recessed lighting with an attic above just results in poking a bunch of potential air leaks in your air barrier above your living space. I used track lighting in combination with under-cabinet and pendant lights in my kitchen to avoid the standard recessed lighting used by my builder.

The cove lighting with LED strips sounds like a great solution. How are they installed? Do you just plug them in to an existing outlet? Any installation guides or diagrams out there?

Commercial Electric has a Recessed LED light that fits in a regular octagon light junction box....so no recesed/can light fixture needed.

Saves money on builders also because they usually charge $150 per can light and just $50 for regular junction boxes.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-6-in-Soft-White-Recessed-LED-Can-Disk-Light-CE-JB6-650L-27K-E26-2/206105625

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Raco-4-in-Octagon-Box-2-1-8-in-Deep-with-NMSC-Cable-Clamps-175/202056164

Thanks newbostonconst. I'm remodeling and have gutted the great room so i have an open pallet to work with. Would I put an Octagon box 18" below the ceiling to wire or plug my LED strips into?

You put the octagon box in the ceiling in the same spots you would put your can lights. Pull wire to the octagonal box. Finish drywall and then install led lights in octagonal box. Done.

Easy to insulate over top and seal up from the back side if needed.

Thanks newboston, that's a great find...!

Color rendering on cheaper LEDs is all over the place, and this is a decades- long purchase decision.

The Philips SlimSurface units all have versions with a CRI of 90 or better, and come in both squares & circles, if downlighting is really your thing (or unavoidable):

http://www.lightingproducts.philips.com/Documents/webdb2/Lightolier%20USA/pdf/SlimSurface-LED-downlight-brochure.pdf

I settled on a pair of Philips S5R927K7's with a CRI of 90 for a low-ceiling bathroom application, even though they were a few bucks more than the S5R827K7 due to the better color rendering, not that the 827s are bad- they're not.

Another high color rendering version of this kind of thing:

https://www.earthled.com/collections/high-cri-led-lighting-90-cri-led-lighting/products/green-creative-click-4-inch-led-downlight-10-watt-50-watt-equal-dimmable-high-cri?variant=2662162628

Another feature that some have that I like is the ability to shift to a warmer color temperature when they dim. I'm pretty sure I saw a Philips model with that feature on the shelf at Home Depot.

I wish I could find one with less than 9-10 W input / 600-700 lumens output. I have a short hallway with two fixtures (two J-boxes), and I might need to install a dimmer just to avoiding having it overly bright.

Another thing that has a great effect on lighting is floor type you have.

If you have a high gloss floor, spot lighting is much nicer then back lighting the ceiling.

There has been large enhancements in custom high gloss epoxy floors that many people are putting throughout their house.

https://www.google.com/search?q=reflector+enhancer+flooring&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4kqu3oMrLAhXCHx4KHcnMDMwQ_AUICCgC&biw=1126&bih=554&dpr=0.9

You can see in the pictures that the small spot lights look better then back lighting causing everything to light up including the walls and everything.

It's an eye-of-the beholder sort of thing.

I personally find the glittery-glarey reflection of the spots of light kind of annoying compare to the broad ambient fill. (In fact all of the downlighting reflections look pretty crappy to me.)

Clearly YMMV.

OK, I'm sold on the idea of cove lighting with LED strips. We remodeling and the stud bays are open. How do I run the wire and install LED strip lights in a cove?