A 16th Century listed property in Surrey, UK, has been brought into the 21st Century thanks to the wireless capabilities of Lutron’s HomeWorks QS whole-home light control solution.
The owners of this Grade-II listed, seven-bedroomed, timber framed cottage wanted to retain all the charm of their family home, yet bring the building’s lighting technology into the 21st Century.
Limitations came in the form of wattle and daub walls, surface mounted wires, floorboards straight onto soil and complex layout, meaning a wired-in light control solution was not an option.
Max von Barnholt, Design Director of VBK Lighting Consultants Ltd who oversaw the installation of the Lutron light control solution explained: “Our brief was to eliminate all of the surface cabling from the existing wired-in lighting system, reduce the number of light switches throughout the property and office barn conversion, automate all of the interior and exterior lighting for ultimate energy savings and scene control as well as enable the whole-home to be operated remotely, or on-site via Apple iPad and iPhone apps.”
VBK installed Lutron’s latest HomeWorks QS system. Because the system uses wireless Clear Connect Radio Frequency (RF) technology, all of the interior and exterior light sources, keypads, blinds controls and occupancy sensors have been installed with no disturbance to the fabric of the building.
VBK Lighting chose to use one of Lutron’s HomeWorks QS processors on the ground floor and another on the second. This would link all of the areas of the property with minimum wiring. The ground floor processor was wired to one repeater and the other three Lutron repeaters were connected wirelessly throughout the cottage and the barn conversion.
Eleven Lutron GRAFIK Eye QS wireless keypads were then connected throughout the cottage and barn, creating eleven different control points from which to wirelessly manage the 66 circuits. In addition, a range of Lutron’s SeeTouch and SeeTouch International wired keypads and Lutron’s wireless Pico remote controls enable a wide range of pre-programmed scenes to be accessed.
The homeowner can access the system when away by logging in to a monitor hardwired to the processor. On-site access was also made possible through Lutron’s Home Control+ iPad and iPhone app.
The majority of the lighting within the cottage and barn is halogen based. But as part of the lighting installation VBK Lighting retro-fitted LEDs to traditional light fixtures, and incorporated the control of LED light sources in the underground wine cellar into HomeWorks QS. Built into the floor of the bar area, the wine cellar is situated within a two metre deep spiral staircase, accessed via a glass floor hatch. In addition, the exterior lighting was integrated into HomeWorks QS and managed via the system’s astronomical timeclock feature.
HomeWorks QS astronomical timeclock, vacation mode and conditional logic programming features offer energy savings. A ‘master-off’ function within the cottage has been timed to coincide with the families’ departure for school, ensuring that all lights are off at 8am every day during term-time, unless overridden during the day. Scenes automatically change to different preset levels during the day, to suit the clients requirements based on ambient lighting, while also saving energy.
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